Book Review: Trees of Life

 

This large (8 x 11 in) coffee table book would be a wonderful library addition for those fascinated with trees or anthropology. The author chose 80 of what he considers to be the most useful trees from some 60,000 extant species of trees to highlight in this book. The photography and illustrations are beautiful, but I was struck primarily by the insights into how these trees have and do support the societies where they grow.

Some of these trees I had not heard of--after all, most are indigenous to other countries. However, the bits of history, art, medicine, and religion that surround them illustrate the important role these trees have played, and still play, in human history.

One example of an interesting tidbit concerns the pollination of the common fig:

"Looking for spring flowers on a fig is a waste of time: they grow, hidden from sight, inside the fruiting body as part of one of the most bizarre reproductive cycles anywhere in the natural world. As long ago as the fourth century BCE Aristotle knew that a certain wasp that emanated from a wild fig pollinated the flowers and we now know that every species of fig has its own bespoke wasp for a pollinating partner. The female fig wasp bores a tiny hole into the immature fruiting body, lays her eggs inside--pollinating the flowers as she does so--and dies there. Her maile progeny, as soon as they emerge inside the fruit, impregnate the still unborn females and then bore an exit hole, through which the egg-bearing females later emerge to seek their own new fruit." pg 118

This is just one of many interesting facts the author shares in this book. The book is available from Princeton Press for $29.95 and for $25.71 on Amazon.