Product Description

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. 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.


From the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #56946 in eBooks
• Published on: 2006-10-03
• Released on: 2006-10-03
• Format: Kindle Book
• Number of items: 1

From Publishers Weekly
In an elegant tribute to denizens of nature that humans too often take for granted, British biologist Tudge (The Famine Business) presents a wealth of intriguing facts about trees. Basing his information on science and writing "in a spirit of reverence," he explains how biologists identify the different kinds of trees; how trees have evolved over millions of years; how they adapt to their habitats, survive and reproduce. Describing a multitude of species, Tudge emphasizes the distinctive characteristics of each. He marvels, for example, at banyans with their roots hanging down from their branches, palms whose roots grow directly from their trunks, mangroves standing with their roots in the sea, baobabs holding so much water in their swollen trunks that they are extremely resistant to drought, figs in partnership with the minute wasps that pollinate them—"one dedicated species of wasp for each of the 750 species of fig." Tudge concludes with a chapter emphasizing the importance of all types of trees for humankind's well-being—a persuasive call to action for the preservation of the environment so that trees, and humans, can survive. 33 exquisite line drawings. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
*Starred Review* British biologist and science-writer-extraordinaire Tudge offers a sumptuously specific tour of the phenomenal world of trees. Earth's longest-lived sentinels, trees serve as the planet's lungs, organic metropolises for wildly diverse species, and the source of food, medicine, our most versatile building material, and a large quotient of nature's most majestic beauty. After tracking the slow evolution of plant life from "metabolizing slime" to trees attaining gravity-defying heights, Tudge declares that trees are engineering marvels and that "wood is one of the wonders of the universe." He is equally in awe over the astonishing variety of forms trees achieve around the globe, and precisely describes them, from oaks to baobabs to the mighty kauri. "Without trees, our species would not have come into being at all," declares Tudge, and now in this time of global warming, trees are key to our survival. Tudge's explanation of how climate change will endanger trees is invaluable. Along with Wangari Maathai, founder of Kenya's Green Belt Movement (see Unbowed, p.29), Tudge shares knowledge and issues a call to action in this indispensable celebration of one of our most precious natural resources. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Enchanting. . . . Tudge sees grandeur in how trees exist in the world . . . and demonstrates it with fascinating stories.” –New York Times Book Review

“Tudge writes in the great tradition of naturalists such as Humboldt and John Muir. . . . Eloquent and deeply persuasive.”–Los Angeles Times

“To be both scientifically literate and lyrically inclined is a unique gift, and justly celebrated whenever we encounter it, in Lewis Thomas, for example, or in Stephen Jay Gould. Colin Tudge is such an individual.”–Melissa Fay Green, Washington Post

"Through its astonishing revelations about what is related to what in the plant world, Colin Tudge's The Tree reawakens the pleasure of those childish games [of classifying animal, vegetable, or mineral]. But The Tree is a far deeper book than this might suggest, for its author has a remarkable ability to ask fundamental questions about trees and their world--questions that, much to our detriment, most of us stopped asking as we grew up. . . . The Tree is full of . . . wonderful scientific facts and folklore. . . . Profound."
-Tim Flannery, New York Review of Books

“English biologist Tudge has synthesized volumes of research and presents his resulting work with humor, passion, even panache. . . . Fascinating. . . . Dazzling. . . . Few books are as relevant for our time as this one.”–Kirkus Reviews, starred

“In an elegant tribute to denizens of nature that humans too often take for granted, British biologist Tudge presents a wealth of intriguing facts about trees. . . . A persuasive call to action for the preservation of the environment so that trees, and humans, can survive.”–Publishers Weekly

‘Page after page of astonishing tree-facts … makes us look anew at the familiar, to understand a little more of the hidden an...

Customer Reviews

Arboreal trilogy
"I never met a Tudge I didn't like" is a fitting adage for this wide-ranging author. Having written an "unauthorised biography" of life, the impact of agriculture on human development and other works, Tudge has created a masterpiece of science writing. No longer can we claim that we can't "see the woods for the trees" since he has detailed the mechanics of both in exquisite detail. At) least so far as we know now. If nothing else is clear from this book, what we don't know about the mechanisms of trees far exceeds what we've learned. Trees, so ubiquitous in their presence and so meaningful in our lives, remain a great mystery to be solved. In three almost independent segments, he spells out what is known and what needs to be revealed.

He opens with one of the most understated definitions in science writing: "a tree is a big plant with a stick up the middle". From this simplistic opening, he then develops an image of how complex that "stick" and "plant" combination is in the final product. This complexity didn't appear from nowhere - the author explains how evolution built it from simple beginnings. Most readers will be familiar with the fact that 46 chromosome are needed to make a human. Trees, through various mechanisms, may develop hundreds of chromosomes depending on conditions. The structure of a single tree almost pales against the variety of trees growing around our planet. Tall trees, spreading ones, trees that we often call "shrubs" - which are merely superbly adapted to their local environment - all reflect the immense diversity trees have developed over the ages. Although generally divided into but two forms, conifers and "flowering" trees, they comprise thousands of species, many probably still unknown.

Tudge dedicates the second part of his book to descriptions of those variations. It is a catalogue of wonders as he depicts the oaks, beeches and other "common" types along with palms, celery pines and fruit trees. He begins with the ancient conifers, trees with a lineage stretching back nearly three hundred million years. That heritage shows in the varieties the conifers incorporate. From stately pines to humble ground-huggers, the conifers even include a parasitic member among their ranks. Angiosperms, the "flowering" trees, have surpassed the conifers in species number. The author lists each Order, with a list of the families and species. He explains why the numbers of species are in flux as new information about relationships comes to light. Tree habitats are also described with indications of where to find typical specimens.

In last third of the book: "How Trees Live", Tudge demonstrates why he's one of today's leading science writers. He has accumlated a vast repetoire of information, and presents it with almost passionate style. Seemingly static from our viewpoint, trees have much to do in the course of their lives. They must keep the sun in view, and many forests are competitive arenas to lift leaves into the light. There are seasons to keep track of, predators to discourage and to entice and employ helpers in the process of reproduction. Lacking brains, or other "intelligent" means, trees cannot manufacture devices for these needs. All must be accomplished with chemistry. Much of "the secret life of trees" is hidden here. With but five hormones and a handful of pigments to achieve their tasks, they have built up forms and methods to accomplish it all with an astounding degree of success.

Tudge's adulation of trees goes beyond being simply informative. In his conclusion, he both endorses our need to increase our knowledge of trees and warns of the effects of our failure to do so. We may view trees as aesthetically pleasing or as a source of lumber or paper. Either way, we must deal with them properly. Hewing down vast forests does far more than leave a barren landscape. Trees are the source of the oxygen we breathe. They take up the carbon dioxide our society produces in such imposing quantities. Their capacity for that role has likely been exceeded at this point. Trees matter, he argues, and we need to know why and how. This book is an excellent starting point to find the answers to that learning quest. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Everything you wanted to know about Trees
One of the most beloved and memorable of all popular poems is Joyce Kilmer's 'Trees' " I think that I shall never see/ a poem as lovely as a tree'/ A tree whose hungry mouth is prest/ against the earth's sweet flowing breast/.
The sheer wonder, delight, and inspiration 'Trees' give to our poetic nature is only one side of what they are.
In this learned and detailed study of Trees,Colin Tudge tells us more about them than we might ever have wanted to know. He describes the different species, provides a survival guide to the way Trees manage in often challenging environments, considers the special qualities of different kinds of trees, helps us understand how Trees are a benefit not only to the 'natural world' but to human civilization and society.
He does this as he also points out the new dangers facing various species from global- warming. And he has specific recommendations on how we can better create an environment more beneficial to the natural world as a whole.
The book is disappointingly poor in one element most of its readers will certainly want to have, good illustrations of Trees. But it nonetheless is an overall encyclopediac treasure for those for whom one of the natural world's great stars are an ongoing source of interest and attraction.

Another great book from Tudge
Tudge is to nature writing what the late, Nobel Laureate, Jorge Luis Borges, was to literature; he examines every aspect of a topic, turning it over until his examination is complete, and leaving no stone, or in this case leaf, unturned. And doing so with wit and style in a way no one else could.

This is the longest book length tome on natural history I've seen just devoted to trees, and it contains a huge amount of information, enough to put off the casual reader. For example, don't listen to the two negative reviews, they should have started with a beginning book on trees as Tudge's book is just too advanced. Tudge knows his audience well, which is that of already learned and literate natural history buffs, and trying this book before laying the groundwork is like trying to learn calculus without first learning algebra and trigonometry.

But I don't need to defend Tudge as his accomplishments speak for themselves. Overall, this is probably the most detailed piece of expository writing on trees ever done, outside of formal dendrology texts, which aren't nearly as readable (I know, I've read them). If you love trees and want to learn more about their biology, classification, and ecology, there is no more enjoyable way to do it than with this book, and it is probably destined to become a masterpiece and classic of the nature genre.