Rare Trees The Fascinating Stories of the World’s Most Threatened Species

by Oldfield, Sara; Rivers, Malin

• ISBN13: 9781604699524
• ISBN10: 1604699523
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2023-03-21
• Publisher: Timber Press

Summary

Discover the secrets and beauty of the world’s rarest trees in this fantastic book filled with more than 300 color photographs.
 
Did you know that the resin of the dragon tree was so prized that it was used and traded as medicine by the Roman Empire? Or that the Bornean ironwood is one of the only timbers dense enough to sink in water? Trees have adapted to thrive on steep mountains, high in cloud forests, on dry savannahs, in parched deserts, and in tropical wetlands. Our own human history—and our future—are interwoven with the trees that define the character and environments of our green planet.
 
Rare Trees offers a stunning visual presentation of 60 of the most fascinating, bizarre, and threatened tree species on the planet, from conifers to magnolias to oaks. With color photographs showing trees and their most unusual features, maps of growing regions, callouts of memorable facts, and examples of poignant cultural and historical uses by Indigenous populations, Rare Trees will give everyone who loves trees an armchair tour of unique specimens from around the globe. You will be inspired to help preserve this critical canopy of life.

Author Biography

Sara Oldfield has been Secretary General of Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) since May 2005. Previously she worked as Global Programmes Director for Fauna & Flora International. She has worked for a wide range of other conservation organisations, including UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre and Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and as a freelance consultant for over ten years, as a researcher and policy advisor for international biodiversity conservation. Sara is also Chair of the IUCN/SSC Global Tree Specialist Group, responsible for promoting and implementing projects to identify and protect globally red-listed tree species.
 

Malin Rivers is the Head of Conservation Prioritisation at Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI). She manages the red list programme at BGCI, with its current focus on the Global Tree Assessment. Recent tree red list projects include Magnoliaceae, Theaceae, European trees, Madagascar trees. In addition, Malin is the Red List Authority Coordinator and Secretary of the IUCN/SSC Global Tree Specialist Group and the Chair of the Red List Technical Working Group. She has worked with plant conservation in botanic gardens for over ten years.