Customer Reviews

Woodlands (Collins New Naturalist)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Woodlands is a fascinating, albeit specialised, read. After the introductory chapter, chapter two appropriately starts at the bottom with the essentials, roots and makes very interesting reading; but some of the subsequent chapters are rather more specialised, for example Pollen Analysis and Woodland. Other chapter titles include: Archives of Woodland and How to Study Them; Archaeology and Land-Forms of Woodland and Wood-Pasture; Uses of Wood and Timber . . . ; Ancient Woodland Plants and Other Creatures; Environment, Pathology and Ecology . . . ; Modern Forestry . . . ; and Experiments and Long-Terms Observations are just a few of the twenty two chapters. It is packed with information both specific and incidental to woodlands. The book includes, in addition to References, a Bibliography, Tables and a comprehensive Index.

The book is illustrated, the illustrations grouped in signatures spaced throughout the book, four in all containing over 200 photographs, maps and diagrams, predominately in colour. With two or more pictures to a page they tend necessarily to be rather small, adding to the impression, along with the small type and densely packed pages, that this a studios work and certainly not a picture book!

While Rackman writes essentially about British woodland, he makes it clear that much of what he has to say can be applied to other countries.