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American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation Eric Rutkow 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. Like so many of us, historians are guilty of taking trees for granted. The history of trees in America is no less than the history of the United States itself—from the majestic pines of the East coveted by the King of England for British warships to the orange groves of California, which lured settlers west. Without trees, there would have been no ships, railroads, stockyards, furniture, wagons, barrels, or firewood. Never before has anyone ever treated our country’s trees as the subject of a broad historical and cultural study, and the result is an accessible, informative, and thoroughly entertaining read. As symbols of liberty, community, and civilization, trees are perhaps the loudest silent figures in America’s complicated history. The journey of how forests morphed from dark, unmapped infinities, to vast timber reserves essential to the creation of the American empire, and finally to sanctuaries of nature is a complex tale. Americans started as people frightened of the woods, became a nation that depended upon its forests for progress and profit, and finally arrived at the present point. Today, few people know where timber comes from or can name many tree species, but most of us share a sense that to destroy trees is to destroy part of ourselves. Audacious in its 400-year scope, authoritative in its detail, and elegant in its execution, this one-of-a-kind read is perfect for history buffs and nature lovers alike. |
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The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America Timothy Egan National Book Award–winner Timothy Egan turns his historian's eye to the largest-ever forest fire in America and offers an epic, cautionary tale for our time. On the afternoon of August 20, 1910, a battering ram of wind moved through the drought-stricken national forests of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, whipping the hundreds of small blazes burning across the forest floor into a roaring inferno that jumped from treetop to ridge as it raged, destroying towns and timber in the blink of an eye. Forest rangers had assembled nearly ten thousand men to fight the fires, but no living person had seen anything like those flames, and neither the rangers nor anyone else knew how to subdue them. Egan recreates the struggles of the overmatched rangers against the implacable fire with unstoppable dramatic force, and the larger story of outsized president Teddy Roosevelt and his chief forester, Gifford Pinchot, that follows is equally resonant. Pioneering the notion of conservation, Roosevelt and Pinchot did nothing less than create the idea of public land as our national treasure, owned by every citizen. Even as TR's national forests were smoldering they were saved: The heroism shown by his rangers turned public opinion permanently in favor of the forests, though it changed the mission of the forest service in ways we can still witness today. |
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The Baboon and the Baobab Tree Bruce Bullock ‘The Baboon and the Baobab Tree’ is a children’s book about a big Baobab tree in Africa and the wildlife community around it. It is told from the perspective of a baboon and all the animals that he sees from the baobab. It tells of the different animals from the baboon’s point of view and aims to inform children of the wonders of the diversity of the natural world with a conservation message.
‘Because I could look quite fierce when I was angry, not too many animals would threaten us. Most of the time, I would spend watching over my family and seeing that they didn’t stray too far from the baobab where it was safe. From high up in the tree we could see for miles around and it was always interesting to watch the other animals as they went about their business.
Living in Africa there were lots of dangerous animals both large and small and you got to know the nice ones and those that were dangerous. Animals have their own way of communicating you see, and could send a message just by the way they moved, or stood, or with noises or smells. There were lots of different messages that were always being given out by the different creatures which didn’t take too long to understand.’
This book has an active table of contents and 36 illustrations and would be enjoyed by children from ages 4-8 |
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National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Trees: Eastern Region NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY Tree peepers everywhere will enjoy these two guides which explore the incredible environment of our country's forests-including seasonal features, habitat, range, and lore. Nearly 700 species of trees are detailed in photographs of leaf shape, bark, flowers, fruit, and fall leaves -- all can be quickly accessed making this the ideal field guide for any time of year.
Note: the Eastern Edition generally covers states east of the Rocky Mountains, while the Western Edition covers the Rocky Mountain range and all the states to the west of it. |
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Young Men and Fire Norman Maclean On August 5, 1949, a crew of fifteen of the United States Forest Service's elite airborne firefighters, the Smokejumpers, stepped into the sky above a remote forest fire in the Montana wilderness. Two hours after their jump, all but three of these men were dead or mortally burned. Haunted by these deaths for forty years, Norman Maclean puts back together the scattered pieces of the Mann Gulch tragedy.
Young Men and Fire won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1992.
"A magnificent drama of writing, a tragedy that pays tribute to the dead and offers rescue to the living.... Maclean's search for the truth, which becomes an exploration of his own mortality, is more compelling even than his journey into the heart of the fire. His description of the conflagration terrifies, but it is his battle with words, his effort to turn the story of the 13 men into tragedy that makes this book a classic."—from New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, Best Books of 1992
"A treasure: part detective story, part western, part tragedy, part elegy and wholly eloquent ghost story in which the dead and the living join ranks cheerfully, if sometimes eerily, in a search for truth and the rest it brings."—Joseph Coates, Chicago Tribune
"An astonishing book. In compelling language, both homely and elegant, Young Men and Fire miraculously combines a fascinating primer on fires and firefighting, a powerful, breathtakingly real reconstruction of a tragedy, and a meditation on writing, grief and human character.... Maclean's last book will stir your heart and haunt your memory."—Timothy Foote, USA Today
"Beautiful.... A dark American idyll of which the language can be proud."—Robert M. Adams, The New York Review of Books
"Young Men and Fire is redolent of Melville. Just as the reader of Moby Dick comes to comprehend the monstrous entirety of the great white whale, so the reader of Young Men and Fire goes into the heart of the great red fire and comes out thoroughly informed. Don't hesitate to take the plunge."—Dennis Drabelle, Washington Post Book World
"Young Men and Fire is a somber and poetic retelling of a tragic event. It is the pinnacle of smokejumping literature and a classic work of 20th-century nonfiction."—John Holkeboer, The Wall Street Journal
"Maclean is always with the brave young dead. . . . They could not have found a storyteller with a better claim to represent their honor. . . . A great book."—James R. Kincaid, New York Times Book Review |
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National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America Bruce Kershner From the National Wildlife Federation® comes the most up-to-date, all-photographic field guide to North American trees. The Jeffrey Pine, Coconut Palm, Staghorn Sumac, and Western Hemlock: this single, portable volume features these, plus more than 700 other tree species and varieties, with special emphasis on their leaves, bark, fruits, and flowers. More than 2,000 stunning images show these trees in their natural habitats. Other features include: a unique identification tip for each tree; range maps showing distribution in North America; How to Identify a Tree section; a detailed glossary of tree parts and leaf, fruit, flower, and bark types; essays on ecology, conservation, and North America’s important forest types; plus a complex species and quick-flip indexes. The guide’s unique waterproof cover makes it especially valuable for use in the field. |
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The Golden Spruce : A True Story of Myth, Madness and Greed John Vaillant |
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The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring Richard Preston Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the largest and tallest organisms the world has ever sustained–the coast redwood trees, Sequoia sempervirens. Ninety-six percent of the ancient redwood forests have been destroyed by logging, but the untouched fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods have trunks up to thirty feet wide and can rise more than thirty-five stories above the ground, forming cathedral-like structures in the air. Until recently, redwoods were thought to be virtually impossible to ascend, and the canopy at the tops of these majestic trees was undiscovered. In The Wild Trees, Richard Preston unfolds the spellbinding story of Steve Sillett, Marie Antoine, and the tiny group of daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, a world that is dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored.
The canopy voyagers are young–just college students when they start their quest–and they share a passion for these trees, persevering in spite of sometimes crushing personal obstacles and failings. They take big risks, they ignore common wisdom (such as the notion that there’s nothing left to discover in North America), and they even make love in hammocks stretched between branches three hundred feet in the air.
The deep redwood canopy is a vertical Eden filled with mosses, lichens, spotted salamanders, hanging gardens of ferns, and thickets of huckleberry bushes, all growing out of massive trunk systems that have fused and formed flying buttresses, sometimes carved into blackened chambers, hollowed out by fire, called “fire caves.” Thick layers of soil sitting on limbs harbor animal and plant life that is unknown to science. Humans move through the deep canopy suspended on ropes, far out of sight of the ground, knowing that the price of a small mistake can be a plunge to one’s death.
Preston’s account of this amazing world, by turns terrifying, moving, and fascinating, is an adventure story told in novelistic detail by a master of nonfiction narrative. The author shares his protagonists’ passion for tall trees, and he mastered the techniques of tall-tree climbing to tell the story in The Wild Trees–the story of the fate of the world’s most splendid forests and of the imperiled biosphere itself.
From the Hardcover edition. |
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Trees of North America;: A field guide to the major native and introduced species north of Mexico, (A Golden field guide) C. Frank Brockman Smell the bark of the aromatic Sassafras. Wonder at the Lodgepole Pine, whose heat-activated cones reseed forests destroyed by fire. Search for the Sugar Maple, whose foliage blazes red and yellow in autumn. North America's trees rank among nature's most awesome creations. This premier field guide features all characteristics-tree shape, bark, leaf, flower, fruit and twig-for quick identification, making it a superior choice for trail walks, creating displays, and scientific or commercial needs.
-All of North America in one volume
-Over 730 species in 76 families and 160 range maps
-Native species and important introduced foreign varieties
-Text, range maps, and illustrations seen together at a glance
-Common and scientific names
-Convenient measuring rules
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The Sibley Guide to Trees David Allen Sibley A beautiful, masterful and much needed work that willhenceforth be our guide to North American trees.Brought to you by David Sibley of Sibleys Birder Guides. |