Download or read book A History of Trees written by Simon Wills and published by Grub Street Publishers. This book was released on 2018-10-30 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Make Arbor Day every day with little known and intriguing facts about the plants that populate our forests, give us shade, and clean our air. Have you ever wondered how trees got their names? What did our ancestors think about trees, and how were they used in the past? This fascinating book will answer many of your questions, but also reveal interesting stories that are not widely known. For example, the nut from which tree was predicted to pay off the UK’s national debt? Or why is Europe’s most popular pear called the “conference”? Simon Wills tells the history of twenty-eight common trees in an engaging and entertaining way, and every chapter is illustrated with his photographs. Find out why the London plane tree is so frequently planted in our cities, and how our forebears were in awe of the magical properties of hawthorn. Where is Britain’s largest conker tree? Which tree was believed to protect you against both lightning and witchcraft? The use of bay tree leaves as a sign of victory by athletes in ancient Greece led to them being subsequently adopted by many others—from Roman emperors to the Royal Marines. But why were willow trees associated with Alexander Pope, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Samuel Johnson? Why did Queen Anne pay a large sum for a cutting from a walnut tree in Somerset? Discover the answers to these and many other intriguing tales within the pages of this highly engrossing book.
Download or read book A Natural History of North American Trees written by Donald Culross Peattie and published by Trinity University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A volume for a lifetime" is how The New Yorker described the first of Donald Culross Peatie's two books about American trees published in the 1950s. In this one-volume edition, modern readers are introduced to one of the best nature writers of the last century. As we read Peattie's eloquent and entertaining accounts of American trees, we catch glimpses of our country's history and past daily life that no textbook could ever illuminate so vividly. Here you'll learn about everything from how a species was discovered to the part it played in our country’s history. Pioneers often stabled an animal in the hollow heart of an old sycamore, and the whole family might live there until they could build a log cabin. The tuliptree, the tallest native hardwood, is easier to work than most softwood trees; Daniel Boone carved a sixty-foot canoe from one tree to carry his family from Kentucky into Spanish territory. In the days before the Revolution, the British and the colonists waged an undeclared war over New England's white pines, which made the best tall masts for fighting ships. It's fascinating to learn about the commercial uses of various woods -- for paper, fine furniture, fence posts, matchsticks, house framing, airplane wings, and dozens of other preplastic uses. But we cannot read this book without the occasional lump in our throats. The American elm was still alive when Peattie wrote, but as we read his account today we can see what caused its demise. Audubon's portrait of a pair of loving passenger pigeons in an American beech is considered by many to be his greatest painting. It certainly touched the poet in Donald Culross Peattie as he depicted the extinction of the passenger pigeon when the beech forest was destroyed. A Natural History of North American Trees gives us a picture of life in America from its earliest days to the middle of the last century. The information is always interesting, though often heartbreaking. While Peattie looks for the better side of man's nature, he reports sorrowfully on the greed and waste that have doomed so much of America's virgin forest.
Download or read book The Tree written by Colin Tudge and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-10-23 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A blend of history, science, philosophy, and environmentalism, The Tree is an engaging and elegant look at the life of the tree and what modern research tells us about their future. There are redwoods in California that were ancient by the time Columbus first landed, and pines still alive that germinated around the time humans invented writing. There are Douglas firs as tall as skyscrapers, and a banyan tree in Calcutta as big as a football field. From the tallest to the smallest, trees inspire wonder in all of us, and in The Tree, Colin Tudge travels around the world—throughout the United States, the Costa Rican rain forest, Panama and Brazil, India, New Zealand, China, and most of Europe—bringing to life stories and facts about the trees around us: how they grow old, how they eat and reproduce, how they talk to one another (and they do), and why they came to exist in the first place. He considers the pitfalls of being tall; the things that trees produce, from nuts and rubber to wood; and even the complicated debt that we as humans owe them. Tudge takes us to the Amazon in flood, when the water is deep enough to submerge the forest entirely and fish feed on fruit while river dolphins race through the canopy. He explains the “memory” of a tree: how those that have been shaken by wind grow thicker and sturdier, while those attacked by pests grow smaller leaves the following year; and reveals how it is that the same trees found in the United States are also native to China (but not Europe). From tiny saplings to centuries-old redwoods and desert palms, from the backyards of the American heartland to the rain forests of the Amazon and the bamboo forests, Colin Tudge takes the reader on a journey through history and illuminates our ever-present but often ignored companions.
Download or read book The Tree Book written by DK and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The secret world of trees is revealed in this beautiful and absorbing guide to the giants of the plant world. Trees occur naturally throughout the world and have been a part of human history almost as long as humans have existed. Used for shelter, tools, fuel, and food, they also help supply the atmosphere with oxygen and form astonishingly diverse ecosystems, as well as some of the world’s most beautiful landscapes. Now the intricate world of leafy woodlands and abundant rainforests is revealed in this extensive visual guide to trees, exploring their key scientific traits and their ecological importance, as well as their enduring significance in human history and culture. From ancient oaks and great redwoods to lush banyans and imposing kapoks, The Tree Book reveals the anatomy, behaviors, and beauty of these incredible plants and habitats in detail. Combining natural history and a scientific overview with a wider look at the history, uses, symbolism, and mythology of trees, this book is a new kind of guide to these fascinating organisms.
Download or read book A Natural History of Trees of Eastern and Central North America written by Donald Culross Peattie and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 1991 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed handbook giving clear descriptions and full historical information about the trees that grow in North America--Résumé de l'éditeur.
Download or read book Trees of Life written by Theodore W. Pietsch and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-07 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Evolution.
Download or read book Seeing Trees written by Sonja Dümpelmann and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-08 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating and beautifully illustrated volume that explains what street trees tell us about humanity’s changing relationship with nature and the city Today, cities around the globe are planting street trees to mitigate the effects of climate change. However, as landscape historian Sonja Dümpelmann explains, this is not a new phenomenon. In her eye-opening work, Dümpelmann shows how New York City and Berlin began systematically planting trees to improve the urban climate during the nineteenth century, presenting the history of the practice within its larger social, cultural, and political contexts. A unique integration of empirical research and theory, Dümpelmann’s richly illustrated work uncovers this important untold story. Street trees—variously regarded as sanitizers, nuisances, upholders of virtue, economic engines, and more—reflect the changing relationship between humans and nonhuman nature in urban environments. Offering valuable insights and frameworks, this authoritative volume will be an important resource for years to come.
Download or read book Trees Woods and Forests written by Charles Watkins and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2014-10-15 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forests—and the trees within them—have always been a central resource for the development of technology, culture, and the expansion of humans as a species. Examining and challenging our historical and modern attitudes toward wooded environments, this engaging book explores how our understanding of forests has transformed in recent years and how it fits in our continuing anxiety about our impact on the natural world. Drawing on the most recent work of historians, ecologist geographers, botanists, and forestry professionals, Charles Watkins reveals how established ideas about trees—such as the spread of continuous dense forests across the whole of Europe after the Ice Age—have been questioned and even overturned by archaeological and historical research. He shows how concern over woodland loss in Europe is not well founded—especially while tropical forests elsewhere continue to be cleared—and he unpicks the variety of values and meanings different societies have ascribed to the arboreal. Altogether, he provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary overview of humankind’s interaction with this abused but valuable resource.
Download or read book Trees in Paradise written by Jared Farmer and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2013-10-28 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Describes how the first settlers in California changed the brown landscape there by creating groves, wooded suburbs and landscaped cities through planting eucalypts in the lowlands, citrus colonies in the south and palms in Los Angeles.
Download or read book Trees of New England written by Charles Fergus and published by Falcon Guides. This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A beautifully written natural history of the more than seventy tree species that grow in New England. Includes detailed illustrations and range maps.
Download or read book The Book of Trees written by Manuel Lima and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2014-04-08 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Our critically acclaimed bestseller Visual Complexity was the first in-depth examination of the burgeoning field of information visualization. Particularly noteworthy are the numerous historical examples of past efforts to make sense of complex systems of information. In this new companion volume, The Book of Trees, data viz expert Manuel Lima examines the more than eight hundred year history of the tree diagram, from its roots in the illuminated manuscripts of medieval monasteries to its current resurgence as an elegant means of visualization. Lima presents two hundred intricately detailed tree diagram illustrations on a remarkable variety of subjects—from some of the earliest known examples from ancient Mesopotamia to the manuscripts of medieval monasteries to contributions by leading contemporary designers. A timeline of capsule biographies on key figures in the development of the tree diagram rounds out this one-of-a-kind visual compendium.
Download or read book Trees written by P. A. Thomas and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2000-02-13 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trees are familiar components of many landscapes, vital to the healthy functioning of the global ecosystem and unparalled in the range of materials which they provide for human use. Yet how much do we really understand about how they work? This 2000 book provides a comprehensive introduction to the natural history of trees, presenting information on all aspects of tree biology and ecology in an easy to read and concise text. Fascinating insights into the workings of these everyday plants are uncovered throughout the book, with questions such as how are trees designed, how do they grow and reproduce, and why do they eventually die tackled in an illuminating way. Written for a non-technical audience, the book is nonetheless rigorous in its treatment and will therefore provide a valuable source of reference for beginning students as well as those with a less formal interest in this fascinating group of plants.
Download or read book Elderflora written by Jared Farmer and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2022-10-18 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The epic story of the planet’s oldest trees and the making of the modern world Humans have always revered long-lived trees. But as historian Jared Farmer reveals in Elderflora, our veneration took a modern turn in the eighteenth century, when naturalists embarked on a quest to locate and precisely date the oldest living things on earth. The new science of tree time prompted travelers to visit ancient specimens and conservationists to protect sacred groves. Exploitation accompanied sanctification, as old-growth forests succumbed to imperial expansion and the industrial revolution. Taking us from Lebanon to New Zealand to California, Farmer surveys the complex history of the world’s oldest trees, including voices of Indigenous peoples, religious figures, and contemporary scientists who study elderflora in crisis. In a changing climate, a long future is still possible, Farmer shows, but only if we give care to young things that might grow old.
Download or read book Urban Forests written by Jill Jonnes and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2017-09-05 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Far-ranging and deeply researched, Urban Forests reveals the beauty and significance of the trees around us.” —Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction “Jonnes extols the many contributions that trees make to city life and celebrates the men and women who stood up for America’s city trees over the past two centuries. . . . An authoritative account.” —Gerard Helferich, The Wall Street Journal “We all know that trees can make streets look prettier. But in her new book Urban Forests, Jill Jonnes explains how they make them safer as well.” —Sara Begley, Time Magazine A celebration of urban trees and the Americans—presidents, plant explorers, visionaries, citizen activists, scientists, nurserymen, and tree nerds—whose arboreal passions have shaped and ornamented the nation’s cities, from Jefferson’s day to the present As nature’s largest and longest-lived creations, trees play an extraordinarily important role in our cities; they are living landmarks that define space, cool the air, soothe our psyches, and connect us to nature and our past. Today, four-fifths of Americans live in or near urban areas, surrounded by millions of trees of hundreds of different species. Despite their ubiquity and familiarity, most of us take trees for granted and know little of their fascinating natural history or remarkable civic virtues. Jill Jonnes’s Urban Forests tells the captivating stories of the founding mothers and fathers of urban forestry, in addition to those arboreal advocates presently using the latest technologies to illuminate the value of trees to public health and to our urban infrastructure. The book examines such questions as the character of American urban forests and the effect that tree-rich landscaping might have on commerce, crime, and human well-being. For amateur botanists, urbanists, environmentalists, and policymakers, Urban Forests will be a revelation of one of the greatest, most productive, and most beautiful of our natural resources.
Download or read book Trees written by Piotr Socha and published by Harry N. Abrams. This book was released on 2019-04-09 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part botany, part history, part cultural anthropology--Trees goes beyond the basics to tell readers everything they might want to know about this particular branch of the plant kingdom. Trees explores the important roles trees play in our ecosystem, takes an up-close-and-personal look at the parts of trees (from roots to leaves), and unpacks the cultural impact of trees from classification systems (like family trees) to art forms (like bonsai trees). Looking forward, Trees also addresses the deforestation crisis. Heavily illustrated in the same style as Bees: A Honeyed History, Trees: A Rooted History serves as a beautifully packaged celebration of trees of all kinds.
Download or read book American Canopy written by Eric Rutkow and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the bestselling tradition of Michael Pollan's "Second Nature," this fascinating and unique historical work tells the remarkable story of the relationship between Americans and trees across the entire span of our nation's history.
Download or read book The Long Long Life of Trees written by Fiona J. Stafford and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fiona Stafford offers intimate, detailed explorations of seventeen common trees, from ash and apple to pine, oak, cypress, and willow. Stafford discusses practical uses of wood past and present, tree diseases and environmental threats, and trees' potential contributions toward slowing global climate change
