AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 TREES by Jonathan Drori

Laurence King Publishing, £17.99 ISBN 978-1786271617

This book will appeal to anyone who would like to learn a little more about useful trees from all parts of the world.

When I first picked up this book, I was taken aback by the beautiful, and descriptive coloured illustrations used to bring this book to life. They are in an unique style, accurate and a work of art in their own right. Not that this was needed as the text is beautifully written and addictive reading. If you are a tree lover and are planning an around-the-world trip or merely staying at home and would like to learn more about trees with interesting facts about their relationship with our everyday lives, then this is the travel guide for you.

Starting in England looking at two familiar iconic hybrid trees – the London plane that makes up more than half of London’s planted urban trees and the Leyland cypress, commonly planted as a hedging plant in the 1980s – the author takes readers eastwards in an anticlockwise direction around the world. Across northern Europe, southern Europe, the Mediterranean, through all of the continents, including Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, south and central America, finishing the tour in north America with the sugar maple, the source of the raw material for maple syrup.

The 80 trees are a clever and diverse representation of the 60,000 distinct tree species that can be found on our planet, all with inspiring, descriptive and true stories. Jonathan Drori brings out the science and economic importance of each example with the social impact that they have had on our history and present-day life, bringing these trees alive to the reader.

Trees play such an important part of our everyday life and this book will certainly whet the appetite to travel and see these 80 trees in their countries of origin or to stay at home and see them growing in a botanic garden.