THE STORY OF TREES: AND HOW THEY CHANGED THE WAY WE LIVE by Kevin Hobbs and David West

Laurence King, £25 ISBN 978-1786275226

An engaging, digestible take on the tree anthology, drawing together arboreal histories, attractive illustrations and a few surprises along the way. Reviewer Matt Collins is head gardener at the Garden Museum.

The bookshelf given over to garden reading in my home study is struggling. There is a sag in the middle and the culprits are, without doubt, the tree books. As a species, they are numerous and weighty, encompassing stout, little field guides, such as the trusty Collins Complete Guide to British Trees, and great tomes, such as Hugh Johnson’s Trees. This is to say that there are already many good books about trees; nonetheless, I will be making room on my shelf for the newest among them, The Story of Trees by Kevin Hobbs and David West. It is a refreshingly upbeat work, with an attractive, sparse design that lends well to straddling both the reference and engaging reading categories.

Writing enthusiastically about 100 individual tree species is no easy task, but the shared authorship has contributed the necessary zeal. Each tree is given a double page, beautifully illustrated on one – with a full profile, and also a small detail such as fruit or leaf form – and a concise write-up on the other. Thibaud Hérem’s accurate yet stylised colour drawings capture not just the shape and form of the subject but also something of its presence. The drawings marry well with the authors’ descriptions, which combine a basic botanical overview (origin, height, habitat and so on) with historical and human associations. The result is that these trees (a physically and geographically diverse selection including Indian figs, Chinese plums and English oaks) are placed in a digestible, relatable context, not weighing the reader down with unnecessary bumf, but offering refreshing and often unusual details.

Because of its size and format, one must decide how to consume this book: as frequent reference or perhaps one tree a night before bed. I first went through the trees that hold significance for me, and learned new things: about the ‘ghetto palm’, ancient chestnuts and the American walnut’s dark shadow. A real treasure trove.