What kind of tree is that? Whether you’re hiking in the woods or simply sitting in your backyard, from Maine to New York you’ll never be without an answer to that question, thanks to this handy companion to the trees of the Northeast. Featuring detailed information and illustrations covering each phase of a tree’s lifecycle, this indispensable guidebook explains how to identify trees by their bark alone—no more need to wait for leaf season. Chapters on the structure and ecology of tree bark, descriptions of bark appearance, an easy-to-use identification key, and supplemental information on non-bark characteristics—all enhanced by more than 450 photographs, illustrations, and maps—will show you how to distinguish the textures, shapes, and colors of bark to recognize various tree species, and also understand why these traits evolved.
Whether you’re a professional naturalist or a parent leading a family hike, this new edition of Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast is your essential guide to the region’s 67 native and naturalized tree species.
Colorful, mysterious, and often fantastically shaped, fungi have been a source of wonder and fascination since the earliest hunter-gatherers first foraged for them. Today there are few, if any, places on Earth where fungi have not found themselves a home. And these highly specialized organisms are an indispensable part of the great chain of life. They not only partner in symbiotic relationships with over ninety percent of the world’s trees and flowering plant species, they also recycle and create humus, the fertile soil from which such flora receive their nutrition. Some fungi are parasites or saprotrophs; many are poisonous and, yes, hallucinogenic; others possess life-enhancing properties that can be tapped for pharmaceutical products; while a delicious few are prized by epicureans and gourmands worldwide.
In this lavishly illustrated volume, six hundred fungi from around the globe get their full due. Each species here is reproduced at its actual size, in full color, and is accompanied by a scientific explanation of its distribution, habitat, association, abundance, growth form, spore color, and edibility. Location maps give at-a-glance indications of each species’ known global distribution, and specially commissioned engravings show different fruitbody forms and provide the vital statistics of height and diameter. With information on the characteristics, distinguishing features, and occasionally bizarre habits of these fungi, readers will find in this book the common and the conspicuous, the unfamiliar and the odd. There is a fungal predator, for instance, that hunts its prey with lassos, and several that set traps, including one that entices sows by releasing the pheromones of a wild boar.
Mushrooms, morels, puffballs, toadstools, truffles, chanterelles—fungi from habitats spanning the poles and the tropics, from the highest mountains to our own backyards—are all on display in this definitive work.
Of all our childhood memories, few are quite as thrilling, or as tactile, as those of climbing trees. Scampering up the rough trunk, spying on the world from the cool green shelter of the canopy, lying on a limb and looking up through the leaves at the summer sun almost made it seem as if we were made for trees, and trees for us.Even in adulthood, trees retain their power, from the refreshing way their waves of green break the monotony of a cityscape to the way their autumn transformations take our breath away.
In this lavishly illustrated volume, the trees that have enriched our lives finally get their full due, through a focus on the humble leaves that serve, in a sense, as their public face. The Book of Leaves offers a visually stunning and scientifically engaging guide to six hundred of the most impressive and beautiful leaves from around the world. Each leaf is reproduced here at its actual size, in full color, and is accompanied by an explanation of the range, distribution, abundance, and habitat of the tree on which it’s found. Brief scientific and historical accounts of each tree and related species include fun-filled facts and anecdotes that broaden its portrait.
The Henry’s Maple, for instance, found in China and named for an Irish doctor who collected leaves there, bears little initial resemblance to the statuesque maples of North America, from its diminutive stature to its unusual trifoliolate leaves. Or the Mediterranean Olive, which has been known to live for more than 1,500 years and whose short, narrow leaves only fall after two or three years, pushed out in stages by the emergence of younger leaves.
From the familiar friends of our backyards to the giants of deep woods, The Book of Leaves brings the forest to life—and to our living rooms—as never before.
From Roman times to the present, knowledge of plants and their cultivation have exerted a deep impact on cultural changes. This book highlights the religious, artistic, political, and economic consequences of horticultural pursuits.
Far from a mere trade, horticulture profoundly affected Jewish and Persian mystical poetry and caused deep changes in Ottoman arts. It contributed to economic and political changes in Judea, Al Andalus, Japan, Yuan China, early modern Mexico, Europe, and the United States. This book explores the roles of peasants, botanists, horticulturists, nurserymen and gentlemen collectors in these developments, and concludes with a reflection on the future of horticulture in the present context of widespread environmental devastation and ecological uncertainty.
Could that weed you just pulled have provided a cure for cancer? Scientists have warned that the destruction of the world’s rain forests may mean that plant species are being lost before we recognize their potential as sources of new medicines. This is equally true for the plants much closer to home. New Jersey, while heavily industrialized and densely populated, is extraordinarily rich in plant resources. Botany and Healing: Medicinal Plants of New Jersey and the Region describes nearly 500 species of plants found in the Garden State and in nearby areas that have been used medicinally.
Cecil Still lists plants by family and, within each family, by genus and species, to underscore the close relationships among medicinally valuable species. This arrangement is familiar to every botanist and easy for the amateur naturalist and herbalist to use as well. For each entry, Still discusses both the natural history and the historical and modern medicinal uses of the plant: scientific and common names, description, habitat, geographic range, and preparations and applications in Native American, European, African, and Asian herbal traditions. Most species are illustrated with Still’s line drawings. The book also contains a helpful index (with cross references by usage, common or scientific name), a glossary of terms, and a list of resources for further reading.
Botany and Healing explains the history and present status of the uses of herbal medicines, explains what makes a plant medicinal (or poisonous), how herbal medicines are prepared for use, and why they should be used only with great caution.
This book brings together an international body of scholars working on eighteenth-century botany within the context of imperial expansion. The eighteenth century saw widespread exploration, a tremendous increase in the traffic in botanical specimens, taxonomic breakthroughs, and horticultural experimentation. The contributors to this volume compare the impact of new developments and discoveries across several regions, broadening the geographical scope of their inquiries to encompass imperial powers that did not have overseas colonial possessions—such as the Russian, Ottoman, and Qing empires and the Tokugawa shogunate—as well as politically borderline regions such as South Africa, Yemen, and New Zealand.
The essays in this volume examine the botanical ambitions of eighteenth-century empires; the figure of the botanical explorer; the links between imperial ambition and the impulse to survey, map, and collect botanical specimens in “new” territories; and the relationships among botanical knowledge, self-representation, and material culture.
From its roots in ancient Greek herbal medicine, the popular spirit we now know as gin was first established by the Dutch in the sixteenth century as a juniper-infused tincture to cure fevers. During London’s “gin craze” in the eighteenth century, the spirit gained popularity—and notoriety—as consumption increased rapidly. In recent years, gin has enjoyed a resurgence, with botanical flavorings offering refined new ways to enjoy the classic cocktail.
With this volume, Chris Thorogood and Simon Hiscock provide an account of how gin has been developed and produced. A diverse assortment of aromatic plants from around the world have been used in the production of gin over the course of several centuries, and each combination of botanicals yields a unique flavor profile that equates to more than the sum of its parts. Understanding the different types of formulation, and the main groups of plants used therein, is central to appreciating the drink’s complexities and subtleties. Garnished with sumptuous illustrations of the plants that tell the story of this complex drink, this enticing book delves into the botany of gin from root to branch. As this book’s extraordinary range of featured ingredients shows, gin is a quintessentially botanical beverage with a rich history like no other.
Papers of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, No. 4
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