Seasons: Monsoon

Slim palm of the wet south-west and north-east, grown in dense stands.

A coastal tree that fruits on poor laterite where almost nothing else does.

The kokum of the Konkan — a slim tree with fruit that makes the summer drink.

A single sucker in a corner gives shade, cooking leaves and, in time, fruit.

A small deccan tree that fruits on very little water and poor soil.

A thorny slow tree of dry country with a hard-shelled sour fruit.

Yellow bells almost all year on a shrub that survives a forgotten terrace.

A spiny yellow-flowered shrub of dry scrub, unbothered by heat or thin soil.

The abolí of southern flower markets — orange fans, picked daily.

Tall and narrow, dropping long white scented flowers through the night.