Regions: south

Maroon night flowers on long ropes, then metre-long fruit that alarms everybody.

A slender Western Ghats evergreen with purple fruit that souring curries depend on.

A tough dry-forest tree with papery winged seeds that blanket the ground in March.

The scented heartwood tree of the southern Deccan — a hemiparasite that needs a host.

The red-timbered endemic of the Andhra hills; slow, valuable and heavily poached.

Crocodile-bark and big leathery leaves; the tasar silk tree of central India.

A large deciduous tree of the Deccan, tapped traditionally for its red kino gum.

The true ashoka — orange flower clusters on a small shade-loving tree of wet forest.

Bare branches and orange claws of flower in February — the tree that announces Holi.

The tea of the Brahmaputra valley — one bush on a balcony is enough for a pot.