Seasons: Monsoon

The tall reed of Indian riverbanks, and the standard plant for a reed-bed filter.

The palmarosa of the Deccan, distilled for a rose-scented oil.

The bamboo that covers Mizoram, and whose mass flowering brings the rat floods.

The slender hill bamboo of Uttarakhand, cut for baskets and matting.

Yellow culms striped green; the ornamental clumping bamboo of Indian gardens.

The kusha grass of ritual, holding sandy soil across the northern plains.

Silver plumes across the riverbanks after the monsoon; the kans of the floodplain.

The anjan of dry pasture — a fodder grass that greens the Thar within days of rain.

The deep red night-flowering lily of eastern tanks and temple ponds.

Grows on water or wet mud and crops every fortnight through the monsoon.