Customer Reviews

Manual of the Trees of North America (Exclusive of Mexico), Vol. 1

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Referring to the Dover reprint pair of volumes: you get a large number of trees for a relatively low price (assuming you find these used, as they're out of print again). The books are concerned mainly with identification. Entries describe distribution, size, etc. and have line drawings of flowers, leaves, and fruit -- no color or photographs. This is not a "manual" in the sense of describing how to grow trees.

This is a Dover reprint of Sargent's manual of the trees of N-America. Charles Sprague Sargent (1841-1927) as the author of a book on N-American woods and as the director of the prestigious Arnold Arboretum was quite qualified to give a concise overview of what, at the time, was known of N-American trees. Per tree this manual gives a brief desciption of leaves, flowers, fruit, winter buds, bark, wood and distribution of the tree. In some cases the etymology of the botanic name. Each entry is accompanied by a modest line drawing of leaves, flowers and fruit. No photographs, no habit drawings.

The reprint is of the second edition of 1922 (first edition 1905), so this manual obviously is out of date in many respects, but in the reprinting in 1965 a 23 page appendix was added at the back of volume 2 which lists for both volumes a page-by-page update of names, both botanical and common.

All in all a handy reference to have on the bookshelf, but preferably as a supplement to a modern fieldguide, rather than stand alone.