Find a plant

Phyllanthus emblica

Terai · Siwalik (Chure) · Middle Hills

A small sour fruit packed with more vitamin C than an orange. Eat one and the next sip of water tastes sweet.

Pinus roxburghii

Siwalik (Chure) · Middle Hills

The pine of the middle hills, with long needles and sticky resin that smells sharp and sweet.

Betula utilis

High Mountains · High Himal & Trans-Himalaya

The last tree you meet before the mountain becomes rock and snow. Ancient books were written on its papery bark.

Taxus wallichiana

High Mountains · High Himal & Trans-Himalaya

A slow, dark mountain tree whose bark contains a medicine used to treat cancer. That discovery nearly wiped it out.

Senegalia catechu

Terai · Siwalik (Chure)

A thorny tree of dry riverbeds. Its heartwood is boiled down to make katha, the brown paste used in paan.

Rhododendron arboreum

Middle Hills · High Mountains

Nepal’s national flower. When the hills turn red in spring, this is the tree doing it.

Alnus nepalensis

Middle Hills

The tree that repairs broken land. Alder is usually the first thing to grow back on a landslide scar.

Ficus religiosa

Terai · Siwalik (Chure) · Middle Hills

The tree with heart-shaped leaves that whisper in the smallest breeze. Almost every Nepali village square has one.

Shorea robusta

Terai · Siwalik (Chure)

The great tree of the Terai forests. Its timber is so strong that Nepali houses built from it stand for a hundred years.

Bombax ceiba

Terai · Siwalik (Chure)

In late winter the simal drops every leaf and covers itself in huge red flowers instead. Birds come from everywhere to drink.

Dalbergia sissoo

Terai · Siwalik (Chure)

A fast riverside tree of the Terai, planted along roads for shade and prized for furniture wood.