Growing spaces: ground

The nut tree of Kashmir and the western hills, needing real winter cold.

Ladakh and Himachal fruit — blossom in March, fruit in June, dried for winter.

A cold-desert shrub of Ladakh, nitrogen-fixing and vitamin-dense.

Buransh — scarlet trusses across the mid-Himalaya in March.

The Himalayan cedar — a slow, magnificent, cold-climate conifer.

The vine that made the Malabar coast; needs a tree to climb and constant humidity.

Green cardamom of the Western Ghats — deep shade, cool air and steady rain.

A slow evergreen of the wet south-west, harvested as unopened flower buds.

Two spices from one fruit — nutmeg and mace — on the wettest coasts.

Coppiced for its inner bark; the leaf is a spice in its own right.