Seasons: Monsoon

Blue flower sprays and orange berries at once; the standard clipped Indian hedge.

A soft-haired jasmine that flowers through the cool months on a low wall.

Invasive across Indian forests — grow the sterile garden cultivars only, never the wild kind.

A pot by an open window does more for a summer evening than any air freshener.

The chandni — pinwheel white flowers, glossy leaves and constant flowering in shade.

The chameli of the perfume fields — long-tubed white flowers picked before dawn.

Twisted screw-shaped pods on a scrub shrub of the dry deciduous forest.

Sticky green fruit for the Rajasthani pickle jar, on a tough small tree.

The thorny bush that holds the Thar together, browsed by everything and killed by nothing.

The desert teak — orange trumpets on bare wood in March, on a tree that needs no water.