Seasons: Monsoon

Fat red flowers on a bare grey trunk, then pods of cotton that blow down every street.

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.

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

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.

The ghost chilli of Nagaland — a genuine regional speciality, and ferocious.

Lasoda — sticky green fruit pickled across Rajasthan and Gujarat.