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A review by yarnylibrarian
Seeing Trees: Discover the Extraordinary Secrets of Everyday Trees by Robert Llewellyn, Nancy Ross Hugo
5.0
Can I give 10 stars? This is an absolutely delightful book filled with infectious writing by Nancy Hugo and accompanied by the most clear and helpful botanical photos I have ever seen (by Robert Llewellyn).
Hugo's goal is twofold: to inspire people to want to look - really look - at trees, and to teach them how to go about it. While the book is filled with science, it is not presented as a scientific text; instead, it's filled with enthusiasm, joy, and straightforward language. I knew I had selected the right book to learn more about trees when Hugo wrote about "jizz" early in the book:
The book starts with viewing strategies before diving into how to observe different tree traits, including leaves, flowers and cones, fruit, buds and leaf scars, and bark and twigs. These sections are full of crisp, closeup photos that show you what to look for. All photos are taken against a white backdrop so you can really see what's going on. The second half of the book is devoted to an exploration of ten of the most common trees found in the Eastern U.S. (American beech, American sycamore, black walnut, eastern red cedar, ginkgo, red maple, southern magnolia, tulip poplar, white oak, and white pine).
Throughout, Hugo's writing sparks interest in details I didn't know to care about - such as leaf scars. Leaf scars?! I didn't know that's what all the bumps along a twig are. How could one not look for them after reading such a passage:
There are so many other sections I could quote here, but really I just want you to seek out this book and wallow in it. My only possible criticism is that it is not conveniently sized for me to tote along on walks to look at trees (it is a heavy hardcover book measuring 9 x 10.25"). I'd love to see an accompanying field guide containing a distillation of the "Observing Tree Traits" section along with some pages for notes on my trees.
This book will change your relationship with your own yard and neighborhood!
Hugo's goal is twofold: to inspire people to want to look - really look - at trees, and to teach them how to go about it. While the book is filled with science, it is not presented as a scientific text; instead, it's filled with enthusiasm, joy, and straightforward language. I knew I had selected the right book to learn more about trees when Hugo wrote about "jizz" early in the book:
Just by virtue of being in a tree's presence, one develops an overall impression of the tree that is more than the sum of its parts. The word birders use to describe such an impression is jizz. Forget any other meaning you may have learned for this word; for birders, jizz means the overall impression or appearance of a bird garnered from such features as its shape, posture, flying style, size, color, voice, habitat, and location. It is a word that could also be applied to trees, because those who know trees best know them not as collections of identifiable parts but as organic wholes, like friends or family members whose recognizable features and behaviors have blended into one unmistakable, and beloved, presence. A black locust, for example, is not just a collection of parts that include compound leaves, dropping racemes of white flowers, deeply fissured bark, and pea-like seed pods. It is the sweet fragrance of May flowers dripping from broken branches on a ramshackle trunk, not to mention bees visiting the flowers and leaf miners devouring the leaves. To experience the jizz of trees, one needs to know them intimately, and the information that follows should help you accomplish that. (38)
The book starts with viewing strategies before diving into how to observe different tree traits, including leaves, flowers and cones, fruit, buds and leaf scars, and bark and twigs. These sections are full of crisp, closeup photos that show you what to look for. All photos are taken against a white backdrop so you can really see what's going on. The second half of the book is devoted to an exploration of ten of the most common trees found in the Eastern U.S. (American beech, American sycamore, black walnut, eastern red cedar, ginkgo, red maple, southern magnolia, tulip poplar, white oak, and white pine).
Throughout, Hugo's writing sparks interest in details I didn't know to care about - such as leaf scars. Leaf scars?! I didn't know that's what all the bumps along a twig are. How could one not look for them after reading such a passage:
What leaf scars represent - their symbolic significance - intrigues me as much as their physical appearance, however. Everywhere you see a leaf scar and its accompanying bundle scars, you are seeing a healed-over spot where a tree has, in order to keep itself alive, discarded a leaf. Because in winter, with reduced sunlight, a leaf is a liability to a deciduous tree (kept on the tree, it would continue to lose water to the atmosphere while producing little food), trees break their connections to their leaves and instead put their resources into maintaining their other living parts, including their resting buds. Not only does this process seem intelligent, efficient, and elegant to me, but there is something about it that seems to represent a life lesson - the wisdom of marshaling your resources when they are limited and you are under stress, so you can survive to live more productively another day. (89)
There are so many other sections I could quote here, but really I just want you to seek out this book and wallow in it. My only possible criticism is that it is not conveniently sized for me to tote along on walks to look at trees (it is a heavy hardcover book measuring 9 x 10.25"). I'd love to see an accompanying field guide containing a distillation of the "Observing Tree Traits" section along with some pages for notes on my trees.
This book will change your relationship with your own yard and neighborhood!