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Ancient Trees: Trees That Live For 1,000 Years (Paperback)

~ (Author), Edward Parker (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

This engrossing and visually appealing book is intended as a celebration of some of the world's oldest living trees. By the authors' own admission, it is not a definitive guide to all of the world's ancient trees. Lewington, an environmental and children's book writer, and photographer Parker have selected some of the nearly 100 species they have identified as living 1000 years or longer. Trees from all around the world are represented: redwood, bristlecone pine, Brazil nut, yew, oak, lime, olive, baobab, fig, cedar, ginkgo, and others. Parker's many beautiful, full-color images contribute a great deal, but what makes this book especially interesting is a discussion of the roles these trees have played through the ages in human religions, myths, economies, and everyday life. Ancient Trees should appeal to a wide audience and is recommended for public, school, and undergraduate college libraries.AWilliam H. Wiese, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


Product Description

“Parker’s many beautiful, full-color images contribute a great deal, but what makes this book especially inter-esting is a discussion of the roles these trees have played through the ages in human religions, myths, economies, and everyday life.”—Library Journal. “More than an adornment for the coffee table.”—Washington Post. “One of my favorites....All the trees are awe-inspiring.”—Philadelphia Inquirer.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Collins & Brown (September 28, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1855859742
  • ISBN-13: 978-1855859746
  • Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 8.9 x 0.6 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,080,367 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Anna Lewington
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Even a coffee table book should have substance, August 2, 2000
By Ronald Lanner (Placerville, CA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Ancient Trees: Trees That Live For 1,000 Years (Hardcover)
A book that justifies itself by focusing on the "ancientness" of its subjects must do two things if it is to be taken seriously as a contribution to knowledge. First, it must discuss the issue of longevity in trees in some depth, and tie that in with what is known or suspected about longevity in other organisms. If indeed this is a catalog of the ancient, then what can we make of it? What general truths emerge from the data? The author makes no serious attempt to synthesize the information she brings to light -- just some offhand comments in her introduction. This gives the reader little understanding of the biology of aging, or the causes of longevity. So we find here nothing to increase our understanding of those phenomena,just anecdotes about the trees chosen as examples. This is a missed opportunity. Second, the author owes her readers some certainty that the book's major facts are indeed facts. I do not quibble here about numerous small errors of botany or geography that should have been caught by a publisher's fact checker; but rather the facts that form the core of this book's purpose -- tree ages. Many of the trees that are featured here come from tropical or subtropical areas, where annual ring evidence is not available for aging trees. Thus no precise age can be determined. She mentions a few cases where radiocarbon dating has been done, but gives no citations to it in the bibliography, which contains few references of scientific value. Based on carbon dating of a 1,000 year-old tree, she blithely assumes that baobabs up to 4,000 years old are somewhere out there. Her most outrageous age data are "at least 5,000 years old, possibly 9,000 years old" for a yew in Scotland. This latter figure is almost double the precisely determined age of the oldest known bristlecone pine. If there is credible evidence the yew could be so ancient, any responsible author would cite it. She does not. This then is not a book whose "facts" can be trusted, or one that advances knowledge of its main subject.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars could be a lot better, October 23, 2002
By Frank Paris (Beaverton, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Ancient Trees: Trees That Live For 1,000 Years (Hardcover)
I was hoping for two things in this book. I was hoping to get an insight into what it is that makes it possible for organisms to live so long. All we have here are anecdotes about specific species, no discussion in general about extraordinary longevity in the plant kingdom. Second, I was hoping to get a sense of scale and magnificence looking at the photographs. Personally, I found the photography mediocre. I don't care how grissled and torn up an ancient tree is, a good photographer will find a way of capturing its terrible beauty. There is little of that here. All too often the photos of these ancient beings look like nothing more than a mess. Also, some of the descriptions of the photos sound preposterous. A good example is the picture of the supposedly 6,000 year old lime tree on page 103. The text claims that the copice stool was measured to be 52 feet across. The only sense of scale suggested in the photo is the grass at the base of the stool. If that stool is 62 feet across, that makes the blades of grass 10 to 20 feet long. I just have to shake my head. If the text is building up the collosal size of some of these trees, then the photographer should try to indicate this size with perhaps someone standing next to the tree. I don't think there is a single photo in here with someone standing next to the tree. You want to know about photographing trees? See "Remarkable Trees of the World" by Thomas Pakenham. Now THAT guy knows how to present a collosal image! And his photos are also aesthetic masterpieces.

Is there anything I liked about this book? One thing I took away from this book is an appreciation of how many tree species there are in the world that live to an ancient age. I remember growing up thinking there were only three species that lived a long time: the California redwoods and the Bristlecone Pine. Then I moved to the Pacific Northwest and my knowledge expanded a little more as I discovered that cedars and yews and a few others could live a couple thousand years or so. Pakenham's two tree books then expanded my understanding even more, and now "Ancient Trees" has awakened me to the fact that tree species capable of living thousands of years are not all that uncommon -- maybe uncommon considering the number of tree species extant, but not uncommon geographically. They are everywhere, on all continents. This is a revelation to me. But as another reviewer pointed out, some of the claims in this book sound more like superstitions than scientific facts. 9,000 years for a single tree? I don't care if it IS a yew. Give me some proof, not the testimony of local legends.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Facinating and beautiful, June 12, 2000
This review is from: Ancient Trees: Trees That Live For 1,000 Years (Hardcover)
This book is a enthralling look at the world's oldest trees. Aside from the famed redwoods and bristlecone pines, how many know that limes can live over 1000 years, or that olive trees from Plato's time still yield their fruit in season? reading the chapters of this book send the mind wandering back across all of human history: the Tree of One Hundred Horses, an olive tree so huge that its' shade could cover literally a hundred head of horse, famous in Plato's time, has thrived at the foot of Mt. Etna, an active volcano, since nearly the dawn of history. Or, think of how there are cedars in Lebanon that were standing when Solomom's temple was built out of their brothers. The reverie and sense of awe that this tome's stories inspire are well worth the price. -Lloyd A. Conway
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