A Natural History of North American Trees | 
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Product Description
Donald Culross Peattie's two books about American trees were first published in the 1950s. In this beautiful new one-volume edition, modern readers are introduced to one of the best nature writers of the last century. More than one hundred of the original illustrations by Paul Landacre highlight the eloquent and entertaining accounts of American trees. As we read Peattie's descriptions, we catch glimpses of our country's history and past daily life that no textbook could ever illuminate so vividly.
Here you'll learn about everything from how a species was discovered to the part it played in our country's history. Pioneers often stabled an animal in the hollow heart of an old sycamore, and the whole family might live there until they could build a log cabin. The tuliptree, the tallest native hardwood, is easier to work than most softwood trees; Daniel Boone carved a sixty-foot canoe from one tree to carry his family from Kentucky into Spanish territory. In the days before the Revolution, the British and the colonists waged an undeclared war over New England's white pines, which made the best tall masts for fighting ships.
It's fascinating to learn about the commercial uses of various woods -- for paper, fine furniture, fence posts, matchsticks, house framing, airplane wings, and dozens of other preplastic uses. But we cannot read this book without the occasional lump in our throats. The American elm was still alive when Peattie wrote, but as we read his account today we can see what caused its demise. Audubon's portrait of a pair of loving passenger pigeons in an American beech is considered by many to be his greatest painting. It certainly touched the poet in Donald Culross Peattie as he depicted the extinction of the passenger pigeon when the beech forest was destroyed.
A Natural History of North American Trees gives us a picture of life in America from its earliest days to the middle of the last century. The information is always interesting, though often heartbreaking. While Peattie looks for the better side of man's nature, he reports sorrowfully on the greed and waste that have doomed so much of America's virgin forest.
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Customer Reviews:
• Classic Still Worth Reading 11 November, 2007
This was my introduction to the area of dendrology over 25 years ago. Although a psychobiology major, I went on to take six courses in botany out of an interest in learning more about plants, and I fondly remember how much fun I had learning to identify the trees on my travels in California using this book. Later I learned how to use more systematic keys to identify other plants such as flowers and fungi, but one of the fun things about trees is that, at least in temperate climates, there are relatively few species in any given area, and one can simply learn to identify them from a good nature book. (Contrast this with the fact that on an acre of Amazon rainforest, there can be 400 species of hardwoods alone). Peattie's descriptions of the trees are quite readable and sometimes even inspired. They ranged from one or two pages to up to five pages, so there is a lot of good information here. The book is now a revered classic and still worth your time and money to acquire and read.
One final note, speaking from experience in trying to identify many difficult as well as easy plants, in the case of the trees, don't forget to look at the bark, which can provide important clues. The Audubon book on trees is nice in that it incluces photos of both the flowers and leaves and the bark. For example, sycamores have deciduous bark (it peels off in parts, making the trunk look piebald), and cherry and prune trees have what's called "lenticellular" bark, which has horizontal striations. It can help you to distinguish trees which might otherwise look similar based just on the leaf, if the flowers aren't present. You probably won't have trouble indentifying a sequoia or redwood tree, but nevertheless, the bark is unusual in that it's fibrous. So don't overlook bark.
By the way, Peattie's A Diary for Moderns is also quite enjoyable and worth picking up too.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A1MJMYLRTZ76ZX
• Bits And Pieces Of A Classic Does Not Equal A Classic 27 May, 2008
Donald Culross Peattie's two volumes on the natural history of American trees have been rightfully regarded as classic books on their subject for the half-century since they appeared. Peattie's sparkling prose, combined with his scientific understanding and Paul Landacre's elegant woodcuts, remain unequalled in popular American nature writing. This great work deserves to be available to the public.
But what do we get? We get crumbs. Instead of the original 1357 pages of the combined works, this little summary gives us 512 pages, or 38%. Species in droves are arbitrarily thrown out -- as one example, instead of the original 32 pines this skimpy screed allows just 9. Nine pines to represent the great North American pinetum! Dendrological disaster.
Much better for the tree-obsessed reader to seek out the original volumes in used-book stores rather than settle for this insult to the author and the trees he loved so well.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A17JX7ZRETXIBQ
• Beautifully Written 19 July, 2007
This is a lovely book written in the best spirit of natural history. It contains brief (1-5 page) entries on most of the common trees of eastern North America. It is filled with fascinating information about their biology, ecology, and social impact. The best thing about the book however, is Peattie's writing style. You can tell how much he loves these trees simply by the way he writes about them.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A2LDXNM2JN16JR
• A Breathtakingly Perfect Book For Tree Lovers 06 June, 2008
How horribly unfair for an earlier reviewer to give this book one star simply because it is an abridged version. Think of how many people will see that review and choose not to read what may be the most perfect book for neophyte dendrologists ever written! Nor is the book for inexperienced tree aficionados only. Even experts will be well served by the books beautiful prose and unabashed emotion, even if only reminds them how best to inspire a love of trees in their students. I already know the Latin names of all the eastern trees in the book, and know how to identify each species by sight. Nonetheless, I was thrilled by the historical information in the descriptions, and was actually moved to tears by Peattie's description of what we have lost and will continue to lose as these trees disappear from our forests.
Each specie's unique characteristics are concisely described in the book, but each tree's character is lovingly explained, as well. Peattie writes so beautifully that you cannot help but be moved - and perhaps forever changed - by reading his descriptions. This book will make you gasp with wonder, stun you into speechlessness, make you laugh aloud with sheer joy, and probably move you to tears more than once. The few short pages about the Beech tree, for example, describe its characteristic bark and form, and explain how colonists knew a beech tree indicated good soil for planting crops. This is standard information, but how many field guides exclaim over the "gleam of its wondrously smooth bark," or remind us that the famous Beech carved into by Daniel Boone began its life fifty years before Shakespeare?
You don't need any prior knowledge of silviculture or dendrology to learn from and love this volume. Field Guides may help you to distinguish between a red oak and a black oak, but no other book will make you fall in love with a tree. In fact, all the guidebooks in the world fail to do what this book does effortlessly and beautifully: turn your appreciation for trees into an educated passion for each and every tree in your backyard and beyond. I promise you will not regret reading this book; I virtually guarantee you will read it again and again. I only wish I could thank the author personally for the gift of this perfect book.
- Reviewed by customer ID: A26DSUD5FB2HJK
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