Preface Food is the basic need of every individual and stands first among the hierarchical needs of human being. As such, it is the right of every person to have regular access to sufficient nutritionally adequate and culturally acceptable food for an active healthy life. Following the Green revolution that commenced from mid 1960’s, India’s per capita food availability went up considerably. However with decline in area under cultivation, because of urbanisation and industrialization, the production failed to keep up with population growth and consequently per capita availability declined from 500 gms per capita per day to less than 400 gms reaching close to 1950’s. The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has observed that almost one- sixth of all humanity is suffering from hunger. According to a recent report from UNO, of about 900 million people who are under extreme poverty, 300 millions are from India that stands 103rd position in the global hunger index. At certain places and remote areas, chronic food insecurity persists and families often go empty stomach and eat on alternate days. Through the National Food Security bill enshrines freedom from hunger and malnutrition as a fundamental right, an important issue related to food security is that poor people need to have enough purchasing power to have an access to sufficient and nutritious food grains. Mere availability of food grains does not ensure food security. Thus being grilled under poverty, people often search for wild plants and their parts such as fruits, seeds, roots, leaves, tubers etc. to meet their hunger. Besides hunger, India has the largest number of malnourished people in the world amounting to about one third of the total two billion people worldwide. Malnutrition in terms of deficiency of essential amino acids (lysine, methionine, folic acids), vitamins (vitamin A and D) and microelements (such as iron, zinc, magnesium etc.) known as hidden hunger affects the developmental process including cognition level, blindness and immunological malfunctioning etc. Most of the malnourished individuals include infants, children and women in resource poor families. About 200 children per day die in India because of malnutrition. The possible cause could be decline of food basket diversity especially of traditional grains, fruits, vegetable, berries etc. The Sustainable Development Goal-2 that aims to end hunger, achieve food security and promote sustainable agriculture” is a priority area for India. Several strategies (multisectoral approaches) are being pursued to meet the dietary needs including malnutrition through distant breeding process, dietary diversification, pharmaceutical preparations, bio-fortification etc. However, one of the easiest ways is to search for potential sources in the nature. Interestingly many plants growing in the wild are rich in nutrients and are traditionally in use by tribal and rural people. In the present book, from our wide survey, we have gathered a series of such wild plants growing in diverse environments and having richness in nutrients in one form or the other, protein, amino acids, vitamins or micro nutrients. Each plant species has been spelt out in detail with its local and scientific names, ecology, botanical description, type of part in use, nature of nutrient(s) present and preparations made from it. Some non-traditional preparations of domesticated plants has also been described keeping their potential nutritional value. We wish that book will be useful to a variety of readers such as students and teachers of Botany, Agriculture, Life Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Nutritionists, general public besides spreading awareness about availability of cheap nutritious food resources among key target groups including women, children and tribals. It might have so happened that certain plants species having good nutritional value might have been missed inadvertently from our list. We request all the readers that in case any new plant species is noted, to kindly get it to our notice so that we could incorporate the species in the next edition of the book.

Family : Amaranthaceae Flowering : October-December Fruiting : December-January Botanical description The plant is an erect, straggling or subscandant herb. The leaves are ovate, elliptic, obtuse, acute and finely attached to the stem on both sides. The flowers are greenish white in colour, bracteolate having membranous blade and seeds are reddish brown in colour, sub-cylindric at apex and rounded at the base.

Family : Euphorbiaceae Flowering: July-September Fruiting: September-December Botanical description: The plant is a small erect herb, growing up to 60 cm or more. The ascending branches are angled and velvet-hairy. Leaves are broadly ovate, nearly triangular, rather coarsely toothed. Leaf stalks are as long as or longer than the 3-5 cm long blades. Flowers are stalkless, borne on erect axillary spikes longer than the leaves. Male flowers are minute, crowded distally. Female flowers are scattered along the inflorescence axis, each subtended by a conspicuous semicupular leaf-like toothed green bract nearly 7 mm long. Capsule is bristly and1 mm broad. Ecology: It is mostly found in hot, low to medium altitude, sandy margins of rivers, seasonal water courses and pans, usually in shade of thickets, on rocky hillsides and often in disturbed ground and as a weed of cultivation.

Family : Amaranthaceae Flowering: August-October Fruiting: November-January Botanical description: The plant is a perennial sub-erect, diffuse or prostrate herb, growing upto 0.3-2 meter high, branched from the base and often also from above. Stem and branches are densely woolly with whitish or yellowish, shaggy hairs. Leaves are alternately arranged, nearly circular to lanceo shaped-elliptic, wedge-shaped at the base, rounded to sharp at the tip. Flower spikes are stalkless, solitary or usually in clusters in leaf axils, silky white to creamy in colour, forming a long inflorescence leafy to the ultimate spikes. Ecology: This plant is commonly found in open forests on mountain slopes, on waste and disturbed ground and coastal scrubs. The plant is widespread in drier parts of the tropics and subtropics. Use: Leaves are collected, fried and then eaten

Family : Amaryllidaceae Flowering: December-January Fruiting: January-February Botanical description: It is a herb. The leaves of the plants are cylindric, fistular and look like tubes. Flower of the plant is white or greenish white with a short pedicel. Ecology: The plant is commonly cultivated along the river banks during winter season. The plant loves to grow in sandy and loamy soil. Use: Young leaves and shoots are collected, fried then eaten. The leaves and the flowering stalks are used for various preparations and curries.

Family : Amaryllidaceae Flowering: November-December Fruiting: January-February Botanical description: The plant is a herb. The leaves of the plants are flat, linear with sheaths, about half of their length. Flower of the plant is white or greenish white with a short pedicel. The plant is having bulbs with membranous outer scales in the axils of which do exist 10-12 lesser bulbs.

English Name: Node Flower Allmaina Family: Amaranthaceae Flowering: May-June Fruiting: June-July Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb. It is erect and rising, 10-50 cm tall. Stem is branched from or near the base. The Leaves are obovate, oblong, or linear with 1.5-6.5 mm long and 0.3-2.5 cm wide. Flowers of the plant are greenish or orange-red in colour with 3-7-flowered cymes. Seeds are single, black and shining with 1.5-2 mm in diam. Ecology: The plant is a common weed widely distributed in forests and cultivated lands.

Family: Amaranthaceae Flowering: July-October Fruiting: November-January Botanical description: The plant is a perennial herb. The plant is a much branched prostrate herb, branches often purplish, frequently rooting at the lower nodes. The leaves are simple, opposite, somewhat fleshy, lanceolate, obtuse or subacute, glabrous and shortly petiolate. The flowers of the plant are small, white and in axillary clusters. Fruits are compressed obcordate utricles, with suborbicular seeds.

Family : Amaranthaceae Flowering: Most part of the year Fruiting: Year round Botanical description: The plant is an evergreen creeper, herbaceous and perennial, growing up to 15 – 30 cm in height and spreading to form a growth mat about 45cm wide or more. Stems are prostrate or erect and moderately branched, hairless below, generally hairy above and in leaf-axils. The leaves are inverted-lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, acute at apex, narrowed at the base into a poorly defined petiole, mostly 2-6 cm long and 0.6-2.0 cm wide. Round or short-cylindrical flower heads lie stalkless in leaf axils, 5-10 mm long and 5-7 mm wide. Use: Young leaves and shoots are collected, fried and eaten as green vegetables

Family: Amaranthaceae Flowering: November-December Fruiting: January-March Botanical description: The plant is a herb, reaches heights of over 1 meter tall with fleshy oval shaped leaves that are sometimes pointed at the tips. It is having a deep maroon colour in the center of the leaf with streaks of red, purple and green. The plant produces feathery purple, magenta or red flowers from the central stalk which is packed with edible seeds. The flower buds are edible, once they mature and become bushy. Ecology: The plant is commonly used as leafy vegetables and cultivated throughout the country. The plant loves to grow in the sandy soil in winter season. It is also cultivated in left over potato fields. Use: Leaves and young shoots are cut into small pieces, cooked with salt and chilly and then eaten. Sometimes the leaves and shoots are mixed with vegetables in cooking.

Family: Amaranthaceae Flowering: June-August Fruiting: September-November Botanical description: The plant is an annual erect herb that grows upto 1 meter in height. The stem is grooved and often redish. The leaves are long-petioled, ovate or elliptic, acute or subacute with base shortly cuneate to attenuate. The flowers are in axillary and terminal red or green panicled spikes with up to 20 cm long. Seeds are black in colour, shining and compressed or subspherical with thick margin. Ecology: The plant being commonly used as leafy vegetables, is cultivated throughout the country. The plant loves to grow in soil rich with organic materials. The plant is commonly cultivated in summer and it grows luxuriantly in rainy season.

Family: Amaranthaceae Flowering: June-August Fruiting: September-December Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb with sometimes red tinged erect stems, sometimes ascending, 30-150 cm long, usually branched. The leaves are ovate to rhombic- ovate, elliptic, lanceolate-oblong, or lanceolate, blades 1-12 cm long, 0.89-6 cm wide and smooth. The stem and its branches carry spines. Flowers of the plant are green, and are in axillary clusters in the lower part of the plant and in unbranched or branched spikes in the upper part. The lower clusters are entirely without stamens as the lower flowers of the spikes, the upper flowers in the spikes are staminate. Seeds are dark brown or black in colour.

Family: Amaranthaceae Flowering: June-August Fruiting: September-December Botanical descripion: The plant is an erect tropical annual herb with long-stalked leaves, growing up to 5 ft tall. The leaves grow up to 5 inch long, are notched or rounded at the tips. The flowers are whitish-green or red white, the seeds are very small, shining, black or red- brown in colour.

Family: Amaranthaceae Flowering: Throughout the year Fruiting: Throughout the year Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb with erect stems growing upto 10-80 cm in height. The leaves are triangular-ovate to narrowly rhombic, 2-7 cm long, 1.5-5.5 cm wide, hairless, with a narrow and small narrow notch. The flowers of the plant are green, in slender, paniculate spikes, in leaf axils or at the end of branches. Fruit is nearly round, about 1.3-1.5 mm in size. Ecology: The plant is a fairly common weed on waste ground and roadsides and distributed throughout India. The plant is also cultivated during summer season. Use: Leaves and young shoots are collected, roasted and eaten

Family: Acanthaceae Flowering: September-December Fruiting: January-April Botanical description: The plant is an erect annual herb extremely bitter in taste (all parts of the plant). It grows erect to a height of 1-4 ft. with dark stem. The leaves are glabrous, lanceolate, pinnate, with 8.0 cm long and 2.5 cm broad. Flowers of the plant are small, white-purple or spotted purple in colour, spreading axillary and terminal racemes or panicles and acute at both ends. Seeds numerous, sub quadrate and yellowish brown in colour.

Family: Araceae Flowering: July-August Fruiting: November Botanical description: The plant is a herb, growing about 90 cm in height. It produces 2 - 3 leaves, 5 - 30cm or more in size with a flowering stem 30 - 50cm long. Leaflets are lanceolate, acuminate and oblique, uniting in an intramarginal nerve. Fruiting head 5 cm long, ovoid, berries are initially green clustered fruits finally ripening to bright red.

Family: Meliaceae Flowering: February-May Fruiting: June-July Botanical description: The plant is a tree. The leaf of the plant is about 20-38 cm in length, leaflets 5-9 pairs and obliquely lanceolate. Flower is white in colour and fragrant. The plant bark, leaves and flowers are bitter in taste.

Family: Poaceae Flowering & Fruiting: The plant flowers after about 90-100 years. Flowering and fruting occurs in wet season Botanical description: The plant is a perennial tree growing up to 20-53 m in height and 8-18 cm in diameter. There are 1-3 spines at each branch node. Leaves are thin, linear, up to 20 cm long, 1-1.8 cm wide with a long pointed tip. The branches of the plant spread out from the base and areal roots reaching up to nodes. The length of the internodes is about 15-46 cm and is hollow. Ecology: It is cultivated and naturalized throughout India. Plant loves to grow in moist soils.

Family: Basillaceae Flowering: May-September Fruiting: October-February Botanical description: The plant is a twining succulent herb with green stem and petioles. Leaves of the plant are broadly ovate and green to purplish in colour. Flowers are pinkish or purple in colour. Fruits are berries, ovoid or depressed-globose, turns black after ripening with deep purple juice.

Family: Caesalpiniaceae Flowering: September-February Fruiting: February-March Botanical description: The plant is a moderate sized tree with ashy or dark brown bark. Leaves are often oblong, about 5-18cm, deeply lobed from one third way down to nearly the base with scarcely overlapping. Flowers are purple and large on terminal panicled racemes. Pods are 15-30×18-25 cm long, narrow below, somewhat broadening upwards.

Family: Caesalpiniaceae Flowering: April-June Fruiting: December-March Botanical description: The plant is a climber growing up to 10-30 m long. The woody stem can get as thick as 20 cm. The spreading tout branches are covered with rusty fine hairs. The stout tendrils are coiling and occur in pairs. Large leaves are 10-45 cm, 2-lobed with a broad cut. The flowers are white, 2-3 cm across, turn yellow when old and borne in rounded clusters. Fruit is a flat woody pod with fine rusty hairs, 20-30 cm long.

Family: Caesalpiniaceae Flowering: February-March Fruiting: April-May Botanical description: The plant is a moderate sized tree growing up to 20-40 ft tall and 10-20 ft wide with a spreading crown of briefly deciduous leaves which are 10-15 cm across and rounded with lobed ends and heart shaped bases. The leaves are shaped like a cow’s hoof. The flowers are white or purple in colour with one petal variegated yellow, 5-10 cm across and carried in clusters at the branch tips. The flowers often make their first appearance in late winter while the tree is bare of leaves. Seeds of the plant are sub-orbicular in shape.

Family: Cucurbitaceae Flowering: October-November Fruiting: December-January Botanical description: The plant is a annual climbing herb, having stems up to 6 metres long that scramble over the ground or climb on other plants, supporting themselves by means of tendrils. Leaves are roundish, kidney-shaped, base deeply heart-shaped. Upper surface is rough, lower surface shortly bristly, 5-7-lobed, with long and hairy stalk. Tendrils are slender and rarely simple. Flowers are yellow in colour, calyx tube 10-15 mm long with spreading petals ending in a short point. Fruits large, succulent, densely hairy when young, with a thick waxy deposit when mature.

Family: Nyctaginaceae Flowering & Fruiting: Most parts of the year, mostly dry winter season Botanical description: The plant is a prostrate herb with diffuse inflorescences. The stem of the plant is glabrous or minutely pubescent and often purplish. The leaves are in unequal pairs, broadly ovate with obtuse or rounded apex. Flowers are very small, purplish red to reddish pink or nearly white, bell-shaped beyond the constriction. Ecology: It is a common weed found near dry and warm river valleys; along roadsides, near habitations, in and along cultivated fields and in open cleared patches in forests. It is distributed throughout India.

Family: Brassicaceae Flowering: September-November Fruiting: December-February Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb with stems reaching up to 1.5 m tall. Stems are erect, reddish-purple below, greenish-red above, hairless, arising from large thickened taproot up to 10 cm in diameter. Leaves are large alternately arranged and hairless, upper smaller. Lower leaves are up to 25 cm long, pinnately cut, with small prickles above and below. Flowers are yellow in colour, borne in racemes at the end of branches with 2 cm across. The pods are stout, 5-9 cm long bearing 30-80 seeds with whitish, yellow or brownish in colour. Use: Leaves are fried with oil then eaten and also chopped leaves and stems are dried in shade, stored in an earthen pot for consumption.

Family: Brassicaseae Flowering: November-February Fruiting: February-March Botanical description: The plant is a herb with white edible mass of abortive flowers aggregated on thick branches of the inflorescence. Ecology: It is widely cultivated as vegetable in the tropical countries including India. The plant grows in winter season. Use: Leaves are fried or made into curry and consumed. Inflorescence is used in various types of preparations.

Family: Brassicaseae Botanical description: The leaves of the plant is having stout nerves, densely congested into a subglobose or ellipsoid head which is edible. Ecology: The plant is a herb, widely cultivated as vegetable in the tropical countries including India. Use: Leaves are fried separately or with other vegetables, and then eaten Nutritional Value: The plant is rich in vitamin B and minerals.The nutritional value of the plant is presented below. 100g of the plant leaves carries:

Family: Brassicaseae Flowering & Fruiting: August-March Botanical description: The plant is having a short stem, enlarging into a spherical edible tuber. Basal cauline leaves are broadly ovate, not overlapping on globose stem, about 10-45 x 3-25 cm across with cuneate base. Ecology: The plant is a herb, widely cultivated as vegetable in the tropical countries including India. The plant loves to grow in late winter season.

Family: Amaranthaceae Flowering: August-October Fruiting: November-January Botanical description: The plant is a herb, growing up to 60-75cm height, erect, branching with oval or lanceo-shaped, with hundreds of tiny flowers packed in dense spikes of silver- white flowers which usually stand above the foliage. They are beautiful plants with soft, dense feathery spikes, produced in profusion. Leaves are lanceolate, linear, acute to acuminate tapering into slender petiole. Seeds are several, black in colour and shining.

Family: Apiaceae Flowering: August-October Fruiting: November-January Botanical description: The plant is a small creeping herb with shovel shaped leaves emerging alternately in clusters at the stem nodes. The runners lie along the ground and the inch long leaves with their scalloped edges rise above on long reddish petioles. The insignificant greenish- to pinkish-white flowers are borne in dense umbels (clusters in which all the flower stalks arise from the same point) on separate stems in the summer. The seeds are pumpkin-shaped nutlets 0.1-0.2 cm long. Ecology: It is commonly seen in shady, damp and wet places such as paddy fields and in grass thickets and distributed throughout India. Use: Leaves and young shoots are collected, roasted then eaten

Family: Chenopodiaceae Flowering: November-January Fruiting: February-April Botanical description: The plant is a fast-growing, upright and weedy annual herb. The leaves are variables in appearance. The first leaves, near the base of the plant, are toothed and 3-7 cm long and 3-6 cm broad. The leaves on the upper part of the flowering stems are entire and lanceolate-rhomboid with 1-5 cm long and 0.4-2 cm broad. The flowers of the plant are 1-1.2 mm across, in short axillary spikes and often forming a terminal thyrse. Seeds are black, depressed with an obscure horizontal keel.

Family: Fabaceae Flowering: December-February Fruiting: February-April Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb, much branched and viscous hairy. The plant grows up to 20-50 cm high and has small feathery leaves on either side of the stem. The flowers are bluish purple in colour, 6-7 mm long on slender peduncles. Pods oblong, one seedpod contains two or three peas.

Family: Lauraceae Flowering: January Fruiting: February Botanical description: The plant is a moderate sized tree growing up to 10-20 metres. Leaves are mostely oblong, usually 10-12.5 cm long, acuminate or acute, glabrous with shining above and acute base. The flowers are 5-6 mm long with pubescent pedicel. The tepals are pubescent, deciduous in fruits. Ecology: The plant is occasionally planted and commonly cultivated as vegetable in the tropical countries including India. Use: Leaves are used in different curries and recipes for special aroma.

Family: Cleomaceae Flowering: July-October Fruiting: December-February Botanical description: The plant is an erect herbaceous annual herb growing up to 1.5 m in height. Leaves are alternately arranged and stalked. Each leaf has 3-7 leaflets, which are pinnately dissected and stalkless. Inflorescence is quite showy, and is usually up to 30 cm in length. The flowers have long stalks, ovate or elliptic petals either purplish or white in colour. The fruit is a long-stalked, dry, spindle-shaped capsule. Seeds are many, 1.5 mm across, with a shallow and narrow cleft.

Family: Cleomaceae Flowering: May-July Fruiting: August-October Botanical description: The plant is a tall annual herb growing up to a meter high, more or less hairy with glandular hairs. The leaves are compound, with 3-5 leaflets. Leaflets are obovate, elliptic-oblong, very variable in size. Flowers are yellow in colour, 10-15 mm across with 6-20 mm long pedicels. Fruits are 30-75 mm long, 3-5 mm broad, linear-oblong, erect, with tapering at both ends. Seeds many, 1.25mm across with dark brown colour.

Family : Araceae Flowering: The plants flowers in Late wet season (September-October) Botanical description: The plant is a tuberous bulb, herbaceous plant growing about 3-5 ft in height. The plant has large leaves. The leaves are heart shapes, 2-3 ft long with a long stalk of about 3 ft height. The flowers are yellowish-white spathes and spadixes are frequently produced. Ecology: It is commonly found in damp, shady places and also cultivated. The plant is widely distributed throughout the hotter parts of India.

Family: Commelinaceae Flowering: August-September Fruiting: September-October Botanical description: The plant is a small diffused or straggling herb. Stem usually with a line of pubescence. Leaves are linear, 3.7-7.5 cm long, acute or acuminate, glabrous with prominent midrib and acute-obtuse at apex. Flowers are blue in colour and very small. Capsules are oblong and 4.3 mm long. The capsule is having 2 seeds, 2.5 mm long, ellipsoid, cylindrical with white appendage at each end.

Family: Commelinaceae Flowering: July-October Fruiting: November-January Botanical description: The plant is a diffuse, branched, sub-succulent herb growing upto 30-60 cm. Leaves are 3-5 x 2-3.5 cm in size, ovate or elliptic-ovate, base rounded or almost flat with blunt or pointed tip. Spathe is about 1.5 cm across, funnel-shaped, flat at apex and velvet-hairy. Sepals are nearly equal, about 2.5 mm long, outer ones linear, inner ones orbicular. Flowers are small, petals are blue in colour, larger ones about 4 x 4.5 mm with broadly ovate. The seeds are 5 and closely pitted.

Family: Tiliaceae Flowering: July-September Fruiting: October-November Botanical description: The plant is an erect, annual herb reaching up to 1-2 m height. The stems are usually purplish white. Leaves are ovate-lanceolate, 5-12 cm long, pointed at the tip and rounded at the base. The flowers are borne in small groups in the axils of the leaves about 4 mm long. The capsules are round to ovoid and about 1 cm in diameter.

Family: Apiaceae Flowering: December-January Fruiting: February-March Botanical description: The plant is a herb, growing to a height of about 2 feet with a spread of 9 inches. The leaves are bright green in colour, fan shaped and become more feathery towards the top of the plant. The flowers are small and white, formed in umbel-like clusters. Fruit is globose, glabrous and seeds are flattened dorsally in transaction.

Family: Cucurbitaceae Flowering: March-June Fruiting: May-August Botanical description: The plant generally spreads on the ground with cylindric and grooved stem. The leaves are rounded to reniform, 6-25cm in diameter with 5 rounded shallow lobes and coarsely hairly. The flowers are monoecious and yellow in colour. Fruits usually lagre, oblong, oval, flattened or globular in size. Seeds are ovate, obscurely margined with white or yellow in colour.

Family : Gramineae (Poaceae) Flowering: November Botanical description: The plant is a perennial tree that grows up to 20-53 m in height and 8-18 cm in diameter. There are 1-3 spines at each branch node. Leaves are thin, linear, up to 20 cm long, 1-1.8 cm wide with a long pointed tip. The branches of the plant spread out from the base and areal roots reaching up to nodes. The length of the internodes is about 15-46 cm and is hollow. Ecology: It is fairly common in mixed forests or dry hills, often found in hills and shady slopes and alluvial plains.

Family: Compositae Flowering: Aug-December Fruiting: January-April Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb. The stems are weak, erect or often branched at the base, smooth or sparingly hairy with 10 to 60 cm tall. This species is recognized by the sow-thistle like leaves.

Family: Asteraceae Flowering: December-January Fruiting: January-February Botanical description: The plant is a prostrate herb. The stem of the plant is succulent, with short ascending flowering hairy branches. The leaves are narrowly linear-oblong, acute or obtuse, entire or subcrenate with 2-5cm long. Heads yellow in colour, axillary and terminal, sessile with 7-18mm diameter.

Family: Apiaceae Flowering: April-June Fruiting: July-August Botanical description: The plant is an perennial, erect, dichotomously branched, aromatic herb, growing up to 15-45 cm high. Leaves are sessile, oblanceolate-oblong, spinosely- serrate and glabrous. Inflorescence heads numerous, cylindric, about 10 x 5 mm with the involucral bracts exceeding the heads. Petals are white or greenish in colour. Fruits are greenish, subspherical and about 1.5 mm in diameter.

Family: Asparagaceae Flowering: October-January Botanical description: The plant is an evergreen perennial shrub. It is stemless or with a short stem up to 1 m tall, producing a rosette of leaves of about 40 - 180cm long. The leaves are sword-shaped, 1-1.8 m long and 10-15 cm broad at their widest point, narrowing to 6-7 cm broad at the leaf base, and to a sharp spine tip at the apex. The flowers are greenish to creamy white, 4 cm long, and strongly scented.

Family: Molluginaceae Flowering: March-June Fruiting: July-October Botanical description: The plant is a prostrate annual herb, growing upto to 50 cm long. Leaves are in pseudo-whorls of 3-6 or opposite; leaf blade is spoon-shaped or elliptic, obtuse or acute apex with short leaf stalks. Flowers are greenish white in colour and about 5mm to 8mm across. Capsule is ellipsoid, shorter than the sepals. Seeds are brown and finely granulate. Ecology: It is commonly found in sandy soil, especially alone river banks, occasionally found in swampy localities, in dried-up pools and ditches and in rice-fields. The plant loves to grow on sandy soil.

Family: Malvaceae Flowering: July-October Fruiting: October-February Botanical description: The plant is a robust branched, annual herb that grows 4-7 ft tall and almost as broad. Leaves are dark green in colour, about 6 in across, deeply dissected into 3-5 narrow lobes. The stems, branches, leaf veins, and leaf stalks are reddish purple. The flowers of the plant are yellow with deep purple centre and about 3 inches across. The sepals of the flowers are prominent, fleshy, bright red in colour. Capsule is ovoid, 1.5 cm across with brownish seeds.

Family: Violaceae Flowering: Round the year Fruiting: Round the year Botanical description: The plant is a perennial herb The plant grows upto to 60 cm high, often branched and spreading. Leaves are sub-sessile, linear to lanceolate, 1-5 cm long with recurved to revolute margins or occasionally flat. The flowers are pink in colour with 5 petals. Capsule is subglobose, 4-9mm long with 5-12 seeds pitted between ribs.

Family: Hydroleaceae Flowering: November-January Fruiting: February-April Botanical description: The plant is an annual, aquatic, ascending or prostrate herb, sparingly branched growing up to 1.2 meters in length, and rooting at the lower nodes. The leaves are lanceolate, 4-10 mm long, and pointed at both ends. The flowers are very numerous, bright blue in colour, 8-10 mm across and borne in racemes. The sepals are hairy, green, oblong-linear, and about 5 mm long. The capsule is ovoid, surrounded by the persistent sepals, and contains numerous, minute, oblong seeds.

Family: Acanthaceae Flowering: October-December Fruiting: January-February Botanical description: The plant is a stout aquatic perennial herb growing up to 1-2 m high. The stems are erect, unbranched and hairy near swollen nodes. The leaves are sessile, linear- oblong, stalkless, 10-15 cm long, occur in whorls of 6 at each node on the stem. Straight, yellow, 4 cm long spines are present in the axil of each leaf. Flowers are purple in colour, occur in 4 pairs at each node and open in opposite pair.

Family: Convolvulaceae Flowering: Most part of the year Fruiting: Most part of the year Botanical description: The plant is a semi-aquatic tropical herbaceous plant. The stem of the plant is thick, fistular or spongy, rooting at the nodes trailing on moist soil or mud, or floating on water. Leaves are variable in shape and size,such as ovate-oblong, ovate- triangular, lanceolate, elliptic-oblong.The flowers are trumpet-shaped, 3-5 cm diameter, usually white in colour with a purple center.Capsule ovoid, glabrous and 2-4 seeded.

Family: Cucurbitaceae Flowering: July-October Fruiting: November-January Botanical description: The plant is a vigorous, annual, climbing herb. It grows fast and may begin to flower only two months after seeding. The vine is branched and climbs by means of tendrils along the stem. The foliage is covered with soft hairs and has a foul musky odor when crushed. The leaves of the plant are up to 15 inches wide, circular in overall shape, with smooth margins, a few broad lobes, or with undulate margins. Leaves have a velvety texture because of the fine hairs, especially on the undersurface. The flowers are white in colour and borne singly on the axils of the leaves, the males on long peduncles and the females on short peduncles. Fruits are of various shapes like bottle or dumb bell-shaped, rounded or elongated.

Family: Brassicaceae Flowering: June-August Fruiting: August-October Botanical description: The plant is an annual herb that reaches at a height upto 2 ft, with many branches on the upper part. The leaves are entire, the upper ones are stalkless whereas the lower ones are stalked. Flowers are white to pinkish in color, small, 2 mm across, borne in long racemes. The fruits are small pods, obovate, with two seeds per pod. The seeds are brownish red in colour and become slimy when soaked in water. Garden cress is native to mediterranean region, introduced and naturalised, cultivated throughout the world. Within India, it is cultivated as a salad plant and found as an escape.

Family: Lamiaceae Flowering: July-October Fruiting: October-January Botanical description: The plant is an erect and diffusely branched annual herb, growing up to 20-60 cm in height. Leaves are linear or oblong, 2.5 to 7.5 cm long with blunt tips and scalloped margins. Whorls are large, terminal and axillary, about 2.5 cm in diameter and crowded with white bell shaped flowers. Calyx is variable, with an upper lip and short, triangular teeth. Nutlets are 2.5mm in size, smooth and brown.

Family: Plantaginaceae Flowering: September-November Fruiting: December-February Botanical description: The plant is a perennial, small marsh herb. Stems are much branched, hairless. The aerial stems are up to 15 cm height, simple or branched, hairless, with stalked or stalkless glands. The submerged leaves are 1.5-2.5 cm in size, pinnately cut into segments which are flattened to capillary. The aerial leaves are usually whorled, pinnately lobed, 0.4-2 cm, sometimes few opposite and toothed. Flowers arise singly in the axils of aerial leaves. Flower stalk is slender, and 2-10 mm in length. Petals are botched with dark purple or reddish spots. The capsule is dark brown, compressed with ellipsoid to round in shape.

Family: Marsileaceae (Pteridophyta) Flowering: November-January Fruiting: January-March Botanical description: The plant is a branched herbaceous plant with creeping rhizome and usually 3-15 cm or more in length. Leaves are composed of 4 obdeltoid leaflets. Leaflets are cruciform, obovate, variable in size depending on the ecological conditions, usually glabrous with rounded outer margin. Pedicels are 2-6, basal and slightly connate or free. Sporocarps are seen crowded or in groups of 2–3, arising at the base of the petiole.

Family: Lamiaceae Flowering: August-September Fruiting: September-October Botanical dcescription: The plant is a glabrous perennial herb. Stems are erect, about 1 ft tall, usually less, purplish, hairless. Leaves are stalkless, sessile, lanceolate or ovate, acute with glabrous above and glandular below. Flowers are lilac, loose cylindrical, slender with interrupted spikes.

Family: Rubiaceae Flowering: September-December Fruiting: December-March Botanical description: The plant is erect or diffused, pubescent herb, growing up to 40 cm in height. The leaves are sessile, ovate-lanceolate, acute, pubescent and rounded at the base. Flowers are small, white in colour and verticillate in axillary fascicles with small calyx. Capsule is globose, less than 1 mm across with 2 minute seeds and having furrowed on one side.

Family: Cucurbitaceae Flowering: June-October Fruiting: October-February Botanical description: Bitter gourd is a herbaceous, tendril-bearing, slender climber, growing up to 5 m. It bears simple, alternate leaves 4-12 cm across, with 3-7 deeply separated lobes. Each plant bears separate yellow male and female flowers, about 2-3 cm in diameter. Male flowers are more numerous, having a yellow center and conical base, while female flowers have a green center and a small bump at the base. The fruits are oblong shaped and tapering at both ends, 5-20 cm long and turns yellow when ripe. It is hollow in cross-section, with a relatively thin layer of flesh surrounding a central seed cavity filled with large flat seeds and pith. Seeds and pith appear white in unripe fruits.

Family: Moraginaceae Flowering: January-March Fruiting: April-June Botanical description: The plant is a small deciduous tree, having corky gray bark, branching and fernlike leaves and growing up to 10 metre in height. The leaves are pinnately compound, 25-50 cm long with thickened and articulated at the base. The flowers of the plant are scented and white in colour with lanceolate petals. Capsule is pendulous, long bean like seed pods and usually 22-45 cm long.

Family: Rutaceae Flowering: February-April Fruiting: May-September Botanical description: The plant is a small tree, growing up to 4-6 m tall, with a trunk up to 40 cm diameter. The leaves are opposite or alternate, lanceolate or ovate, strongly scented with 11-21 leaflets. The flowers are small white, and fragrant. The berries are small, ovoid or ellipsoid, black in colour, shiny and edible, but their seeds are poisonous.

Family: Bignoniaceae Flowering: July-August Fruiting: December-March Botanical description: The plant is a medium sized deciduous tree, growing up to 8-12 m tall. The bark is grayish brown with corky lenticels. The leaves are huge, 0.5-1.5 m long, 2-3 pinnate with leaflets of 12 cm long and 8 cm broad. The flowers are reddish- purple outside and pale, -yellowish within, numerous, in large erect racemes. The fruits are flat capsules, 0.33-1 meter long and 5-10 cm broad, sword-shaped. The seeds numerous, flat and winged all around, except at the base.

Family: Oxalidaceae Flowering: June-August Fruiting: September-October Botanical description: The plant is a creeping herb, branching from the base and often rooted at the nodes, the upper portion is ascending or weakly erect, smooth or hairy. The leaves are arranged alternately along the stems. A single long stalk arises from the axils of the leaf, from which extend three flower stalks, each with a single flower. The flowers are 7-11 mm wide and have 5 yellow petals. The fruit is a capsule, 1-1.5 cm long, cylindric, pointed apically, and 5-ridged in cross section.

Family: Rubiaceae Flowering: August-September Fruiting: September-October Botanical description: The plant is a perennial twining climber, arising from a woody rootstock. Its stems grow up to 7 m or more, climbing, or prostrate and rooting at the nodes. Leaves are oval to linear-lanceolate, oppositely arranged, 2-11 cm long, hairy or smooth, often lobed at base with prominent stipules. Leaf stalks are mostly up to 6 cm long. Leaves and stems have a atinking smell, especially when crushed. Flowers are small, purple, broad or long, curving clusters at the end of branches or in leaf axils. Fruit is a shiny brown, nearly round capsule, up to 0.7 cm across, with 2 black, rounded seeds.

Family: Verbenaceae Flowering: August-September Fruiting: September-October Botanical description: The plant is a prostrate, flowering and broadleaf herb. The leaves are opposite, obovate, serrate above middle, obtuse or rounded and thick. The flowers are small, in axillary peduncled and consists of a purple-coloured centre encircled by small white-to-pink flowers. Fruits are 2 mm long, enclosing two with 1-celled pyrenes.

Family: Fabaceae Flowering: October-November Fruiting: November-December Botanical description: The plant is an annual, erect branched, glabrous herb growing upto 30-90 cm in height. Leaves are compound, leafelets are lanceolate, often doubly serrate, acuminate and sparsely puberulous both side with acute to rounded base. The flowers are 9-16 in number and arranged in umbellule, 1.5 mm across, with a pedicels 5 mm long. Fruit is ovate, slightly compressed laterally, glabrous with prominent ribs.

Family: Fabaceae Flowering: November-December Fruiting: January-February Botanical description: The plant is smooth, glaucous, annual herbaceous plant with foloaceous ovate stipules, irregularly toothed at the base. The leaflets are 2-3 pairs, opposite leaf-rachis ending in a branched tendril. The colour of the flower is white, peduncle is 1 and few flowered. Pods are broad with rounded, green or yellowish seeds.

Family: Lamiaceae Flowering: September-October Fruiting: November-December General Characters: The plant is a small, erect, fleshy, annual herb, growing up to 30-50 cm high. The leaves are oppositely arranged, broadly ovate, 5-12 cm long, pointed, heart- shaped at base, with a toothed margin. Flowers are pale blue in colour, borne in branched racemes, 7-20 cm long, at the end of branches. Fruits are round, 2-3 mm, gery brown, with sparse small dark warts.

Family: Polygonaceae Flowering: February-April Fruiting: April-June Botanical description: The plant is a prostrate and densely branched, annual herb. Stems are branched from base, branches numerous. The leaves are linear, oblong 2.5-18 mm long, acute or obtuse and often with revolute margins. Flowers are small, pink with green midrib, subsessile and sunk among the stipules or exsert. The nuts are 1.0-1.75 mm long, circular to ovate, shining, and black.

Family: Portulacaceae Flowering: February-April Fruiting: April-June Botanical description: The plant is prostrate or erect herb growing upto1030 cm in height. Leaves are alternate or subopposite, margins entire, obtuse or truncate apex, clustered at stem joints and ends. The flowers are yellow in colour, sessile to 1 cm across, open singly at the center of the leaf cluster for only a few hours on sunny mornings. The seeds are brown in colour, 0.8 mm with minutely tubercled.

Family: Brassicaceae Flowering: December-January Fruiting: January-February Botanical description: The plant is an edible root vegetable growing upto 20-40cm in height. leaves usually are medium green and lobed and have a rough texture, lower leaves are lyrate, upper ones is lobed. The flowers are cross-shaped with four petals, usually about an inch across and white, pink or purple in colour. The seed pods are sickle shaped, 2-12" long, first green, then turning brown when mature. They are full of little round seeds.

Family: Convolvulaceae Flowering: October-November Fruiting: November-December Botanical description: The plant is a large climber with silky branches. The leaves are broadly ovate, 5-8.7 cm in diameter with obtuse apex. Flowers are large, yellowish-white in colour, fragrant, 6 cm long, 5 cm across on 1-3 flowered with long tubes. Fruit is globose, 1.2 cm in diameter, enclosed by enlarged and woody calyx.

Family: Acanthaceae Flowering: November-December Fruiting: January-February Botanical description: The plant is a diffused or erect herb with cylindrical stem and growing up to 10-20 cm in height. The leaves are oppositely arranged, nealy glabrous, oblong-lanceolate with sharp-tipped. Flowers are tiny, violet-blue in colour and are about 3-4 mm long, and occur in spikes at the end of branches, or in leaf axils. The capsule in 2 mm in size and compressed.

Family: Caesalpiniaceae Flowering: September-November Fruiting: November-December Botanical description: The plant is a small erect hairlesss shrub, growing about 1 m tall. The leaves are compound, arranged spirally and usually have three pairs of symmetrically egg- shaped, leaflets up to 2 inches long. One to three yellow flowers appear on short axillary stems. The linear pods grow upto 8 inches long, curve downward and contain many shiny, and angular seeds.

Family: Solanaceae Flowering: July-September Fruiting: October-December Botanical description: The plant is an erect, branched herbaceous weed that grows up to 60cm tall. The leaves are alternate, ovate or oblong, deep green in colour with an indented margin and acuminate at the tip. Flowers are small, white in colour with 5-1.5 mm across. The berries are globose in shape, green at early stage and turn to orange or black when ripened.

Family: Solanaceae Flowering: November-December Fruiting: January-March Botanical description: The potato plant is a leafy, tufted herb with tuberous underground stems growing up to 2 ft tall and spreading out a little more. The leaves are compound, long and the leaflets are 7-15 in number, with about 3 inch in long. The tubers are not roots, but modified stems or rhizomes, and the “eyes” are really leaf buds.

Family: Chenopodiaceae Flowering: November-December Fruiting: January-March Botanical description: The leaves of the plant are alternate, lower most and middle one is long petioled, ovate-oblong, obtuse or acute, entire or dentate and higher one is small. Flowers are dioecious. Male flowers in arranged in spicate clusters combined into a leafy terminal panicle and female flower in axillary clusters. Ovary enclosed by tepal like bracts that developed into a globose or pyramidal, 2-4 spined structure in fruiting.

Family: Talinaceae Flowering: September-October Fruiting: November-December Botanical description: The plan is an erect, stout, fleshy herb, growing up to 0.5-1 m in height. Leaves are elliptic to obovate, 5-15 cm long, 1.5-5 cm wide, tip pointed to tapering. The flowers are borne in 2-5-branched, raceme like clusters, 3-20 cm long with a stalk about 8-11 mm long. Petals are pink, obovate, up to 1 cm long. Capsules are pale yellow, ellipsoid, 6-7 mm long. Then plant flowers and bears fruits during September-December.

Family: Apiaceae Flowering: November-January Fruiting: February-April Botanical description: The plant is an erect, freely branching annual herb with finely dissected, lacy, blue-green leaves. The leaves are about 1 ft long and divided pinnately three or four times into thread like segments each about 1 in long. The dill plant grows about 3-5 ft tall.

Family: Aizoaceae Flowering: July-September Fruiting: October-December Botanical description: The plant is a succulent herb with prostrate forked branches, growing up to 20-45 cm long. Stems are prostrate or rising, somewhat succulent, up to 50 cm long or more, smooth or sparsely velvety. Leaves are flat, elliptic to obovate, 1-2 cm long, 0.4-2 cm wide, margins entire, tip blunt with rounded base. Leaf stalks are 0.5-2.5 cm long, expanded into a sheath joined with leaf base to form a cup. Flowers are pinkish or white in colour, borne solitary, stalkless, largely hidden in leaf axils. Capsule with a lower scarious or membranous portion and an upper brown. Seeds are black in colour with muricate concentric lines.

Family: Fabaceae Flowering: September-October Fruiting: November-January Botanical description: Thye plant is a small diffused herb, with erect to creeping habit. Leaflets are 1-4 cm long, 8-35 mm broad, obovate to oblong-wedge-shaped, tip rounded to notched. The flowers of the plant yellow in colour, bloom in 8-20-flowered clusters, with a stalks 3 mm long and sepals nearly equal, shorter than or as long as the tube. The fruit is 1-2 cm long, 2-3 mm broad, linear, sharp tipped, curved and 4-8-seeded.

Family: Fabaceae Flowering: December-January Fruiting: February-March Botanical description: The plant is an erect, annual and strongly smelling herb growing up to 10-50 cm in height. The Leaves are trifoliate with leaflets 1-3 cm long, 5-15 mm broad, obovate to inverted-lanceo shaped. Flowers are cream or yellowish-white, in colour, 1-2 together in leaf axils and 1.2-1.8 cm long. Pods are oblong, straight or falcate with age, 7.5-10 cm long with a long beak and 20 seeded.

Family: Fabaceae Flowering: December-January Fruiting: February-March Botanical description: The plant is a scrambling and climbing herb, with stems almost hairless, up to 3 ft tall. The leaves are compound with 5-6 pairs of opposite leaflets and 1 terminal tendril. Leaflets are narrow, linear, 2.5-3.0 cm long, 2-3 mm wide. Flowers are borne singly or in pairs on short stalks arising at the base of the leaves, blue to purple in colour, large, up to 2 cm long. Seed pods are mainly black, linear, 4-6 mm broad, containing 10-12 round or angulated small seeds. The plant flowers and bears fruits during December-March.

Family : Rutaceae Flowering: March-April Fruiting: (Next Year) April-June Botanical Description: The plant is a medium sized tree with spines of 1-2 cm long. The leaf is composed of three leaflets. The leaflets are oval, elliptic with 2.5-6.5 cm petiole, terminal one is larger. Flowers of the tree are white or greenish-white. The fruits are ovoid, hard and about 5-7.5 cm in diameter. The flowers appear during March-April and the tree bears fruits towards October, ripening in April.

Family : Moraceae Flowering: December-January Fruiting: June-July Botanical Description: The plant is an evergreen tree that grows up to 20-30 meter tall and 80-200 cm in diameter with evergreen, alternate, glossy and leathery leaves reaching up to 9 inch long. Leaves are oval on mature trees. All parts of the plant contain sticky and white latex. Inflorescence is solitary, borne axillary on special lateral short leafy shoots arising from older branches. Fruits are large arising from the tree trunk and weighting about 10-50 kg. the exterior of the fruit is green or yellow when riped and composed of numerous hard, cone like points attached to a thick and rubbery, pale yellow or whitish wall.

Family : Oxalidaceae Flowering: July-September Fruiting: October-December Botanical Description: The plant is a small evergreen tropical tree that grows upto 25 feet in height. The compound leaves are soft, medium green, spirally arranged around the branches in an alternate fashion. The leaflets are sensitive to light and fold inward at night. The flowers are small and bell shaped, with five petals that have whitish edges. The fruit is fleshy, have a thin and waxy skin, five lobbed, ovate to ellipsoid with attractive yellow-orange in colour.

Family : Arecaceae Flowering: February - March Fruiting April - August Botanical Description: The plant is a large tree and grows upto 30-40m. in height. The trunk may have a circumference of 1.7 m at the base. The leaves are palmate, leathery, gray green and 1-3 m in wide with folded along at the midrib. Flowers are 90-150 cm long and branched. Fruits are ovoid, 15-20 cm in diameter with fibrous and fleshy mesocarp.

Family : Cucurbitaceae Flowering & Fruiting: Most part of the year Botanical Description: The plant is a climbing herb with angular stem and long tuberous root. The leaves are classified as palmately simple with five lobes while the shape varies from the heart to pentagon form. The size of the leaves is approximately 5-10 cm in width and length. The tendrils are long, elastic with coil-like springy character that can wrap around the host to the entire length. The flower is large and white about 4 cm in diameter and contains five long tubular petals. The fruit is oblong, narrowed apically or at both ends. The raw fruit is green in color and turns bright red when ripened. The seeds of the plant are oblong and compressed.

Family : Cucurbitaceae Flowering: September-October Fruiting: October-November Botanical Description: The plant is an procumbent annual climber growing to 1.5m. The leaves are oval to kidney shaped with five to seven shallow lobes. Plants produce trailing vines and yellow flowers similar to cucumbers, but flowers may be male, female, or perfect. Fruit is spherical or ovoid, large, and can reach the size of a football, although it is generally more flattened. It is striped green or pale green in colour, ultimately turning yellow.

Family : Dilleniaceae Flowering: May- June Fruiting: September-February Botanical Description: The plant is a moderate sized evergreen tree growing up to 15m tall. The leaves are deep green in colour, oblong to lanceolate and 15-36 cm in long. The flowers are white, large, up to 5 inches across. The fruit is rounded, 5-12 cm in diameter aggregate of 15 carpels with each carpel containing 5 seeds embedded in the pulp.

Family : Dioscoreaceae Flowering & Fruiting: Throughout the year Botanical description: The plant is a vigorous, perennial, climbing plant, producing annual stems up to 15 metres long from a very large tuberous rootstock. Tubers of the plant are one to several, polymorphic, variously branched or lobed and hairy with small rootlets. The stems scramble over the ground, or twine into the surrounding vegetation. The stem is quadrangular, winged, and twines right-handed. Leaves are opposite, 7-18 x 4-10 cm, broadly ovate, base cordate with acuminate apex. Flowers are laxly arranged, sessile with 1-1.5 mm long and ovate bracts and fleshy tepals.

Family : Dioscoreaceae Flowering & Fruiting: September-October Botanical description: Aerial yam is a glabrous-leafed, non-spiny, perennial climbing plant producing annual stems up to 10 metres long from a woody, tuberous rootstock. These stems scramble over the ground, or twine into the surrounding vegetation. The stems twine left-handed and produce aerial axillary bulbils. The plant produces tubers; however the bulbils which grow at the base of its leaves are more important food products. They are about the size of potatoes (hence the name air potato) weighing from 0.5 to 2 kg. The flowers are whitish or pinkish in colour.

Family : Dioscoreaceae Flowering & Fruiting: August-October Botanical description: Stem twining to the left, terete, tomentose. Leaves 3-foliolate, palmately divided into 3-5 subequal leaflets, broadly ovate, oblique at base, abruptly acuminate; petiole 15-18 cm long. Spikes are 30 cm long, densely tomentose, distantly flowered fascicles at nodes on long peduncle. Female flowers sessile; bracts 4 mm long, ovate; tepals 2 x 1 mm, oblong, acute, hairy. Capsule 25 x 15 mm, oblong, tomentose. Male flowers not seen.

Family : Dioscoreaceae Flowering & Fruiting: July-December Botanical description: The plant is a perennial climbing plant. Tubers are irregular, usually long ovoid, transverse section white when fresh, becoming brown. Roots fibrous. Leaves are compound, palmately divided into 3-5 leaflets, and alternately arranged on the twining stems. Male flowers are nearly stalkless and Female spikes are simple or branched. Capsules are thinly leathery, sparsely hairy and turns black at maturity.

Family : Ebenaceae Flowering: March-April Fruiting: March-April (Next Year) Botanical Description: The plant is an evergreen tree with a spreading crown. It can grow up to 37 m tall, with a trunk girth of 2 m. The bark is black, smooth, and the inner bark turns bluish on exposure to sunlight. Leaves are oblong and glossy. The male flowers are formed in 3-5 flowered cymes in leaf axils. Female flowers are solitary. Fruits are round, up to 3.5 cm in diameter, yellow when ripe with a juicy pulp.

Family : Ebenaceae Flowering: April-May Fruiting: (Next Year) March-April Botanical Description: The plant is a medium-sized tree growing up to 25 m, height and 1.9 m girth. The bark is black in colour, peeling in rectangular scales, which is an identifying feature. The leaves are eliptic-oblong, opposite or alternate, leathery, up to 35 cm long, velvety on both sides when young, becoming smooth above when fully grown. Male flowers are mauve in colour, sessile or nearly sessile in short peduncles, mostly 3-flowered. Female flowers mauve, mostly extra-axillary or sometimes solitary, axillary, opposite to each other, larger than the male flowers. Fruits olive green in colour, ovoid or globose 3-4 cm across, 1-8 seeded berries. Seeds are compressed, oblong and shiny.

Family : Moraceae Flowering: Round the year Fruiting April - June Botanical Description: The tree is very large, growing up to 30 m tall, with many aerial roots that develop in to new trunks, so that the tree goes on spreading laterally. Indefinitely a single tree can cover a very wide area. The leaves are leathery, entire, ovate or elliptic, which grow up to 20-30 cm long with prominent lateral veins. The fruits are 1 to 2 cm in diameter, rounded in shape, without stalks arranged in pairs at leaf axils and it changes to bright red colour when ripens. The plant flowers round the year and bears fruits during April-June.

Family : Moraceae Flowering: March-June Fruiting June-July Botanical Description: It is a large sized tree with few short areal roots. Leaves are ovate or elliptic with 7-20×3.5-9 cm in size. The most distinctive aspect of this tree is the red, furry figs in short clusters, that grows directly out of the trunk of tree. The figs do carry hundred of flowers in it.

Family : Rutaceae Flowering: February-April Fruiting: November-January Botanical Description: The plant is an erect, slow-growing tree with a few upward-reaching branches. The bark is ridged, fissured and scaly with sharp spines. The leaves are alternate, 3 to 5 in long, dark-green in colour, leathery, often minutely toothed, blunt or notched at the apex, are dotted with oil glands and slightly lemon-scented when crushed. Flowers are greenish or reddish in colour, 1/2in across, are borne in small, loose, terminal or lateral panicles. The tree is mostly known for its hard woody fruit, size of a tennis ball, round to oval in shape. The pulp is brown, odorous, resinous, acid or sweetish, with numerous small, white seeds scattered through it.

Family : Sapotaceae Flowering: February-April Fruiting: May-July Botanical Description: The plant is a large or moderate-sized tree, smooth and brown bark with pubescent or tomentose branchlets. The leaves are clustered near the ends of the branches, elliptic, oblong or ovate and acuminate. The flowers are cream coloured, fleshy, on rusty tomentose pedicel and clustered at the end of the usually leafless branches. The fruits are fleshy, green berries, quite large and containing from one to four shiny, brown seeds.

Family : Sapotaceae Flowering: November-January Fruiting: March-June Botanical Description: The plant is a tree growing up to 3-12 m tall, with gray bark and smooth branchlets. The leaves are alternately arranged often closely clustered towards the end of branchlets, obovate to obovate-elliptic leaf blade with 0.8-2 cm leaf-stalks. Flowers are white or light yellow in colour, about 4 mm in size and arise in fascicles in leaf axils. Berry is oblong to ellipsoid, 1- 2 seeded and yellow when ripe.

Family : Cucurbitaceae Flowering: August-September Fruiting: September-November Botanical Description: The plant is a large perennial climber which grows up to 3-5 m. The leaves are simple, alternately arranged, ovate and 3-5 lobed. The flowers are yellow, 4-6 cm across, solitary on axillary stalks. Fruit is an ellipsoid, 3-6 cm long, densely covered with soft spines.

Family : Musaceae Flowering & Fruiting: Most parts of the year Botanical description: Banana is a tropical small size tree, with large leaves which overlapping bases from the trunk. The leaves are oblong and 1.2-1.5 m in length. The stem reaches a height of about 10-30 feet. Flower develops from the centre of the crown. Only female flowers develop into a banana fruit that varies in length from 4 to12 inches. Each banana plant bears fruits only once. The plant bears flowers and fruits in most parts of the year.

Family: Nelumbonaceae Flowering & Fruiting: July-December Botanical description: It is a perennial aquatic plant, growing from a tuberous rootstock lying in mud at the bottom of water bodies, lakes and ponds. The plant produces large leaves which float on the surface of the water. Leaves are large, simple, glabrous, solitary, beset with scattered hard minute papillae and rounded in shape and covered with a network of microscopic hairs. Flowers are large, pink or white in colour with expanding and emerging above water. Fruit is 1-2 cm across with flat-topped seed pod divided into compartments. Seeds globose, 1 mm across and brown in colour

Family : Nymphaeaceae Flowering: Throughout year Fruiting: Throughout year Botanical description: It is an aquatic perennial herb, having erect perennial root stocks that anchor it to the mud in the bottom of the water bodies. Leaves vary from being elliptic-oval to almost circular 15-26 cm across, fine hairs on upper side and always remain at floating stage. Flowers are mostly white, occasionally pink or red reaching up to 15 cm in diameter.

Family : Arecaceae Flowering: February-March Fruiting: April-May Botanical Description: The plant is a moderate sized dioecious tree which grows up to 4-10 m. in height and 30 cm diameter with a large crown and rough trunk covered with persistent leaf bases. The leaves are 3 m. long, gently recurved on 1 m petioles with spines near the base. The leaf crown grows to 5 m wide and 7-10 m tall containing up to 100 leaves. The inflorescence grows upto 1 m with white flowers. The single seeded fruit ripens to orange-yellow.

Family : Phyllanthaceae Flowering: May-June Fruiting: June-September Botanical Description: The plant is a small deciduous tree reaching about 25-30 ft in height. Leaves are compound, 14-25 inches long, crowded at the ends of the branches leaflets 2-3.5 inches long, alternately arranged along the rachis, ovate or obliquely ovate, acute with rounded or wedge-shaped base. Flowers are very minute, in short dense spike-like clusters arising from nodules along the branches. Fruit is pendulous, in small clusters from the branches, round or slightly flattened at the poles, with shallow or deep ribs (usually 5) 0.75 inch across.

Family : Phyllanthaceae Flowering: March-May Fruiting: November-February Botanical Description: The plant is a small to medium sized deciduous tree, reaching 8 to 18 m in height. It is known for its edible fruits of the same name. The tree has crooked trunk and spreading branches. The leaves are simple, nearly stalkless and closely set along slender branchlets. The leaves are often mistaken for leaflets of pinnate leaves. The flowers are small, greenish-yellow or pinkish, having six segments, but no real petals. The fruit is nearly spherical, light greenish yellow, quite smooth and hard on appearance, with 6 vertical stripes or furrows.

Family : Mimosaceae Flowering: January-March Fruiting: April-June Botanical Description: The plant is a large, nearly evergreen perennial tree that grows up to 20 m or more in height. It has a broad crown, up to 30 m across, and a short trunk, up to 1 m thick. Leaves are deciduous but foliage is persistent, as the new leaves appear while the old ones are being shed, so that the tree looks like an evergreen. Flowers yellowish-white in colour and are borne in small spherical glomerules of about 1 cm in diameter, forming short axillary panicles of 5-30 cm in length. Pods are greenish-brown to red or pinkish, rather thin with 10-15 cm long with irregular shape and flattened. There are about 10 seeds per pod, shining black in a white pulpy aril.

Family : Myrtaceae Flowering: April-May Fruiting: July-August Botanical description: The plant is an evergreen tropical tree, 50 to 100 ft. tall, with oblong opposite leaves that are smooth, glossy and having a terpentine smell. It has fragrant white flowers in branched clusters at stem tips and purplish-black oval edible berries. The leaves are antibacterial, and are used for strengthning the teeth and gums. The fruit is ellipsoid or oblong, variable in size and shape, usually up to 2.5 cm long, black, shining and juicy when fully ripe. Seeds always one, with thick rounded fleshy cotyledons, closely appressed on their inner faces.

Family : Lythraceae Flowering: August-September Fruiting: November-December Botanical description: The water chestnut is an annual aquatic herb with a rosette of floating leaves and submerged, anchored into the mud by very fine roots. It has two types of leaves, finely divided, feather-like submerged leaves borne along the length of the stem, and undivided floating leaves borne in a rosette at the water’s surface. The floating leaves have saw-tooth edges and are ovoid or triangular in shape, 2-3 cm long, on inflated leaf-stalks 5-9 cm long, which provide added buoyancy for the leafy portion. Flowers are white in colour, with Four petals and are borne for a long period. The fruit is a nut with barbed spines. Seeds can remain viable up to 12 years, although most germinate within the first two years.

Family : Rhamnaceae Flowering: July-September Fruiting: October-January Botanical Description: Jackal Jujube is a very thorny straggling shrub with rusty-velvety young branches with paired thorns. Thorns are, one straight and the other recurved. Alternately arranged simple leaves are ovate to ovatelancelike, often oblique, with three prominent nerves and numerous transverse nervules. Tiny green flowers are borne in nearly stalkless velvety cymes in leaf axils. Fruits are spherical or obovoid drupes, black, shining, seeds woody.

List of Wild Food Plants with their Part(s) and Mode of Consumption Table 1: List of Wild Food Plants with their part(s) used and Mode of Consumption