National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America [Paperback]

Bruce Kershner (Author), Craig Tufts (Foreword), Daniel Mathews (Contributor), Gil Nelson (Contributor), Richard Spellenberg (Contributor), John W. Thieret (Contributor), Terry Purinton (Contributor), Andrew Block (Contributor), Gerry Moore (Contributor)

Book Description

Series: National Wildlife Federation Field Guide | Publication Date: May 9, 2008

From the National Wildlife Federation® comes the most up-to-date, all-photographic field guide to North American trees.

 

The Jeffrey Pine, Coconut Palm, Staghorn Sumac, and Western Hemlock: this single, portable volume features these, plus more than 700 other tree species and varieties, with special emphasis on their leaves, bark, fruits, and flowers. More than 2,000 stunning images show these trees in their natural habitats. Other features include: a unique identification tip for each tree; range maps showing distribution in North America; How to Identify a Tree section; a detailed glossary of tree parts and leaf, fruit, flower, and bark types; essays on ecology, conservation, and North America’s important forest types; plus a complex species and quick-flip indexes. The guide’s unique waterproof cover makes it especially valuable for use in the field.

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Sterling (May 9, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402738757
• ISBN-13: 978-1402738753
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.8 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #14,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #8 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Plants > Trees

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars VERY complete & well-organized for a compact guide, September 24, 2008

By 

PaulL (St. Paul, MN USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America (Paperback)

This is more a concise small-format encylopedia of North American trees than a field guide. It's amazingly comprehensive, containing information on native species and a lot of cultivated imports. For a single taxon, photographs of leaves (on a white background, for clarity), bark, flowers, and fruit, along with the text, are arranged on a single page so there's no jumping around. Line art is used only to help define terms or help navigating the keys. The text contains a major identification tip to look for in each species.

As a field guide I think the identification keys are its weakest point. They start, as all lay-oriented keys, with leaf arrangement and shape, and then quickly move to flower and fruit characters. For most of the year you don't have flowers and fruits, so I wish the keys concentrated more on leaf details (margins, venation, size). Experienced enthusiasts will spend more time in the index than the keys; the inexperienced will probably spend a lot of time paging through, looking at the excellent pictures, for a pattern match. Because the guide is so comprehensive, though, there are a LOT of pictures to page through. It's printed on thick, durable paper, though this makes it rather big and heavy for the pocket.

An ideal combination might by this guide paired with May T. Watts' "Tree Finder: A Manual for the Identification of Trees by Their Leaves," only $4.00 from Amazon & truly vest pocket-sized. It has excellent keys for the layperson who lives east of the Rockies.

The Amazon price for the NWF guide makes it a steal. You won't find this much information about trees in one small volume anywhere else.

I give it 5 stars for the information & 4 as an identification guide.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best tree book I have seen!, August 31, 2008

By 

Travis Southerland "Phototure" (Sherman,Tx) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America (Paperback)

I have had and looked at dozens of ID books, and they all have ups and downs.This, as far as I can tell, has little to no downs. It has a wonderful layout with pictures and text together...no more flipping back and forth! It also is organized so that you can search by leaf type. Even if you don't know how to tell the difference...the info on how to tell the different leaf patterns is all at the front of the book.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great field guide, March 21, 2011

By 

WES - See all my reviews

This review is from: National Wildlife Federation Field Guide to Trees of North America (Paperback)

This book rocks. It's by far the best tree guide out there. There are several things that make it really unique. First each tree has an ID tip to help distinguish that tree. The authors don't blindly identify each tree, but also make note of possible ID problems you might encounter (if a characteristic of one tree is similar to another). It also will show pictures of trees that best help you identify the tree (not just show the silhouette of the crown, or drawing/picture of a leave or bud). The guide is smart in that it shows you unique characteristics about that particular tree and has real, full color pictures. Aside from highlighting key features, it also still describes all the features (fruit/leaf/bud size, shape, color, etc) you'd expect. While the guide does provide some natural history with trees, it's mostly for identification. I've looked around a lot for a good tree ID book and this is the best one by far. The only down size is it's a little big (it covers all of North America), but I'll trade that for the content and quality any day.