Regions: West India

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.

Malabar tamarind — the sour rind of Konkan and Kerala cooking.

Sweet basil — indigenous cultivation across India long before its pizza career.

Grown for the seed that swells in falooda and summer sherbets.

A wild desert melon of Rajasthan, dried and powdered as a souring agent.

The pod of the khejri — the vegetable that carries the Thar through summer.

A leafless thorny desert shrub with scarlet flowers and pickling berries.

Lasoda — sticky green fruit pickled across Rajasthan and Gujarat.