Regions: West India

Orange jessamine — flushes of scented white flowers after every rain.

The garden chrysanthemum of the north-Indian winter, sold by the crate at Diwali.

Bulbs planted in March give heavily scented white spikes through the monsoon.

Opens at four in the afternoon and self-sows itself around the garden.

The most reliable cut flower for an Indian summer terrace.

A fortnight of spectacle and then a head of seed the birds will take.

Edible flowers and leaves, and a magnet that pulls aphids off your vegetables.

Opens in full sun on a terrace where nothing else will survive noon.

Flowers every day of the year and asks for nothing. Indigenous to the deccan.

Orange flower clusters straight off the trunk — a sacred tree, now threatened.