Seasons: Monsoon

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

Lasoda — sticky green fruit pickled across Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Khus — a grass whose roots hold a slope together and scent a summer room.

East Indian lemongrass, distilled in the north-east for citral oil.

The silver-plumed grass of autumn riverbanks — Durga Puja in plant form.

Cut-and-carry fodder that regrows every forty days for years.

A Sundarbans mangrove with night flowers that bats pollinate.

The pioneer mangrove of Indian coasts, first to colonise new mud.

The tree the Sundarbans is named for, now under pressure from rising salinity.

A creeping tidal palm of eastern deltas, roofing houses and sweetening sap.