Regions: West India

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

Orange-yellow flowers whose scent carries across a whole garden at dusk.

The sap palm of Bengal and the Deccan, tapped in winter for nolen gur.

A woody climber with fringed white-and-yellow flowers and a heavy sweet scent.

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

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

The narrow green column planted along every Indian driveway and boundary wall.

An enormous umbrella crown of ferny leaves that folds shut before rain.

Cream powder-puff flowers, then papery pods that rattle all winter.

A scrambling roadside shrub with palmate leaves and small blue flower spikes.