From Publishers Weekly
Artist More's "personal project to record in detail as many tree species, varieties and cultivars as he could find in the British Isles and Ireland" evolved into an ambitious but ambiguous publishing project. The result, "primarily a book for pleasure-far from a botanical text-book," is too heavy for a field guide, too small for a place on the coffee table, and too Euro-centric to be of practical value to American gardeners. It will be valued here by a discerning but limited audience. A fine painter with a naturalist's eye, More depicts trees and their parts meticulously. The quality of reproduction does his work justice, but the crowded layout does not. Several of the 2,000 color illustrations, all in limbo against the white of the page, are grouped together on each spread. The addition of whimsical birds, animals, and people provides scale. White's text is informative but inconsistent-a scholarly meditation on each tree rather than parallel descriptions. Hardiness is expressed as percentages rather than the familiar USDA zone numbers, and the "garden value" of a given tree may be rated both "excellent" and "of less merit" with no explanation why. In all, More and White have succeeded at creating a remarkable body of work. Had they presented it as a series of field guides or a folio of annotated illustrations, they might produced a book with more promising commercial prospects here as well.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
First published in England, this volume could be described as a labor of love. More worked for many years painting the more than 2,000 illustrations of trees, bark, flowers, leaves, cones, and fruits. White is a retired dendrologist who wrote the accompanying text. The trees are varieties that grow in Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, and Holland, but the introduction notes that most are found in the U.S and many are native to North America.
The volume is arranged by scientific order beginning with the ginkgo family and ending with palms. Each two-page spread has an average of a quarter page of text with the rest devoted to illustrations of the trees and detailed pictures of the cones, leaves, etc. In addition to the descriptions of more than 1,000 species and varieties of trees, there are notes indicating height, hardiness, choice, and wood. The hardiness table is calculated by a percentage based on the minimum temperature. Choice refers to a tree's garden value as expressed by a rating of from one (excellent for ornamental and practical value) to four (not recommended because of susceptibility to disease or other reasons). The illustrations of mature trees (often in two or three seasons) sometimes have an animal or person under the tree to indicate scale. There are some omissions of common trees in the U.S., such as the mountain laurel and shadbush. Other oddities include the use of the term lime instead of linden.
In the last four years there have been a number of books published on trees. For the U.S. gardener Dirr's Hardy Trees and Shrubs (Timber, 1998) is recommended. However, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Trees is more than a reference book and will be read for pleasure. The beautiful illustrations and informative text make it a perfect source for anyone interested in this important part of our environment. An appropriate purchase for academic and public libraries. RBB
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