Meetings with Remarkable Trees

Thomas Pakenham

With this astonishing collection of tree portraits, Thomas Pakenham has produced a new kind of tree book. The arrangement owes nothing to conventional botany. The trees are grouped according to their characteristics: Natives, Travellers, Shrines, Fantasies and Survivors. Roughly half consist of ancient native trees; half are exotic newcomers from Europe, the East and North America. Of the Natives, most are huge and some are immeasurably old. The great yew at Selborne, blown down in the 1990 hurricane, but still clinging to life is believed to be centuries older than the Christian church built beside it in the thirteenth century. Common to all these trees is their power to inspire awe and wonder. Meetings with Remarkable Trees is a lovingly researched visual experience, each tree is featured in a beautifully illustrated full-color inlay.

About the Author

Thomas Pakenham is the author of the critically acclaimed The Scramble for Africa which won the W.H. Smith Award and the Alan Paton Award. He is also the author of The Boer War, The Mountains of Rasselas and The Year of Liberty. He lives in County Westmeath, Ireland and is chairman of the Irish Tree Society. He plants trees both for profit and ornament.