Author: Richard Fortey
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101875763
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403
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Book Description
From the author of Earth: An Intimate History, an exuberant "biography" of four acres of woodland, evoking a cosmos of living and inanimate things and imagining its millennia of existence A few years ago, award-winning scientist Richard Fortey purchased four acres of woodland in the Chiltern Hills of Oxfordshire, England. The Wood for the Trees is the joyful, lyrical portrait of what he found there. With one chapter for each month, we move through the seasons: tree felling in January, moth hunting in June, finding golden mushrooms in September. Fortey, along with the occasional expert friend, investigates the forest top to bottom, discovering a new species and explaining the myriad connections that tie us to nature and nature to itself. His textured, evocative prose and gentle humor illuminate the epic story of a small forest. But he doesn't stop at mere observation. The Wood for the Trees uses the forest as a springboard back through time, full of rich and unexpected tales of the people, plants, and animals that once called the land home. With Fortey's help, we come to see a universe in miniature.
Author: Charles Watkins
Publisher: Reaktion Books
ISBN: 1780234155
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 314
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Book Description
Forests—and the trees within them—have always been a central resource for the development of technology, culture, and the expansion of humans as a species. Examining and challenging our historical and modern attitudes toward wooded environments, this engaging book explores how our understanding of forests has transformed in recent years and how it fits in our continuing anxiety about our impact on the natural world. Drawing on the most recent work of historians, ecologist geographers, botanists, and forestry professionals, Charles Watkins reveals how established ideas about trees—such as the spread of continuous dense forests across the whole of Europe after the Ice Age—have been questioned and even overturned by archaeological and historical research. He shows how concern over woodland loss in Europe is not well founded—especially while tropical forests elsewhere continue to be cleared—and he unpicks the variety of values and meanings different societies have ascribed to the arboreal. Altogether, he provides a comprehensive, interdisciplinary overview of humankind’s interaction with this abused but valuable resource.
Author: Sandra Kynes
Publisher: Llewellyn Worldwide
ISBN: 0738707813
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
Wealth of information on fifty trees, including their attributes, lore, powers, and seasonal correspondences. Book jacket.
Author: Robert Penn
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393253740
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 151
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Book Description
The story of how one man cut down a single tree to see how many things could be made from it. Out of all the trees in the world, the ash is most closely bound up with who we are: the tree we have made the greatest and most varied use of over the course of human history. One frigid winter morning, Robert Penn lovingly selected an ash tree and cut it down. He wanted to see how many beautiful, handmade objects could be made from it. Thus begins an adventure of craftsmanship and discovery. Penn visits the shops of modern-day woodworkers—whose expertise has been handed down through generations—and finds that ancient woodworking techniques are far from dead. He introduces artisans who create a flawless axe handle, a rugged and true wagon wheel, a deadly bow and arrow, an Olympic-grade toboggan, and many other handmade objects using their knowledge of ash’s unique properties. Penn connects our daily lives back to the natural woodlands that once dominated our landscapes. Throughout his travels—from his home in Wales, across Europe, and America—Penn makes a case for the continued and better use of the ash tree as a sustainable resource and reveals some of the dire threats to our ash trees. The emerald ash borer, a voracious and destructive beetle, has killed tens of millions of ash trees across North America since 2002. Unless we are prepared to act now and better value our trees, Penn argues, the ash tree and its many magnificent contributions to mankind will become a thing of the past. This exuberant tale of nature, human ingenuity, and the pleasure of making things by hand chronicles how the urge to understand and appreciate trees still runs through us all like grain through wood.
Author: Peter Wohlleben
Publisher: Greystone Books Ltd
ISBN: 1771644354
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 87
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Book Description
WINNER OF THE AAAS/SUBARU PRIZE FOR EXCELLENCE IN SCIENCE BOOKS BASED ON THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES This interactive and illustrated book for kids aged 8-10 introduces the wonderful science of the forest through outdoor activities, quizzes, fun facts, photographs, and more! Discover the secret life of trees with this nature and science book for kids: Can You Hear the Trees Talking? shares the mysteries and magic of the forest with young readers, revealing what trees feel, how they communicate, and the ways trees take care of their families. The author of The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben, tells kids about the forest internet, aphids who keep ants as pets, nature’s water filters, and more fascinating things that happen under the canopy. Featuring simple activities kids can try on their own, along with quizzes, photographs, and more, Can You Hear the Trees Talking? covers a range of amazing topics including: How trees talk to each other (hint: through the wood wide web!) Why trees are important in the city How trees make us healthy and strong How trees get sick, and how we can help them get better This engaging and visually stunning book encourages learning and fun as kids discover the wonder of the natural world outside their windows. "Lush full-color photos and pictures create an immersive experience and the layout facilitates engaged, delighted learning. ...this book may prompt frequent family visits to, and a new appreciation for, neighborhood trees and local forests.” —Washington Parent
Author: Claus Mattheck
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642612199
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 141
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Book Description
Here are two physicists looking over the fence of physics, getting thrilled by the life and growth of trees, taking an altogether different, exciting view of wood: trees produce wood for their own benefit. They do not live for the benefit of man who builds his world using wood as a raw material. Timber is revealed in a different light, and the reader is taught to stop thinking of it in terms of defective beams and boards. Wood only fails as a part of the living tree. To us, the tree and wood biologists, this new definition is a real, inspiring challenge, which is just what Kubler and Mattheck intended it to be. Their answers may seem too simple or little logical to some of us; but the authors are not at a loss for sound and solid arguments. Their field studies prove the incredible, their hypotheses makes us want to get to the bottom of the un proven unbelievable. The authors' answers and arguments are bold and cour ageous. They arouse our curiosity and force us to fathom the facts. It seems as if Kubler and Mattheck wanted to trick us into believing that trees only live and react following mechanical rules and strategies. To tell the truth, that was what I first suspected the authors of: but I was wrong.
Author: Dennis Sherwood
Publisher: Nicholas Brealey International
ISBN: 1857884973
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 357
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Book Description
How to use Systems Thinking to improve your business.
Author: Alison Smith
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 184409765X
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 202
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Book Description
A guide to using the metaphorical language of a “stuck” situation to discover the solution • Shares an easy, fun process of exploring well-known sayings as a means to identify new solutions and get unstuck in life and work • Explains how to bring clarity to a problem, highlight alternative perspectives, bypass any conscious resistance to finding a solution, and allow solutions to emerge organically, from within ourselves • Details the author’s “Landscaping Your Life” method, which has been used successfully in business strategy development, team development, project problem resolution, and in one-to-one coaching If you can’t see the wood for the trees, feel like a fish out of water, or are going around in circles, we’ve got good news for you: that saying is also a clue to where you’ll find the solution. Yes, you read right--you can use the language you’re using to describe the stuck situation to discover the solution. It’s not even the language as much as the landscape contained within your description of the situation that can give you pointers. As Alison Smith explains, “If a picture paints a thousand words, then a metaphor paints a thousand pictures. In other words, the metaphor in the saying you’re using will provide a million words that will undoubtedly have the solution contained within them.” That’s what this book is all about--taking these sayings that you’re using to describe being stuck and using them to get unstuck again. The language you apply provides clues to how you perceive the current situation. Subconsciously, you know the solution. Exploring the metaphors contained within your language allows your subconscious to communicate to your conscious awareness more easily. The metaphor reduces resistance and the barriers we put up to change. It’s as if we enjoy exploring the metaphor and forget what it means in reality, and before we know it, we have a metaphorical solution that we cannot help but translate into real life. Offering an effective, easy process based on the power of metaphors, Alison Smith introduces her “Landscaping Your Life” method as a means to bring clarity to a problem, highlight alternative perspectives, and allow solutions to emerge organically, from within ourselves.
Author: Francis W.M.R. Schwarze
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 3642573029
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195
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Book Description
Wood-destroying fungi play an important role in nature, because they are the only forms of life capable of reducing wood to its initial constituents. However, they can also be dangerous for people and property, as they can impair the stability and fracture-safety of trees. This book gives detailed information, based on new and original scientfic findings, on the examination and effects of the most important species of fungi associated with failure of infected urban trees. In addition, new ways are presented for predicting the advance of decay in the living tree. The subject is illustrated and made easily accessible by numerous colored photos of fungus fruit bodies, defect symptoms, and macroscopic and microscopic pictures of wood decay. A detailed introduction to the fundamentals of wood pathology provides a way into the subjects of applied mycology and tree care for readers without previous special knowledge. Francis W.M.R. Schwarze, National Diploma of Arboriculture at Merrist Wood College, UK (1991), Master of Science in Pure, Applied Plant and Fungal Taxonomy, University of Reading, UK (1992), doctorate at Freiburg University (1995), since 1996 assistant at the Institute for Forest Botany and Tree Physiology at Freiburg University, concentrating on research into wood-destroying fungi and host-fungus interactions. Julia Engels, Diploma Forester at Freiburg University (1995), doctorate on root fungi at Freiburg University (1998). Since 1998 active in tree care and mycology in Luxembourg. Claus Mattheck, born 1947, doctorate in theoretical physics (1973), qualified as lecturer on damage studies at Karlsruhe University (1985), and now teaches there as Professor. Since 1991 he has been an officially appointed and attested expert on tree mechanics and fracture behaviour. Has been awarded numerous prizes for research and publication. Head of the Biomechanics Department at the Karlsruhe Research Centre.
Author: Akiva Silver
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603588418
Category : Gardening
Languages : en
Pages : 290
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Book Description
Trees are our allies in maintaining a healthy planet. Partnering with trees allows us to build soil, enhance biodiversity, increase wildlife populations, grow food and medicine, and pull carbon out of the atmosphere. Trees of Power by Akiva Silver shares a step-by-step path toward working with these arboreal allies, from planting to propagation to understanding the multiple benefits that ten of our most essential tree species - the chestnut, apple, hickory, and more - provide for humans, animals, and nature alike. In this book you'll learn how to work successfully with perennial woody plants. It includes in-depth information on individual species and different ways to propagate trees - whether by seed, grafting, layering, or with cuttings. These time-honored techniques make it easy for anyone to increase their stock of trees simply and inexpensively. Silver's combination of hands-on experience and sincere exuberance for the natural world will inspire a new generation of tree stewards while appealing to anyone who feels a deep appreciation for these magnificent plants.--COVER.
