The organic grower's guide to planting, propagation, culture, and ecology Trees are our allies in healing the world. Partnering with trees allows us to build soil, enhance biodiversity, increase wildlife populations, grow food and medicine, and pull carbon out of the atmosphere, sequestering it in the soil. Trees of Power explains how we can work with these arboreal allies, specifically focusing on propagation, planting, and individual species. Author Akiva Silver is an enthusiastic tree grower with years of experience running his own commercial nursery. In this book he clearly explains the most important concepts necessary for success with perennial woody plants. It's broken down into two parts: the first covering concepts and horticultural skills and the second with in-depth information on individual species. You'll learn different ways to propagate trees: by seed, grafting, layering, or with cuttings. These time-honored techniques make it easy for anyone to increase their stock of trees, simply and inexpensively. Ten chapters focus on the specific ecology, culture, and uses of different trees, ones that are common to North America and in other temperate parts of the world: Chestnut: The Bread Tree Apples: The Magnetic Center Poplar: The Homemaker Ash: Maker of Wood Mulberry: The Giving Tree Elderberry: The Caretaker Hickory: Pillars of Life Hazelnut: The Provider Black Locust: The Restoration Tree Beech: The Root Runner Trees of Power fills an urgent need for up-to-date information on some of our most important tree species, those that have multiple benefits for humans, animals, and nature. It also provides inspiration for new generations of tree stewards and caretakers who will not only benefit themselves, but leave a lasting legacy for future generations. Trees of Power is for everyone who wants to connect with trees. It is for the survivalist, the gardener, the homesteader, the forager, the permaculturist, the environmentalist, the parent, the schoolteacher, the farmer, and anyone who feels a deep kinship with these magnificent beings.

'Breathtakingly beautiful' i 'Tender and wholehearted' Helen Jukes LONGLISTED FOR THE WAINWRIGHT PRIZE A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE INDEPENDENT, FINANCIAL TIMES, I and GARDENS ILLUSTRATED When she suddenly finds herself uprooted, heartbroken, grieving and living out of a suitcase in her late twenties, Alice Vincent begins planting seeds. She nurtures pot plants and vines on windowsills and draining boards, filling her many temporary London homes with green. As the months pass, and with each unfurling petal and budding leaf, she begins to come back to life. Mixing memoir, botanical history and biography, Rootbound examines how bringing a little bit of the outside in can help us find our feet in a world spinning far too fast.

Fill your home with gorgeous flowers every day with this beautifully designed book. The Flower Garden brings to life over 50 varieties of flower with exquisite botanical illustrations. The innovative paper design allows you to press each illustration out of the page, transforming your book into a lovely object for you to display. Sunflowers, lilies, frangipani and birds of paradise are brought into your home and described in lyrical detail by botanist Michael Scott. This stunning bunch of blooms is the perfect gift for any lover of flowers to treasure for years to come. To see how your Paperscapes book transforms, check out the video below (just above the reviews) or have a look at the Paperscapes author page.

This is without doubt the most comprehensive field guide to the orchids of Britain and Europe. Every one of the 216 species and 30 subspecies are described and illustrated with superb colour photographs. For each species there is a close up photograph of the flower head and a more distant view showing the whole plant. There are also nearly 200 line drawings which highlight particular identification features. The text describes each species, as well as giving detailed information on habitat, flowering season, and distribution.

People’s Plants is a scientific review of all of the most important useful plants of southern Africa. It remains the first and only fully illustrated ethnobotanical reference source for southern Africa. In this expanded and updated second edition, traditional and contemporary uses of more than 700 plants are described and illustrated in 20 chapters, each dealing with a specific category of plant use:
• FOODS & DRINKS – (1) Cereals, (2) Seeds & nuts, (3) Fruits & berries, (4) Vegetables, (5) Roots, bulbs & tubers, and (6) Beverages.
• HEALTH & BEAUTY – (7) General medicines, (8) Tonic plants, (9) Mind & mood plants, (10) Women’s health, (11) Wounds, burns & skin conditions, (12) Dental care, (13) Perfumes & repellents, and (14) Soap plants and cosmetics.
• SKILLS & CRAFTS – (15) Hunting & fishing, (16) Dyes and tans, (17) Utility timbers, (18) Fire-making and firewood, (19) Basketry, weaving & ropes, (20) Thatching, mats & brooms.
This fascinating book is a must for anyone interested in useful plants, new crop plants, medicinal plants, new product development, ecotourism, rural development, traditional crafts, African culture, ethnobotany and botany in general.

The Northern Forest Region lies between the oak forests of the eastern United States and the boreal forests of eastern Canada. It is, collectively, one of the largest and most continuous temperate forests left in the world and, like much of the biosphere, it is at risk. This guide is an essential companion for those interested in stewardship and conservation of the region. Through multi-image composite photos that allow for unparalleled depth and clarity, this unique guide illustrates the majority of the 265 species of woody plants present in the forest and its associated communities. With a visual glossary, nineteen quick guides, and five systematic sections, this book is intended as a quick reference for the rapid identification of twigs and leaves. It is an invaluable tool for foresters and an excellent teaching guide for all ages. Large, easy-to-use format Easily compare different species Fully illustrated with high-definition composite images Accompanying large-scale foldout charts also available A complete online archive of images and articles, including digital atlases, is available at northernforestatlas.org.

A Modern Library Paperback Original

During the first years of the twentieth century, the British plant collector and explorer Frank Kingdon Ward went on twenty-four impossibly daring expeditions throughout Tibet, China, and Southeast Asia, in search of rare and elusive species of plants. He was responsible for the discovery of numerous varieties previously unknown in Europe and America, including the legendary Tibetan blue poppy, and the introduction of their seeds into the world’s gardens. Kingdon Ward’s accounts capture all the romance of his wildly adventurous expeditions, whether he was swinging across a bottomless gorge on a cable of twisted bamboo strands or clambering across a rocky scree in fear of an impending avalanche. Drawn from writings out of print for almost seventy-five years, this new collection, edited and introduced by professional horticulturalist and House & Garden columnist Tom Christopher, returns Kingdon Ward to his deserved place in the literature of discovery and the literature of the garden.

As climate change erodes the familiar pattern of the seasons, we turn instinctively to the life cycles of herbaceous plants to guide us through the year. The growing, flowering, seeding and dying back of wild flowers, weeds, herbs and garden perennials sustain and enrich our lives. Herbaceous is a journey which follows the colour pulse of plants through the year, looking for the new and emerging rhythms. Beginning with the bright yellow, followed by the vernal whites of spring and the pinks of summer, the blues of early autumn and finally the browns of seeds set as winter comes. Herbaceous is gardening with words - asking us to look again at our relationship with plants and celebrates their power to nourish our spirits.

Where mountains meet ocean in Alaska's Alexander Archipelago, white skeletons of dead yellow cedar trees stand prominently amidst a verdant landscape of old-growth forests. Researchers spent nearly three decades deciphering the cause of the majestic species' death and uncovering climate change as the culprit. Lauren E. Oakes, a young scientist at Stanford University, was one of them. But even as she set to record the demise of a species, she soon found herself immersed in an even bigger, and totally unexpected, story: how the people of Alaska were adapting to the tree's disappearance, and how the tree itself, seemingly doomed, was adapting to a changing world. In Search of the Canary Tree is the story of six years that Oakes and her team spent in the Alaskan wilds, studying thousands of trees and saplings along the archipelago of southeast Alaska. Far from losing faith in the survival of our woodlands, she discovered the resiliency of forgotten forests, flourishing again after years of destruction and decomposition. And, through deep encounters with loggers, naturalists, Native weavers, and enthusiasts of the yellow cedar, Oakes discovered how the people of Alaska were determined to develop new relationships with the emerging environment. Where many scientists and commentators have found in climate change an unmitigated disaster, Oakes found beacons of hope even in the disorienting death of a species. Above all else, Oakes shows us that, although we can respond to climate change with either fear or denial, we can also find in it a new world, and one that doesn't necessarily have to be for the worst. Eloquent, insightful, and deeply heartening, In Search of the Canary Tree shows how human and natural resilience can help preserve ourselves, even in our rapidly changing world.

Sandro Glaettli has a proper sensitivity towards forests, photographing them with respect and gentleness. He has learned that the woods are made up of living things: the plants. They grow, talk and sing, develop in every direction and become similar enough to man for us to compare them, grouped together, to cities. "In spite of urbanisation forced on the land at the expense of generative nature, today the woods remain an important place for human life. Tiptoeing through them by day and by night, trying not to disturb anything, Sandro presents for us the images of its silent transformation, sometimes where human have intervened: piling cut timber, planting flowers for their dead, clearing leaves from the paths. He walks in the woods only when he feels like it and photographs them only when an image firmly fixed in his mind present itself to him. It is his hope that one day all will be restored to order and, as the final photograph in this book shows, everything will be set in motion again, restoring the notion of balance that nature observes in its plan, but man in his presumption and arrogance wants to destroy." -- Luca Patocchi

There is currently much concern about our trees and woodlands. The terrible toll taken by Dutch elm disease has been followed by a string of further epidemics, most worryingly ash chalara - and there are more threats on the horizon. There is also a widely shared belief that our woods have been steadily disappearing over recent decades, either replanted with alien conifers or destroyed entirely in order to make way for farmland or development. But the present state of our trees needs to be examined critically, and from an historical as much as from a scientific perspective. For English tree populations have long been highly unnatural in character, shaped by economic and social as much as by environmental factors. In reality, the recent history of trees and woods in England is more complex and less negative than we often assume and any narrative of decline and loss is overly simplistic. The numbers of trees and the extent and character of woodland have been in a state of flux for centuries. Research leaves no doubt, moreover, that arboreal ill health is nothing new. Levels of disease are certainly increasing but this is as much a consequence of changes in the way we treat trees - especially the decline in intensive management which has occurred over the last century and a half - as it is of the arrival of new diseases. And man, not nature, has shaped the essential character of rural tree populations, ensuring their dominance by just a few indigenous species and thus rendering them peculiarly vulnerable to invasive pests and diseases. The messages from history are clear: we can and should plant our landscape with a wider palette, providing greater resilience in the face of future pathogens; and the most `unnatural' and rigorously managed tree populations are also the healthiest. The results of an ambitious research project are here shaped into a richly detailed survey of English arboriculture over the last four centuries. Trees in England will be essential reading not only for landscape historians but also for natural scientists, foresters and all those interested in the future of the countryside. Only by understanding the essentially human history of our trees and woods can we hope to protect and enhance them.

With 909 recognized species of lichens, Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) is home to more of these lichenized fungi than any other national park in the United States, as well as nearly half of all species known to occur in eastern North America. There is a great deal of room for scientific exploration, inquiry, and systematic description in the realm of lichenology. In Field Guide to the Lichens of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Erin Tripp and James Lendemer take on the formidable task of creating an all-in-one resource for Park exploration, including lichen distribution maps, tools for identification, vivid photographs and illustrations, and even field notes from their own research campaigns. In the process, the authors create a touchstone for lichen taxonomy and ecology, and they inspire others-researchers as well as casual observers-to take interest in the incredible biodiversity of the Great Smoky Mountains. Biologists, botanists, visitors to the park, naturalists, and others interested in the flora and fauna of both the southern Appalachians and GSMNP will thoroughly enjoy this lovingly prepared field guide.

California and the Western States are rich in abundant and diverse species of mushrooms. Amateur mushroom collectors and mycologists alike will find over 300 species of the region's most common, distinctive, and ecologically important mushrooms profiled in this comprehensive field guide. It provides the most up-to-date science on the role of fungi in the natural world, methods to identify species, and locations of mushroom habitats. With excellent color illustrations showing top and side views of mushrooms of the Western States and a user-friendly text, it is informative but still light enough to be carried into the woods. When used to identify mushrooms, keys bring the reader to individual species, with a descriptive text providing cues for identifying additional species. Mushrooms common in urban landscapes are included, which is especially useful for the casual encounter with backyard fungi. The guide also provides a table of both old and new species names, and information on edibility and look-alikes, both dangerous and benign. A section on mushroom arts and crafts features mushroom photography, painting, philately, spore prints, dyes, and cultivation. The guide also offers a comprehensive list of resources including national field guides, general mushroom books and periodicals, club and society contact information, and web sites. This title includes primary descriptions and illustrations of 300 species of mushrooms plus text descriptions of many more. It features latest word in mushroom taxonomy and nomenclature. It provides clear discussion of DNA sequencing and new classifications. Especially good coverage of southern California and Southwestern mushrooms often neglected in other field guides.

This book successfully combines a most enjoyable and detailed account of the well-known author's many journeys through China. First and foremost, Travels in China provides a practical assessment of the plants that are either of ornamental merit or botanical interest to gardeners in the West. Roy Lancaster describes some 1,000 different plants in their natural habitat and provides an eminently readable account of a fascinating country, its people, and the plants that have enriched the gardens of Europe and North America. Hundreds of Lancaster's own attractive and colourful photographs are reproduced, interspersed with fascinating descriptions and anecdotes from his travels. This is a book about plants from a country so rich in variety that there are 50% more species on one mountain in China than there are in the whole of the British Isles. Indeed, the wide range of climatic conditions in a country as vast as China makes this book relevant to all gardeners, be they from Norway or Spain, the United

Intimate in size yet quietly breathtaking in scope, this graceful gift book will forever change how you think, and how you feel, about trees. In poetically sparse scientific observations, renowned conservation biologist Gretchen Daily narrates the evolution, impact, and natural wonder of trees. Alongside photographs by Chuck Katz, the text and images form a quiet and moving meditation on The Power of Trees.
Twenty-six duotone black and white photographs illustrate the development of trees: how trunks were formed, what tree rings tell us about human societies, and how trees define the future of humanity. Pictures of trees threading through the landscape - dotting mountainsides, braiding along the sides of glassine rivers - bear witness to the lyrical force and clarity of Daily's observations.
Recreating the authors' hike together through the landscape of the Skagit River in Washington State, the balletic movement between Daily's commentary and Katz's vision reaches out to readers, inviting them to enjoy the landscape through a scientific understanding of trees. At once emotional and intellectual, The Power of Trees is the first collection of nature photographs that invites the reader to not only delight in the gorgeous play between light and shadow, but also the fascinating natural mechanisms that create such striking natural beauty.
An ecologist by training, Gretchen Daily is an internationally acclaimed conservancy advocate and scholar. Her role as a National Trustee for The Nature Conservancy will feature prominently in the national marketing campaign to bridge the gap between scientific educators and the general nature reader.