A Tree Masterpiece

Tree lovers take note
On this, the first day of spring, give a gift that will last a lifetime: the best book you'll ever read about trees.  It is all pure poetry, and here's just a sample, on the American Beech:

"In very early spring, an unearthly pale pure green clothes the tree in a misty nimbus of light.  As the foliage matures, it becomes a translucent blue green through which the light, but not the heat, of the summer day comes clearly.  And in autumn these delicate leaves, borne chiefly on the ends of the branchlets and largely in one plane, in broad flat sprays, turn a soft clear yellow. Then is the Beech translated. As the sun of Indian summer bathes the great tree, it stands in a profound autumnal calm, enveloped in a golden light that hallows all about it."

A Natural History of North American Trees by Donald Culross Peattie, has just been reissued by Houghton Mifflin.  Editor Frances Tenenbaum simply didn't want the book to go out of print, and we all owe her a deep debt of gratitude.  The original two volumes have been reduced to one, mainly by eliminating some minor trees and unwieldy descriptions.  We are left with the original language of Peattie, who was described by the late naturalist and critic Joseph Wood Krutch as "perhaps the most widely read of all contemporary American nature writers."

(click on image or title to purchase book)

Each tree's profile contains far more than just scientific info about each one.  Peattie includes fascinating cultural and historical information, and spins great tales about many trees and their encounters with humans.

• The Eastern White Pine played such an important economic and psychological role in Maine and New Hampshire in the run-up to the American Revolution that there was a spy system to catch those who cut down the trees in violation of British law.
• The Monterey Peninsula and its pine trees are the setting for Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island.
• Daniel Boone cut down a Tuliptree to make a 60-foot canoe that transported his family from Kentucky into Spanish Territory.
• On Silver Maples: "..it cannot grow without lending grace to any spot; it makes a railroad station look like a home, and adds a century to the appearance of a village street."
• American pioneers often used a hollow Sycamore to stable a horse, a cow, or a pig.
• George Washington's hollies that he transplanted from the woods all died;  all the ones he received as gifts all lived.

This is a perfect book to keep by your bedside, to read in a park or a clearing in the woods, on the beach or in your own back yard.  The original stunning illustrations by Paul Landacre have also been preserved.  The etchings were made with a technique called scratchboard, which consists of a base coated with white clay and topped by black ink.  The artist creates the dramatic illustrations by making thousands of tiny cuts into the board.