Extraordinary secrets of everyday trees
20 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Books, News, On Books & Reading, Reading Tags: Seeing Trees:Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees, Timber Press, trees
I enjoy going out into nature, visiting our local parks, beaches, and arboretums. Part of the appeal are the trees I experience. Some are old friends, like a towering American beech I’ve known for over thirty years; others are mysterious strangers to be identified by leaf, bark, fruit or seed.
Not everyone can appreciate the affection I hold for my favorite trees. Nancy Ross Hugo and Robert Llewellyn, co-authors of Seeing Trees: Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees, understand the meaning and importance of trees. Hugo’s delightful text and Llewellyn’s breathtaking photographs “deliver a steady steam of small astonishments that not only underscore the fascinating physiology of tress but bring you into a closer, more intimate relationship with these miracles of nature.” Hugo teaches the reader how to experience a tree, a lesson I’ve learned over decades of arboreal observation. You must look closely at a tree to really experience it. At the ground around the tree trunk, where you can find the oak’s acorn, the fruit of the common dogwood, the pointy fruit of the sweet gum. At the tree’s bark, the smooth and shiny white of the white birch, splotchy camouflage of the sycamore, smooth greyness of the American beech. At the shape of the tree, its twigs and leaves; the needle sharp buds of the beech teach our fingers a lesson in identification. Being able to identify a tree by its signs provides a feeling of intimate knowledge, of comfort and camaraderie, of belonging.
Beech, sycamore, oak and maple, Hugo reintroduces us to the trees we’ve grown perhaps too familiar with, encouraging the viewer to look closely and deeply to appreciate the life and majesty of our common neighbors. Hugo and Llewellyn are eminently successful in making those trees we see and ignore every day come alive, demonstrating their beauty and secrets.
Seeing Trees provided my first introduction to Timber Press, Inc., a Portland, OR, publisher of books on gardening, ornamental and edible horticulture, garden design, sustainability, natural history, and the Pacific Northwest. Visit their blog here.
A report published recently by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service further affirms the value that trees add to our lives.
City dwellers can find many reasons to value neighborhood trees. The urban greenery provides relief from the built environment that many find appealing. In fact, a previous study found that a tree in front of a home increased that home’s sales price by more than $7,000. Two new studies explore the measurable effects that urban trees and green spaces have a human health and crime rates.
Geoffrey Donovan, a research forester with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, used public health data, crime statistics, tax records aerial photos and other information in the two studies. He found that women who live in houses with more trees are less likely to have underweight babies. The study on crime revealed a more complex relationship. Larger trees, including trees located near the street, are associated with a lower incidence of property crimes. Larger numbers of smaller trees — especially trees planted near the home, which may provide a screen for burglars — are associated with higher crime.
Title: Growing quality of life: urban trees, birth weight, and crime. Author: Kirkland, John. Date: 2011. Source: Science Findings 137. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 6 p.
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