Teaching the Trees: Lessons from the Forest
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In this collection of natural-history essays, biologist Joan Maloof embarks on a series of lively, fact-filled expeditions into forests of the eastern United States. Through Maloof’s engaging, conversational style, each essay offers a lesson in stewardship as it explores the interwoven connections between a tree species and the animals and insects whose lives depend on it--and who, in turn, work to ensure the tree’s survival.Never really at home in a laboratory, Maloof took to the woods early in her career. Her enthusiasm for firsthand observation in the wild spills over into her writing, whether the subject is the composition of forest air, the eagle’s preference for nesting in loblolly pines, the growth rings of the bald cypress, or the gray squirrel’s fondness for weevil-infested acorns. With a storyteller’s instinct for intriguing particulars, Maloof expands our notions about what a tree “is” through her many asides--about the six species of leafhoppers who eat only sycamore leaves or the midges who live inside holly berries and somehow prevent them from turning red.As a scientist, Maloof accepts that trees have a spiritual dimension that cannot be quantified. As an unrepentant tree hugger, she finds support in the scientific case for biodiversity. As an activist, she can’t help but wonder how much time is left for our forests. Publishers Weekly Trees, the dominant life form of most undisturbed terrestrial ecosystems, get a fitting tribute in this engaging collection of eco-meditations. In each short chapter, Salisbury University naturalist Maloof profiles each familiar tree-from the mighty oak to the humble holly-in the forests near her Maryland home and explores its "magical web of relationships" with the plants, insects, birds, mammals, fungi and people who rely on it. Along the way she gently voices her environmentalist convictions, deploring the clear-cutting of mature forests and their replacement with monoculture pine plantations, urging the use of recycled paper and jousting with county officials who want to cut down a local forest for the timber proceeds (she stymies them by declaring it a "September 11th Memorial Forest" and draping the trees with tags bearing the names of the dead from Ground Zero). Lyrical overtones are provided by sprinkled-in snippets of poetry by Rilke, and illustrations by the 18th-century artist John Abbott add a lovely visual touch. The resulting mix of scientific lore and acute personal observation makes for a beguiling walk in the woods. 18 illus. (July 5) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Old-growth air1Tulip poplar7Tree hugger13Sycamore18Beech25Pine38Grandfather trees48Oak54Maple62Black locust67Redcedar77Holly85Bald cypress96Sweet gum105September 11th memorial forest112Baby trees121Eagles and pines127Things of this world132
