'Among all the varied productions with which Nature has adorned the surfaces of the earth, none awakens our sympathies, or interests our imagination so powerfully as those venerable trees, which seem to have stood the lapse of ages…' John Muir, 1868A fascinating celebration of the some of the oldest living organisms on the planet, from the grand Oaks of Europe and mighty Redwoods of California to Africa's 'upside-down' Baobab tree, and from the Ginkgos of China and Korea to the Oli...

Elegant and beautiful, rich in history and supremely useful, birches have played an extraordinary yet largely unrecognized part in shaping both our natural environment and the material culture and beliefs of millions of people around the world.For thousands of years they have given people of the northern forests and beyond raw materials in the form of leaves, twigs, branches and bark, as well as wood and sap, not simply to survive but to flourish and express their identity in practi...