How to Read a Tree: Clues and Patterns from Bark to Leaves - Gooley, Tristan - Hardcover

How to Read a Tree: Clues and Patterns from Bark to Leaves (Natural Navigation)

Author: Gooley, Tristan

Publication Date: 05/02/2023

Format: Hardcover

From the New York Times–bestselling author of The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs (295,000 copies in print), an eye-opening adventure into the secret language of trees, showing a whole secret world of clues and signs hidden in branches, bark, roots, leaves, buds, trunks, canopies, and more

“Reams of appealing facts make one itch to get outside and right up close to trees’ rough surfaces and shady cover.”—The Atlantic

New York Times–bestselling author Tristan Gooley opens our eyes to the secret language of trees—and the natural wonders they reveal all around us

Trees are keen to tell us so much. They’ll tell us about the land, the water, the people, the animals, the weather, and time. And they will tell us about their lives, the good bits and bad. Trees tell a story, but only to those who know how to read it.

In How to Read a Tree, Gooley uncovers the clues hiding in plain sight: in a tree’s branches and leaves; its bark, buds, and flowers; even its stump. Leaves with a pale, central streak mean that water is nearby. Young, low-growing branches show that a tree is struggling. And reddish or purple bark signals new growth.

Like snowflakes, no two trees are exactly the same. Every difference reveals the epic story this tree has lived—if we stop to look closely.