Review

Field Guide to North American Trees: Eastern Region

Elbert L. Little, Jr.
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
ISBN: 0394507606

Field Guide to Trees makes identifying trees as easy as looking at a picture - literally. Offering some of the best photos of flowers, bark, fruit, and leaf shapes I have seen, this book and a companion book covering the western U.S. makes tree identification easy. In fact, both books go with me on all my vacations and business trips.

An incredible 700 species of trees are detailed using vivid, high-quality photos. Virtually all native and many cultivated trees in the United States are represented and cataloged in the Trees series. Additional drawings of tree silhouettes as they appear in winter makes identification simple at any time of the year. I honestly have not seen a better product.

The great "thumb tab" index finds the flower, seed, or leaf shape of your tree and refers you to the appropriate section. Half of the book is devoted to describing each tree in detail and includes a range map. It has the most fool-proof dendrology key I have found and there are many that cost two or three times as much. The series has the backing of the National Audubon Society.

The author of the book is no light-weight. Author Elbert L. Little is former chief dendrologist for the United States Forest Service. The U.S. Forest Service is the federal government’s major forestry agency. Other major contributors include the Harvard University’s Arnold Arboretum, The New York Botanical Garden, the Plant Sciences Data Center in Mt. Vernon, Virginia, the University of Wisconsin Arboretum, Calloway Gardens, and on and on.

I would suggest that Trees is a one of a kind find. If you have an interest in trees and knowing their names, you have got to have this book. It is definitely a book for the libraries of foresters, botanists, science teachers, forest rangers, environmentalists, loggers, and forest landowners.

Steve Nix