Description
"Only God can make a tree," wrote Joyce Kilmer in one of the most celebrated of poems. In Tree: A Life Story, authors David Suzuki and Wayne Grady extend that celebration in a "biography" of this extraordinary - and extraordinarily important - organism. A story that spans a millennium and includes a cast of millions but focuses on a single tree, a Douglas fir, Tree describes in poetic detail the organism's modest origins that begin with a dramatic burst of millions of microscopic grains of pollen. The authors recount the amazing characteristics of the species, how they reproduce and how they receive from and offer nourishment to generations of other plants and animals. The tree's pivotal role in making life possible for the creatures around it - including human beings - is lovingly explored. The richly detailed text and Robert Bateman's original art pay tribute to this ubiquitous organism that is too often taken for granted.
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A rare portrait of the lifecycle of a tree.
A story that spans a millennium and includes a cast of millions. The story of a single tree.
In this clear, concise, and captivating book, renowned scientist and environmentalist David Suzuki and award-winning writer Wayne Grady tell the life story of a tree, beginning when heat from a devastating forest fire opens thousands of pine cones and sends millions of seeds into the air. Most of these seeds perish, but one falls into the soil and develops into the tree that is the subject of this book.
Suzuki and Grady describe how the tree grows and receives nourishment and what role the tree plays in the forest throughout its life. It acts as a home to a succession of creatures and plays a crucial role in the water cycle, in breaking rock down into the soil, and in removing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Even after the tree dies, it provides a home for moss, ferns, and other plants, which use the tree as a nurse log, and it provides nutrients for insects and fungi. Tree also looks at the community of organisms that share the tree’s ecosystem and at the events going on in the larger world during the tree’s lifetime.