Fantastic Trees

Rating:
Summary: quaint
Review: As PvR writes, this book is dated. By more than the 40 some years since publication; it has the flavor of a book from the early 1900's; the protestant missionary - tourist in a hundred exotic gardens whose names are mispelled; unsystematic; creationist. The funny tree the "natives" called tumbo, properly named for the German who "discovered" it and such wonders described in bubbles of enthusiasm for god's menagerie.
And yet a quaint book for your bathroom, for a quick contemplative chuckle at peculiarities of nature and at our silly selves. Very like a whale!

Rating:
Summary: A "gawker's handbook" on trees
Review: This is a reprint of a 1967 original, but actually it looks even older, both in the kind of illustrations (smallish black & white photographs of a quality that varies from fair to excellent) and in the style it is written. I imagine this will be prevent it from being very popular among today's spoiled readers.

Having said that, there is a wealth of information here measured out in easy-to-digest bits. It is good that this book continues to be in print: it will reward the reader who takes the trouble of digging out what he needs.

Rating:
Summary: A "gawker's handbook" on trees
Review: This is a reprint of a 1967 original, but actually it looks even older, both in the kind of illustrations (smallish black & white photographs of a quality that varies from fair to excellent) and in the style it is written. I imagine this will be prevent it from being very popular among today's spoiled readers.

Having said that, there is a wealth of information here measured out in easy-to-digest bits. It is good that this book continues to be in print: it will reward the reader who takes the trouble of digging out what he needs.