Seeing Trees: Discover The Extraordinary Secrets Of Everyday Trees (2011) - Plot & Excerpts
To Make A Forest.Whether you live in a big city or in a more rural setting, trees are all around you. They may be in city parks, school playgrounds, government buildings or urban green-belts. In some locations, away from the cities, trees make up dense forest that can stretch for hundreds of miles, line natural waterways or lakes, stand as lone sentinels in rocky and eroded landscapes. If your like me, you appreciate trees but have only the most basic ability to tell them apart. Sure, most of us know the difference between a pine tree and, say, an oak tree. But usually that's as far as it goes. In Seeing Trees author Nancy Ross Hugo addresses that issue with an in depth look at the biology and anatomy of trees, all kinds of trees. Drawing parallels with bird watching, Hugo shows us how get started in a "tree watching" hobby. Like all complex life forms trees are made up of multiple body parts. Leaves, branches and trunk-bark are the first things we notice. But those are just the surface parts, what we need is a closer look. To that end, Hugo gives the reader a guided tour of tree anatomy. The book opens with a section on "tree viewing": when and where to look, getting a good field guide and techniques to use for the best results. Up next a closer look at various tree parts like; leaves, flowers, fruit and bark. Flower and leaf buds are studied as are twigs, seeds and pollen. The last section puts the spotlight on 9 of our native North American trees and 1 exotic. Get to know: Black Walnut, Red Maple, White Oak and American Beech among others. Two tree species deserve extra attention, the Ginkgo and the Osage Orange. The Ginkgo is an exotic species that was introduced to North America from China some 200 years ago and has established itself in any well watered, drained environment.Considered by many to be a "living fossil", the Ginkgo has been around for over 250 million years but today is represented by only one species living in China. The Osage Orange is another ancient species, this one native to North America. It's over sized fruit required over sized herbivores to spread its seeds. Ice Age mega fauna like Mammoths, Mastodons, Ground Sloth and Camels may have feasted on its juicy, bitter, fruit. Hugo's writing is conversational, like setting down with a friendly Botanist over afternoon tea. Anyone interested in nature writing in general or trees in particular should find Seeing Trees to be an enjoyable read. Hugo's approach is, for the most part, non-technical but some of the descriptive parts can be a little daunting. Yet, even when she's getting technical the text is easy to follow and I came away with a better understanding of trees and a real desire to try "tree watching" as a recreational hobby. Now, if I can just find a good field guide and a group of interested nature lovers, who knows where this will lead me. Along with Hugo's interesting text are Robert Liewellyn's beautiful photo's that decorate the narrative with many incredible images, ranging from full trees to micro's of buds, flower and other tree parts. The use of the white background is effective on some shots but on others it was distracting and even a little annoying ( ie: pale yellow-green or white flowers against a white background is not the best way to highlight your subject. In some frames a dark or black, or even a natural background, would have been preferable). That being said, this is still a wonderful nature book and one that I will be referring back to, now and then. I had no technical or formatting problems with this Kindle edition.Last Ranger This book is worthy of the coffee table and bedstand. I’ve also enjoyed it on the terrace with a cuppa. I picked this beauty up at Kew Gardens after a day in early spring with lemony lime limbs budding out of all over the conifers. I couldn’t resist touching and photographing the bright new growth in contrast to the mature deep pine. Sure there were daffodils galore, but the trees owned the garden. Seeing Trees has observant and creative text, but the images (with the focus merging multiple depths of field on micro images) bring the volume to life by presenting amazing beauty very close up.
What do You think about Seeing Trees: Discover The Extraordinary Secrets Of Everyday Trees (2011)?
Beautiful book. Never would have thought I could read a whole book just about trees.
—Vicki
Gorgeous photos. Fun, personal narrative.
—Heatherk573
Another gift for helping us learn to see.
—mimi1994
