India GOTrees of Vrindavan
Kadamba
Devotees plant kadamba around Vrindavan precisely because of the flute story, so most of the trees you meet are planted rather than wild. The tree the older Braj landscape called kadamb was more often kaim (Mitragyna parvifolia), a dry-country relative in the same family that grows here without watering, and locally both trees carry the name.
Neolamarckia cadamba
Banyan
Bhandir Vat, the old banyan that gives Bhandirvan its name, is one of Braj's named trees and the place where the Radha-Krishna marriage story is set. Banyans are not felled here, which is why the oldest trees in the region stand in temple courtyards and at the ponds.
Ficus benghalensis
Peepal (sacred fig)
A peepal is left standing wherever it seeds itself, including inside a wall, which is why so many old Braj buildings carry a tree growing out of them. Trunks are commonly wrapped with thread and given water in the morning.
Ficus religiosa
Neem
Neem twigs are still the everyday toothbrush in Braj towns, sold in bundles in the morning markets, and the leaves go into stored grain and cloth to keep insects out. The tree is also the reason the roadside stays walkable in May.
Azadirachta indica
Tulsi (holy basil)
Nearly every Vrindavan courtyard and shopfront keeps a tulsi in a raised planter (the tulsi vrindavan), watered and circled in the morning. The bead necklaces sold in the bazaars are cut from the woody stems of old plants.
Ocimum tenuiflorum
Kans grass
Kans in flower is the sign across north India that the monsoon is over and the autumn festival season is about to start. It is also one of the plants that holds the Yamuna's sandbars together, and it is the dominant cover at the Braj wetlands. After the rains its plumes turn the Yamuna flats white for a few weeks.
Saccharum spontaneum
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