The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live & Why They Matter

by Colin Tudge

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.

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.

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Science, Natural History, Biology, History, Plants

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Colin Tudge was educated at Dulwich College, 1954-61; and read zoology at Peterhouse, Cambridge, 1962-65.

Since 1965 he has worked on journals such as World Medicine, New Scientist and Pan, the newspaper of the World Food Conference held in Rome, 1974.

Ever since then he has earned a living by spasmodic broadcasting and a lot of writing—mainly books these days, but with occasional articles. He has a special interest in natural history in general, evolution and genetics, food and agriculture, and spends a great deal of time on philosophy (especially moral philosophy, the philosophy of science, and the relationship between science and religion).

He has two daughters, one son, and four granddaughters, and lives in Oxford with his wife, Ruth (nee West).

Reviews

[Michal Wigal]

The first 100 pages contain everything you've ever wanted to know about trees. The next 200 pages contain everything you've never wanted to know about trees. The final 100 pages are a pretty informative look at how humans use trees and the role they can play in climate change.

[Lynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did you know that trees communicate with one another using electric pulses? Did you know that when animals nibble on trees they chemically warn neighbor trees? Or that trees will help feed nearby sickly trees? No, I did not either. If you find these facts interesting you will like this book. Reading this revealing account of the inner life of trees makes me realize the movie Avatar is less fiction than I thought.

[Bryn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mixing history, biology, botany, natural history, philosophy and politics, this is quite some read! It is intensely written, laden with facts and ideas, and is best consumed slowly as there's a great deal to get to grips with. It rewards patience however, and is one of the best things I've read in a while. Thoroughly recomended, if you like books you can really get your teeth into.

[jaz ₍ᐢ. ̫.ᐢ₎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world around us is nothing without the trees rooted into our soil. Incredibly impressive, beautiful and spiritual beings. This is a love letter to trees. 🌲 Dense with information, a book to read slowly over the years, I’ve been reading passages from this book for the past 5 years. The facts I know now are incredible. Did you know some forests are all under the same singular root system stemming from a singular tree? Did you know trees send out electrical impulses? The information you learn is unforgettable.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book does not quite live up to the title, being largely a survey of the classification system with some occasional pieces of interesting information thrown in. I was expecting to have some more in detail explanation of how trees work from the inside. But perhaps that would not be popular science. It did not help that I read the book on the Kindle which is not very good for illustrations and tables.

[Gendou · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an amazing book ruined by its goofball author.

Tudge clearly knows a lot about trees. I very much appreciate his writing this book, because I feel like I understand trees a lot better having read it. I learned that many species of plant have independently evolved to be a "tall plant with a stick up the middle" (his definition of a "tree") in convergent evolution. I learned about the practical uses of the fruit, wood, and chemistry of many trees. I got a basic big-picture view of the many different families of trees. I was astounded by dizzying family relationships among plant groups.

Readers should be warned that the book contains the following anti-intellectual views.

1. Tudge rejects the RNA world hypothesis for the origin of life because RNA is a "highly evolved molecule" (whatever that means) and that RNA "relies on cytoplasm" and can't replicate on it's own (which is false). This is anti-intellectual because he's rejecting consensus biology for what sounds like ideas he got from creationist propaganda.

2. He thinks Golden Rice is only needed because "traditional agriculture has been shoved aside by high-tech industrialized mono-culture farming." This is a cruel lie believed only by the ignorant and privileged. It's slander against the poor and starving. These buzzwords are lifted straight from anti-technology propaganda. Not only is this anti-GMO narrative squarely rejected by a cursory understanding of the history of agriculture, but it's also inextricably part of a greater anti-GMO worldview that is entirely at odds with the scientific consensus. He interjects his opinion that Organic farming is a good thing which is consistent with the anti-GMO worldview and contradicted by basic economic, toxicological, and ecological science. His political ideology is so demented he even argues that less efficient farming is a good thing because "no other industry can employ as many people as farming can" like that's some sort of a good thing. Um, pretty sure people don't want to break their back bending over a rice field their whole life. It's only the single greatest achievement of humankind that people are free from subsistence farming to live the life they choose.

3. He distrusts genetic clocks as the final word in taxonomic classification. He cites the example of the contradictory findings from DNA analysis of archaea. Clearly there is a horizon for the usefulness of genetic clocks and kingdom-level taxonomy is it! This example in no way justifies his anti-intellectual stance that "science does not offer a royal road to truth". First of all, yes it does. Science is a road to truth, and it is unique as the best process so far for finding the truth. He may mean that science has limitations, but those limitations are part of the process of science. They aren't limitations of science, the method, but a description, in scientific terminology, of those limitations that existed in the world even before humans developed the scientific method. When it comes to trees, you can trust genetic clocks as the "royal road to truth" because all trees evolved recently compared to the horizon beyond which genetic clocks are ineffective.

4. He abuses his poetic license, inserting pseudo-philosophy and mysticism where it doesn't belong. He says "the old Greeks were absolutely right" that the world is made of 4 elements: air, earth, fire, and water. He's using this as a metaphor for trees which build their bodies from CO2 (air), minerals (earth), energy from sunlight (fire), and H2O (water). He doesn't explain its only a metaphor, he just asserts "the old Greeks were absolutely right" and moves on. It's bizarre. There are other mentions of theology sprinkled around in the book and it's super creepy. God doesn't belong in a non-Fiction book about trees.

5. He goes on a full-fledged anti-Western tirade at one point and claims what we call "progress" is just "Westernization" and that progress is "being imposed on the world" by a means that "seems expressly designed to undermine the well-being of must of humanity." Hmm, I guess fuck progress, then? Fuck vaccines, sanitation, all that progress stuff? Fuck science, medicine, electric lighting, rule of law, etc.? Grab your tinfoil hats, folks! "The world as a whole needs a different kind of governance." Of course he offers no alternative. Seems like the Dunning Kruger effect in action. "The 'reality' of which our current leaders speak of is 'cash'." Talk about a Straw Man! "Modern, Western-style governments never stop interfering with people's lives." Really? And how much interference would you having in your life without your Western-style government keeping you safe? Career politicians are "reluctant actually to govern." If anyone's been paying attention to politics in the past couple years, you'll notice what happens when you try to "drain the swamp". Power vacuums aren't automatically filled by the enlightened. He's convinced traditional craftsmen are "simply put out of work" by industrialization. I'm not sure everyone wants to be stuck doing the work of a traditional craftsman, but I do know plenty of them are still around. I support paying artists and many hand-made things are truly art. I don't know what any of this political rambling has to do with trees. Authors of non-fiction books should stick to their topic of expertise less they sincerely embarrass themselves like this.

6. Even in his area of expertise, Tudge somehow thinks it's a mere "historical and economic accident" that agriculture is heavily focused on grains as stable crops. Might it also have to do with the years and years it takes to grow trees? Also the yields in terms of calories per acre and calories per input of labor, soil amenities, etc.? A scythe can harvest wheat. What instruments harvest tree fruits/nuts en masse...? He claims with no evidence whatsoever that "if the same effort had been put into the walnut as has been put into wheat, walnut trees would, by now, be taking hundreds of forms." How do we know the latent genetic diversity exists in walnut trees for this to happen? There are thousands of varieties of apple. But they all pretty much taste and grow like apples. The difference between teosinte and corn is unlike any transformation ever seen in a tree in terms of increased yield. I don't know this is impossible. But I do know we need some evidence before believing this bold claims. Personally, I don't believe he has that evidence. I think he's just bluffing. Or, more charitably, accidentally substituting his imagination for knowledge.

[Hákon Gunnarsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is called The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live & Why They Matter, and that pretty much sums up the contents, except that maybe "how humans have used them" should be somewhere in the title as well. That is a lot of information to get through in one book.

The author Colin Tudge does get through it all, and the good thing about this book is that Tudge has a real knowledge of trees. There are so many things that I know now about trees that I didn't before. So many fascinating aspect of them I have never even considered. This book is in many way very interesting to anyone that wants to know more about trees.

But there is a problem with this book as well. It's sometimes just a little too much. What I mean is this. I think this book would have been a lot better if the author had limited the scope of the book, and focused on perhaps one, or two of the subjects above, and gone into those subjects a little deeper. To me the scope is just a little to wide. I feel like the author has enough information about the subject, but lacks a little more direction in how he presents it.

That being said, I still think it is in many ways a very interesting book, and I'm glad I read it. I was especially interested in the last part of it, the part where Tudge goes into climate change and trees. But that is not the only fascinating thing that I came across here, perhaps just the subject that I'm mostly interested at this point.

[Samuel · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's not as good as the cover made it out to be, and it's certainly not a natural history classic, but it's a fun, well-written overview. Part of the problem, I think, is that the task that Tudge set out for himself in surveying all the world's trees is so vast that either the book needed to be much longer, or the project needed to be toned down considerably. There's just not enough detail for this to be really excellent.

[AudioBookReviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

My original The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live & Why They Matter audiobook review and many others can be found at Audiobook Reviewer.

The Tree: A Natural History of What Trees Are, How They Live, and Why They Matter by Colin Tudge doesn’t list that it is an ordered history of trees. But, the lack of order makes this book less a factual text than winding inquiry. If you’ve ever walked into a forest and started asking the big questions, and started answering them, you’ll get a feel for how this book works. At eight minutes shy of twenty hours, the book is comprehensive, but not cumbersome. I listened to the book on my way up and down a bike trail that stretches a marathon’s distance to a 13 story bridge that spans the Des Moines River valley. I started paying attention to the trees on the way up and down that trail in a different way. I didn’t start recognizing trees and start spouting Latinate names, but gained an appreciation for the difficulty one has in giving names to living things’ relationships.

The book asks direct questions with few words that lead to graduate-level philosophic answers rooted in facts. I’m paraphrasing, but some of the questions include: How do we define a tree? Why isn’t a banana plant a tree? Why are there different names for the same tree? Tudge is both thorough and clever with his answers. As I listened to the book I found myself longing to speak to other people and ask them what they thought. Where textbook chapters represent pieces of a large body of information, The Tree takes a single idea, and expands, builds, and welcomes divergent ideas.

One divergent idea is the move from appreciating trees as an environmentalist advocate might, because humans would die without them. Instead, like Muir, Tudge humanizes trees and their plight against other evils besides humans. We don’t often think trees have natural predators. Tudge adds a wisdom that trees have in working with other tree species and animal to survive. Trees are cooperative, dynamic, and on a time scale greater than our human lifetimes.

Should you invest in this book? It depends on what you hope to get out of a comprehensive history. If you want efficiency in learning about trees, the book will disappoint. It is not a textbook or guide. But if you can let go of efficiency, listen on headphones while walking through trees or closing your eyes in a concrete urban place, you will find yourself asking to bring others into the story. The book is vibrant with detail, soaked in clever language, and solid with a scientist’s backing. In short, The Tree is long on what makes audiobooks brilliant, a chance to relax and just let someone else talk without wanting or trying to interrupt.

After this long journey alone with The Tree, you may want to take the next audiobook trek with a human. I recommend Hiking Through by Paul Stutzman narrated by Mike Chamberlain or Lab Girl, written and narrated by Hope Jahren.

Narrator Review

Be prepared to relax, there is no hurry in this Scottish narrator’s voice and he takes his commas and periods seriously. At first, you’ll notice the narrator, his cadence contrasts that of most audiobooks, but gradually he becomes a cooling tree’s shadow. Most good books begin in media res, the middle of the action. With a book like this, Enn Reitel becomes the great asset, letting the listener know it is a twenty-hour hike, no need to sprint at the start. Soon after you put the headphones in, he becomes funny, in an understated way, hitting the scientific punchlines Tudge wrote expertly. You’re walking through the forest with your new best friend upset to leave at the end.

Audiobook was provided for review by the publisher.

[Paula Koneazny · Rating 5 out of 5]

My current writing obsession is trees, which, of course, requires that I read about trees. I found Colin Tudge's compendium to be comprehensive & utterly fascinating (I admit to nodding off a bit while reading the more technical chapters in which he surveys trees as botanically classified into order, family, & genus--at the same time I was intrigued by many unexpected relationships among both herbaceous & woody species). Although Tudge doesn't mention Canadian tree ecologist Diana Beresford-Krueger, his comments on the necessity of intelligent forestry & sustainable tree cropping (past & future) & their foundational importance to human culture & sustenance on Planet Earth, reminded me of Beresford-Krueger's The Global Forest, another favorite read of recent times. Along with another recent read, Charles Mann's 1491, The Tree also caused me to pause & reconsider received notions of both wilderness & the human shaping & management of what we call Nature. I recalled a comment I read long ago (either one made by Joseph Chilton Pierce or Joseph Campbell) that humans' natural home is the Garden, not the Wilderness. Pushing that conclusion even further, I've had to consider the possibility that wilderness may be more mythical than "natural." At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that it is trees, not human beings, that are "ultimately controlling all life on land."

[Lindsey Preston · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly beautiful book. Both writing and content is stunning.. a book to take your time with, dip into and consider. Definitely going to be a reread for me, there’s so much information I want to absorb
and remember so I can recount to fellow tree lovers.

[Stephen Mahoney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Biology is not something I am accustomed to reading much of and I'm rusty on this science tudge does try to make this accessible for this person who wants to learn about trees from all the time I spend camping and hiking amoung them. One day I'll read even more.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Colin Tudge attracted my attention for having written several books about diverse subjects I am fascinated by, not the least of which is trees. In 'The Tree,' Tudge lives up to that promise, proving himself a very likable man who thinks about the world in many ways similarly to the way I do. This is in general a boon, but can be a downfall.

The book has no real goal, no thesis, no object. It is a well-organized series of writings about the trees of the world, including explanations of many facets of what it means to be a tree, portraits of individual trees, and a broad survey of all the tree phyla in the modern world. This middle section seems to have been largely a mistake. The rest of the book proceeds in narrative form through a number of very interesting aspects of the ecology, physiology, evolution, and human relevance of trees. The phylogeny, however, stifles the narrative voice and forces boring listing. I didn't read it, suffice it to say, so I perhaps shouldn't knock it too much. But it reminded me in format much of The Kingdom Fungi, which fell prey to the same impulse.

The impulse is noble and I share it: rather than discuss the variety of trees in the world in a series of random groupings, it should be done phylogenetically, to emphasize the relationships among trees. And if you're going about it phylogenetically, you might as well include all the major phyla of trees . . . But how can you provide anything very interesting about all of them, and present all this knowledge in a meaningful way? The answer seems to be that you can't, really. This kind of knowledge, broad but particular, of the whole group of things we call "trees," must be earned through a lifetime of observation, a lifetime of meeting trees. It can't be condensed and transferred in even 150 pages. And it most certainly can't be done without pictures! This is perhaps what killed the middle of the book - there are no pictures to give the reader a taste of the phyla described.

The rest of the book, which I read entirely, was great, as I've said. Tudge includes a lot of details, but condenses them into a form that is intuitive and dense with information without becoming slow to read. Much that could have been included was left out - a more in-depth look at the relationship between trees and humans in history, a la A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization, or more detailed coverage of tree ecology, focusing on things like mycorrhizae, or more adequate coverage of tree physiology, including some nice diagrams, like Botany for Gardeners. I could think of dozens of others. The book is very long and quite valuable as it is, but such topics would have better suited Tudge's style (and, I think, the style of books other than field guides and coffee table books in general) than what he chose to do in the middle section of the book.

I very much appreciate the fact that Tudge chose to close the book with a serious look at the relationship between the social structure of our civilization and the ecological health of the planet, principally seen, in this, from the point of view of trees. While the fact that the treatment of the issue is necessarily superficial, it acknowledges there is a very big problem in the world of trees, and that it is rooted in economics and culture. Tudge emphasizes, quite astutely, that if that problem can be 'solved,' then many other problems will be solved along with it - exploitation of workers, the indigenous, and poor nations; the food issue; the energy issue; the decline of coherent local communities; etc. It would have been easy for Tudge (or his editors) to say 'let this be a happy book about trees; don't bring up all those controversial bad things - save that for another book.' That he did not indicates some extra goodness in his soil [typo?].

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who doesn't like trees? Despite that popularity, it is easy to have a rather lopsided understanding of why they matter. Global warming is constantly in the news, so it is commonly known that trees sequester carbon, and so have a beneficial cooling effect on the earth. We know that the roots of trees hold soil in place, and that trees can absorb an enormous quantity of water. So they have a moderating effect on variations of weather. But how many people can identify all the trees found in a local park?

That's a big change from the past, when so many trades involved trees and their by-products that lots of people could identify many species and describe their best uses. Colin Tudge's book describes many uses of individual species of trees, and also explains their biology and natural history, their cultivation and their cultural significance. Along the way we get an armchair tour through anatomy, genetics, taxonomy, ecology, forestry practices, economy and nearly everything else having to do with trees.

He answers some questions that some people may not have thought to ask. For example, why are there relatively few species of trees in a northern forest, especially when compared to the variation found in the tropics? (Greater tropical variation in species happens in all other kingdoms, too.) But while you may not ask it in that form, you may have looked at a piece of furniture at Ikea and wondered what on earth it was made of, assuming not of plastic. There are more kinds of trees than most of us can possibly imagine, and now they're all being used for one thing or another. The products are shipped all over the place.

The book is organized into four sections, although the fourth is really an epilogue. The first describes what separates trees from other plants-so taxonomy-and their physiology and evolution. The second section is a one-hundred-forty-page-tour- de-force description of all the trees left in the world, divided up by their taxonomies. In the third section, Tudge describe ecology and reproduction, including the many ways that people have inadvertently or purposefully screwed that up for trees, usually by transporting competitors or pests into an ecological system. In the fourth section, Tudge demonstrates two things: first, that trees interact deeply with political and economic outcomes, and second, that he is happy to oversimplify and generalize such issues to arrive at some weirdly new-age happy talk. For example,

"I don't believe the world can get significantly better if we leave politics to career politicians. That is not what democracy means. I also nurse the conceit (for which there is abundant evidence) that human beings are basically good...It seems to follow that if only democracy can be made to work-if the will of humanity as a whole can prevail-then the world could be a far better place: that it could, after all, come through these next few difficult decades...

And so he joins Einstein in demonstrating that some scientists shouldn't quit their day jobs to seek elected office. Despite that, the book is terrific, and even the fourth section has lots of interesting, if utopian, perspectives. Read it as you long for spring!

[Leah Rachel von Essen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always had a sincere respect and admiration for beautiful, old trees. The Secret Life of Trees: How They Live and Why They Matter by Colin Tudge (which, by the way, I picked up in London in 2017), has made me see them in an even brighter light. After a review of plant biology that dives into how trees were able to evolve into what they are today, why they would, and how scientists track them; then he walks us through all of the categories and species of trees, touching on a ton of cool facts about our favorite trees; and then he goes into all the wondrous ways trees survive and reproduce, ending the book with why we need trees and what we can do to keep them.

The book is very detailed, and for some, might feel like a slog. I loved it. Did you know that based on the simplicity of the magnolia flower, many think it's one of the oldest trees? Do you want to read about historical cases of biopiracy? Did you know that because most apple trees are grown from cuttings, almost all apples of each kind are clones? That the greatest banyan in Calcutta is a quarter of a mile in circumference and could provide shelter for 20,000 people? Or that there is a dedicated species of wasp for each of the 750 species of fig? That mangroves essentially breathe using the tides? That plants don't actually measure the length of the day but of the night? That mopane trees can warn others that elephants are coming and then those trees will increase the tannins in their leaves to make them more palatable?

I found this book a joy, and nature and tree lovers will do. While Tudge's enthusiasm for trees can get a little too much at times, it also is infectious, and the wealth of knowledge will increase your appreciation for the wonders of evolution and our world. I learned a lot from this book, and have a new wonder of trees and their ability to grow, exist, and amaze us.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmmmmmm..... I have mixed feelings about this book. There is a lot of information about Trees and the writing style isn't bad, but the middle section is rather tedious. The book has a few black and white sketches/illustrations of trees. My edition of the book [ISBN 9780307395399] also has very thin pages (maybe recycled) and a flimsy cover. If you are buying this you may want to get a different edition or the hardcover version.

The book is divided into parts:

Part 1: What is a Tree? Explains what a tree is and its structure. This section is very interesting.

Part 2: All the Trees in the World. Description of tree classification and trees. Long and tedious. Reminds me of a botany text book without all the coloured photographs.

Part 3: The Life of Trees. Describes how trees function, includes photosynthesis, water transfer from roots to leaves, nutrients in the soil, micorrhizae, growth, hormone function, reproduction, pollination, symbiosis, photoperiodism, and biogeagraphy. This is also a very interesting section that is nicely explained - the best part of the book in my opinion.

Part 4: Trees and Us. Concluding section that provides food for thought about our relationship with trees and the earth.


If all you are after is how trees function then I recommend Botany for Gardeners by Brian Capon. Botany for Gardeners Otherwise, The Tree by Colin Tudge is a nice addition to the reference library.

[Tassos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another recommendation from a friend from far far away. A true tree lover. And it seems that I receive very good recommendations lately.

The book starts by explaining some basic things about what trees are, how they evolved to be what they are and how they are categorised into species, families and so on. Then there is an extensive part of the book talking about all the different categories of trees (that I more or less skipped) in order to go to the most interesting part of the book: Trees' relationships with each other and with other organisms.

This book made me remember my old love for trees (specially for fig trees, since I more or less grew up on top of a fig tree) and helped me understand the tremendous role that trees have in the ecosystem. It also provides with very detailed insights on the way trees reproduce with a few fascinating examples.

It's quite well written, with enough humor here and there. After a while the language structure becomes a bit too repetitive but this is overshadowed by the information that is provided.

[Fernleaf · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting treatise on trees around the world. Roughly divided into three sections. The first deals with definitions, naming, evolution and what really defines trees from other plants (wood) with lots of little trivia thrown in. The middle section is a broad survey of the world's tree diversity following the taxonomic tree. This part is fairly dry with LOTS of latin names as it's primarily dealing with trees at the order, family, and genus level. Relevant common names and references are thrown in wherever possible but just because of the scope that isn't always available. Having taken a couple of botany courses I was able to follow most of it, but a layperson is probably going to feel a bit lost and/or spend a lot of time with Wikipedia or another internet source to make the names more tangible. The final section deals with both general tree biology and the future of trees (climate change, logging, importance of trees to humanity.) Very interesting information but not the most friendly sit-down-and-read book.

[J.V. Connors · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love trees, this book is a must-read, for it will astound you! This fascinating book uses trees to illuminate evolution and the ways the life works in the world, so in the end, you learn a lot more than just about trees.
Colin Tudge also teaches us about the incredible strength and complexity of trees. We learn about how trees communicate with each other and interact with other plants and animals in their environment. He tells how they cope with adversity, cooperate and even help each other.
Human beings have worshiped our own great brains and driving ambitions, but look at what we have done to our planet over our 50,000 years of existence! Trees build soil, improve rain and water ecologies, and provide habitat for hundreds of species. Perhaps we need to refocus our attention on nature, on how it builds and heals itself?
The Tree is a wonderful way to learn about this essential group of species with fascination, respect and humor.

[Sarah Ensor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is for anyone who wants to think about what trees are and how they fit into each ecosystem they inhabit in a fairly accessible way. It begins by investigating what a tree is, which isn’t a straightforward question and goes on to describe many of them. The benefit of trekking through it, is to get a sense of the entire world of trees and what they mean to other life-forms. So the hefty middle section is not just a catalogue of every tree Tudge has ever visited, studied or heard of. It shows how trees benefit from the species they co-evolve with. These convivial relationships could be the mycorrhiza webs extending tree root systems or the wasps that develop to pollinate only one kind of fig tree, or the humans who harvest fruit, sap and wood and loose their pigs and chickens to root though the undergrowth eating a tree’s insect enemies while spreading its seeds.

In 2010, Tudge set up the Campaign for Real Farming and there is a thread of the potential benefits of agroforestry snaking through the whole book. This is how human and non-human life forms can live together to their mutual benefit.

It’s now 15 years since it was published so inevitably a plant classification or two has changed and the figures in the chapter on climate change are dated because they are now much worse. But it doesn't matter, the core philosophy of the book stands up and it’s a satisfying journey for the mind when a global pandemic has shut down any other travel.

[Igor · Rating 4 out of 5]

З дитинства люблю книжки про тварин, а про ботаніку завжди читав і знав доволі мало, і ось трошки заповнив пробіли. Автор намагається систематично, відповідно до наукової класифікації, розповісти про всі різновиди дерев, і йому добре вдається зробити так, щоб систематичність не була синонімом занудності. Крім цього, кілька розділів розповідають про еволюцію, екологію та інші аспекти життя дерев (і рослин загалом). Як і очікувалось, більшість видів дерев росте у тропічних країнах, але я не очікував, що різниця така величезна: вся канадська тайга складається всього з 9 видів дерев; у США є тільки 650 видів дерев, які росли там до появи європейців; а, наприклад, в Перу можна натрапити на 1000 видів на кількох квадратних кілометрах.

[Maria · Rating 2 out of 5]

Most of this book was a stamp collector's approach to natural history - the book equivalent of a tiny old museum whose glass-cased curios are carefully labeled with their Latin binomials but otherwise provided with little context (and even less narrative). Except instead of actually seeing the interesting wood or majestic growth form or whatever of the trees, you get the author's tell-don't-show assurances that he personally saw this or that tree once and enjoyed the experience.

If you slog through that there's a very good chapter on fig wasps. Maybe just skip to that part.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those looking for a comprehensive book on literally anything to do with trees — this is it!

I love trees beyond easy comprehension and it was glorious to read a book that reveled in that love too. I could easily tell the author and I would get along like a house on fire.

The audiobook narrator made this particularly enjoyable — he reminded me of the guy who narrates the Kurzgesagt videos on YouTube. (Not the same person though; I checked.)

[Keith Horsley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this after reading Richard Powers' Overstory.
A must read for those with any interest in ecology, and the essential part that trees pay in the lives of all living creatures.
Well written and never dull, the author maintains the interest throughout and, while putting the case for the protection of these vital assets, he does seek to strike a balance between preservation and the needs of local and global populations.
One of those books I will keep on my bookshelf to read or refer to again.

[Arend · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me way too long to finish: a fascinating book, but in part II the author covers all the trees in the world in a mere 150 pages, and it’s a bit exhausting. The other three parts are interesting, informative, well written, whimsical at times, and clearly the work of a man who loves trees deeply. A real tree geek. The book is from 2005 or so, so some datedness, especially around climate change.

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m more than halfway through this via both audio and e-book. If you’re a fan of plants, this is a great, sweeping overview of trees. It has a lot of content and does a decent job of conveying the wonderfully bizarre variations of woody plants. It is a bit dry though. I will finish it when I’m in the mood.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still need to finish this one completely. I'm on page 300 "Is the World Driven by Parasites?"

[Franco · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first part is really monotonous, It's a lot of taxonomy with some highlights about most known species. Then you get information about how trees work, stuff like hormones, relationship with bacteria and fungi. And in the end he goes into how we should think about degrowth and climate change from the perspective of a scholar, so not very practical.

[Augusto Bernardi · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book starts with an impressive and awe inspiring introduction of the magnitude of trees and their necessity. This is exactly what is needed for a book that is about something seemingly mundane like a tree. Tudge structures the first part of the book with childish questions that are simple enough and thereby help us to structure our understanding of this broad and intricate subject of trees. The first question is what is a tree. Essentially all trees are plants but a tree is a very loose and vague term as not all trees share a unifying quality. For example the banana tree that doesn't have wood or conifers that don't have leaves. The second is why be a tree. Well first of all, trees dictate a lot in nature and are the central figures as opposed to animals. A forest is a forest because of the trees and thereby all the wildlife flourishes. This question also leads to the reproduction of living creatures. Animals in general fall under either one of two categories. K strategists which have get offshoring which take much longer to develop because they are larger. R strategists have many, potentially thousands of offspring and they develop faster but at a more primitive level. Fish and bugs are generally of this nature. Trees on the other hand are both at the same time which is a tremendous advantage that we may not be able to see in our quick lives but in the lifespan of trees, this is completely apparent.
The third is how many types of trees are there. The answer to this is sort of muddy because that will depend on what you mean with "type". This is largely due to the insane complexity of the chromosomes that form different types of trees. They can potentially have far more than animals in general. So the short answer is that if you were to put them into groups and categories, then there are around 300 000 different types of plants with 60 000 of them being trees but technically on a DNA level, there are an indefinite amount of different species. How can people even keep track all those species? Over a few hundreds of years, many countries have these large Botanic gardens or databases of the different species which is a herbarium. They generally specialise in the plants of the region they are in and own thousands of different species with some of them literally only existing right there. Tudge then talks about the specialist out there that categorise plants not from a microscopic level but by the external characteristics. People especially good at this are the indigenous to the location of the tree as they depend on the understanding to survive. A big chunk of the book will then focus on the history and the difficulties of categorising different species. One issue is the language it's done in. Changing names to Latin and also getting the same specimen with different names. He briefly outlines some of the more important names of people that have strongly helped in taxonomy and I guess that starts with the very philosophy behind it which is between Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle's philosophy of the "essence" of things is I think more influential in this field. He named a few other key figures but I can't really remember them besides the one and only classic, Charles Darwin. Darwin of course being a major figure on how we think about life on Earth and all stemming originally millions or billions of years ago from the same creature, like a giant family tree. The question on how do you separate these groups from another is tricky as the defining features might not be obvious. He gives the example with the two legged birds and the for legged horse in comparison with humans. Separating the very kingdoms of nature isn't as simple as it used to be thought to be and from the 5 kingdoms there are more. People didn't really know what to do with bacterias so they didn't even get a kingdom but a domain of their own which is another category or layer of classification. The next chapter is how trees then came to be which starts around 3 billion years ago when the world was vastly different and life was a metabolizing slime that lives in hot pools with poisonous gases. A thermophile which seems insane to us but "we", humans animals, plants, fungi and so on, are technically the abnormal ones that evolved out of that state. Why is this relevant? Well this form of "life" did not have complex DNA or RNA which were thought to be the essence of life. The essence of life is actually metabolism which this slime could do. The most primitive for of what we know as life. Natural selection still plays a part with this slime and over billions of years, some cells developed one way and others in another way depending on the environment and that is what eventually formed the complex Bactria.
No matter how many times I restart this chapter to try and understand the science behind the next few enormous steps that will eventually make trees, I can't seem to grasp it. The organisms eventually become more complex and with pigment, to algae, enlarge to plants, different forms of reproduction from spores to the improved seeds. Those are the basics to where the rest of the book can focus on what we know as trees which are conifers and broad leafed trees. Before that tudge gives some noteworthy examples of other plants that have a different method of reproduction. The cycads and the Gingko trees. So the next chapter focuses on wood which is one of nature's really greatest and most beautiful inventions. As a comparison to us, wood acts like the veins and bone structure for the tree. I learnt that the separate rings of the tree show and the seasons and seeing how think they are will show you how successful that particular season on that year was.
All trees have Cork cells as they are water and for proof. Some have more than others, for example the cork Oak tree in the Mediterranean. Bark is also multi functional protecting from diseases or shedding from other growths weighing the tree down or like the Eucalyptus tree, an oil bark that sheds around the tree and quickly burns, preventing the tree from burning itself. What also varies heaps inconsistently are the different types of hardness and age of wood. This won't just be dictated by its environment but also by its competitors. The pattern of wood acts similarly to the fingerprints of human hands. If there is no real use to have the same pattern then or genes allow options and not set rules. Certain parts of the tree have wood that is harder than in other parts. Example is that of the top of broad leafed trees. Sappy wood (generally on the outside layer) is better for resistance and hard wood (inside) in better for crushing strength. That's why English bows were made out of the trunks of yew trees. Most importantly, wood is there so yes can grow big. The book turns then to conifers. A much older group of trees that dates 3 hundred million years ago and is hay day ended around the time mammals first appeared. They are nowadays a much more rare group of trees with only 600 known types in comparison to the thousands of broad leafed trees. Most of them being native across the northern hemisphere. They are lovers of light which might be suprising judging on the dark forests they inhabit but they get around this by having a pointy to and taking in light from the sides.
Tudge then breaks down each group of conifers which makes this exactly the type of book I wanted in the first place. He starts with the arokarias which are incredibly old, not many species and mainly found in the southern hemisphere, mainly in New Caledonia. A particularly well known old tree is in New Zealand, named Tana mahuta.
Next was the Cupressaceae which include Cedar trees, some Cypress trees and the mighty Redwood. How can you not love the those giant, old and red beings. The Pinaceae were next as the most common family of the conifers and certainly the most economically successful group. These are the real Pine trees and Christmas trees that we know.
Podocarpus os a much larger group but not as numerous, mainly found in the southern hemisphere, which a week known one was the kaikatia of new Zealand and sacred to the Maori people although they did cut down many of them themselves but complain about it too. And lastly the Taxaceae of the different yew trees.
After the basic intro to flowering trees, I was interested with the different variations of pollinating and how flowers which are pollinated by other animals (a partnership that Darwin talked about as opposed to the standard survival of the fittest) tend to be more "showy" than the ones that are pollinated by the wind. Because of the fucking ridiculous amount of trees, it's very difficult condensing then enough and group them to a number that is comprehensible for non experts. Originally it was dicots and monocots but the dicots became so vast and varied with many notable exceptions, that even that has to be broken down. This book breaks it down monocots, eudicots and a mixed bag of primitive dicots that are similar to what the original flowering plant ever was millions of years ago. The main 2 trees or plants in this group are the beautiful Chinese magnolias and the water lilies.
More interestingly was the bit about the tulip trees which also fit under this, with their fleshy and symmetrical light coloured flowers. Several other different trees are briefly mentioned in this group that I frankly didn't even know we're trees like cinnamon, nutmeg, bay leaves and avocados which have a specific system of having two different flowers to avoid inbreeding. The next chapter was on the monocots which don't have secondary growth which is how wide a tree gets. The main tree of the monocots are the palm trees. Palm trees are generally relatively similar to each other with some exceptions of the trunk being underground or exceptionally fat like elephant palms. They can have spiney trunks that act as a protection and generally have huge and heavy fruits and seeds, the coconut of course. Despite not having a large root system like eudicots, palms are incredibly strong and would take a hurricane to topple them. Also belonging to the monocots are the pineapple and the banana tree and finally the very useful and common bamboo. What needs to be said about bamboo which isn't obvious.
On to the eudicots, like the macadamia which are the only native Australian plant to be internationally economically successful. Run by mistletoe and sandalwood. Katsura, from Japan with their dark twisting trunks and round leaves especially beautiful when yellow. Finally he breaks down the use and history of a hugely important plant in international economy, the rubber tree. Well known for its latex, this natural rubber was/is Very important in Brazil. Manaus despite being in the middle of the Amazon became a hugely successful economic him in Brazil, and they even built a successful international opera house. The English took the rubber tree to English southeast Asia, Malaysia nowadays is the biggest producer of natural rubber despite their competitors, synthetic rubber created by the Americans in the second World war after being deprived of Asian resources from Japan. The debate of whether bio piracy is legit was something that tudge shows the hypocrisy in which most of Brazil's successful exports are not native. The next tree that gets a bit more attention are the mangroves and how they are so important to the ecology of the area and some bad examples of people ruining them for no good reason. Acacia trees get plenty of attention with their wide varieties and being a sort of "hub" to other wild life such as ants and other bugs. They are even pollinated by birds and in some places, giraffes. They've been introduced to many countries and have become a problematic pest. On the other hand giraffes have been introduced in South Africa, where they are not native and have become a problem to Acacia trees there. Which possess the question what should be valued more in conservation. Big mammals or native trees? I've always found the strangling fig tree to be a fascinating and yet somehow brutal part of nature which is taking place in a completely different time lapse. The most sacred type of the in the world is the bo tree where the young Buddha was said to have meditated under. At this point what is the point of even trying to remember our take into account the different family/order/clade names. Tudge talks in length about the successful and useful Oaks, beech, Chestnut and walnut trees which are mainly used around the world for their wood.
Another extremely successful tree, native to Australia and spread rapidly around the world is the Eucalyptus tree, able to grow in various terrain, resistant and dependent on for in dry land. Eucalyptus is used and farmed in around 90 countries around the world.
Up to now, all those different flowering fruit trees and nuts have been of the rosids clade so now we can move in to the daisids. As I said before, tudge flies by these trees so very few of them really stick out to me at all. Davidia, tea tree, coffee, olives, the popular ash trees and the large Brazil nut. Before you know it the chapter is over. I did get a sense that most of the daisids were from tropical places.
Tudge breaks down how trees actually live, down to a ancient greek myth that everything was made out of fire, water, air and earth. Of course this is technically completely off but when describing how trees work, this plays a big factor. For fire and air he talks about the impact of sunlight on plants with photosynthesis and how that translates with the different types of gases. Of course water is about the water needed for their energy and how they actually absorb them through the roots and earth being the minerals needed in the soil where they grow. I was surprised and really interested on the involvement of fungi in this process.
Switching subjects, an entire chapter was dedicated to continental drift and how that impacted the spread of types of trees. The question of why there are more variation of trees in certain places was also not straight forward and dependent on many subtle factors like history, climate, competition and a cycle of diversity bringing in more diversity. The second last chapter is on the relationship of trees with other trees and other types of life. The part animals play is an obvious one and i did mention fungi as well but more interestingly are some of the others like parasites which are not just anomalies in the circle of life, but leading forces. The fig tree and the wasp are the central characters in this chapter and their very unique relationship that is delicately balanced by the help of many subtle factors of natural selection. The last chapter is on the future of trees and as expected the future is not too bright. At this point there are limited plausible solutions and by the sheer stupidity and greed of humanity or capitalism, nature is extremely negatively impacted.

[Sasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

really easy to read except for the parts where it says “xanthorrhoeaceae”