The Secret Life of Trees: How They Live and Why They Matter

Author(s): Colin Tudge

Natural History and Environment

 Take a journey into the mysterious world of trees . . .

At Boscobel in Shropshire stands the Royal Oak, where the future King Charles II was alleged to have hidden from Cromwell's men. There are redwoods in California that would have been ancient by the time Columbus first landed, and there are pines still alive which were germinated around the time that humans invented writing. There are Douglas firs as tall as skyscrapers, and one banyan tree in Calcutta as big as a football field.
From the tallest to the smallest, trees inspire wonder, and in The Secret Life of Trees Colin Tudge travels from his own back garden right round the world. He brings back the stories and facts behind trees: from how they live so long, and how they really work, to how they talk to each other, and why they came to exist in the first place.

Full of rich and surprising stories, The Secret Life of Trees will make everyone fall in love with the trees around them. First published 2005.

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Product Information

Colin Tudge started his first tree nursery in his garden aged 11, becoming an accomplished cacti grower by the age of eighteen and marking his life-long interest in trees. Always interested in plants and animals, he studied zoology at Cambridge and then began writing about science, first as features editor at the New Scientist and then as a documentary maker for the BBC. Now a full-time writer, he appears regularly as a public speaker, particularly for the British Council and is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and visiting Research Fellow at the Centre of Philosophy at the London School of Economics. His books include The Variety of Life: A Survey and Celebration of All the Creatures that have Ever Lived and So Shall We Reap. The Secret Life of Trees brings together Colin Tudge's knowledge of trees and his fascination with them, built up from trips to the rainforest in Costa Rica, Panama and Brazil, to his time India, New Zealand, China, the United States ! and his own back garden. He is unable to choose a favourite tree, believing that variety's the thing.

General Fields

  • : 9780713996982
  • : Penguin Books, Limited
  • : Penguin Books, Limited
  • : 0.812
  • : November 2005
  • : 241mm X 158mm X 41mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Colin Tudge
  • : Hardback
  • : illustrated edition
  • : 582.16
  • : 464
  • : Illustrations