Growing spaces: ground

A big orange-flowered climber of central forest, dramatic on a strong pergola.

Grown for the seed that swells in falooda and summer sherbets.

A wild desert melon of Rajasthan, dried and powdered as a souring agent.

The pod of the khejri — the vegetable that carries the Thar through summer.

A leafless thorny desert shrub with scarlet flowers and pickling berries.

Lasoda — sticky green fruit pickled across Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Yongchak — long flat pods eaten across Manipur and Nagaland.

A small southern shrub with white flowers, long used for skin preparations.

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

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