An Illustrated Guide to Maples (Illustrated Guides)

Rating:
Summary: The Connoisseurs Guide to the Maple Family
Review: THE ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO MAPLES is far more than the definitive book on all of the 250 species of this favorite tree for all seasons. It stands solidly as an art book for environmentalists, arborists, and lovers of color photography.

In his Introduction Antoine Le Hardy De Beaulieu presents a warmly written history of the maple trees, with special attention to the areas of the world where this ubiquitous genus appears. Then follows a beautifully organized guide to each of the many species, with not only lush color photographs of the trees in the environment but also with close up views of specifics that assist the gardener in identifying each tree. Then at the end of this large volume considerable space is devoted to landscape placements of these magnificent trees that not only offer suggestions to planners, but also can be viewed as fine art photography. Highly Recommended volume. Grady Harp, January 2005

Rating:
Summary: Really magnificent
Review: The Timber Press has been putting out lavishly printed volumes (full color on glossy paper) for awhile now. With this book they appear to have lifted the publishing of fine books to a new level. They not only found a group of people dedicated to their subject and to fine photography who captured the saillant features in almost invariably excellent pictures, but also managed to find a layout to do these pictures full justice. Basically (almost) every maple species (or subspecies) has two pages devoted to it (or a multiple of that): a page of text and a page of pictures. Where more pages are devoted to a single maple sometimes a full page is devoted to a single picture, but this is the exception. Usually there are several pictures per page with large pictures of habit and smaller pictures of detail. The effect is quite splendid. A quick browse through the text reveals nothing out of place, with a recent classification being followed, although I suspect that a really close look will show up nitpickingly small errors. All in all this is really magnificent maple book, with a considerable wow!-factor.