Seasons: Monsoon

Long hanging chains of maroon and yellow flowers — the Mysore clock vine.

A tall wet-evergreen tree of the southern Ghats, red-flushed in new leaf.

The canopy tree that feeds the lion-tailed macaque; endemic to the southern Ghats.

The wild jack of Malabar — timber for boats and fruit for the monkeys.

Pale crisp fruit that smells of rose water, on a small spreading evergreen.

Big lobed leaves and starchy fruit; a coastal tree of Kerala and the islands.

The slender betel-nut palm of the wet coasts, grown in dense shaded gardens.

A floating rosette that shades a tub and starves the algae — but a weed if it escapes.

A climbing orchid that must be hand-pollinated flower by flower, at dawn.

A tiny creeping mat for the wet edge of a tub — the softest possible ground cover.