Trees & Forests of America

Book excerpt: "Essential to the fabric of life, trees and forests grace the continent, from sheltering oaks near the edge of the Atlantic to towering redwoods along the Pacific coast. Forests produce the oxygen we breathe. They cool the earth in summer, nurture wildlife of myriad forms, and help alleviate the effects of global warming. Not only useful and necessary but also strikingly beautiful, forests may be the most beloved part of the American landscape. In 'Trees & Forests of America', award-winning author and photographer Tim Palmer has captured 200 exquisite images of wild forests in all their vitality, complexity, and artistry. He shows New England with its brilliant maples in autumn, Appalachian mountains suffused with green, aspen groves enlivening the Rockies, cottonwoods shading streams in the desert, and rainforests that loom large with biological extravagance in the Northwest. Camera in hand, Palmer has found a spectacular array of natural wonders wherever native forests still grow. In his writing he describes the lives of trees, the ecological workings of forest, the importance that these places have for all of us, and the challenges facing woodlands and the people who care about them. Unaltered digitally or by other means, these pictures show forests as Tim Palmer found them -- at sunrise or sunset, in the depths of winter storms and in the balmy comfort of summer, on the beaches of Hawaii as well as the glaciated frontier of Alaska. Seeking out the quintessential forest in each region, and ever watchful for intimate details as well as the overarching view from treetop or mountaintop, Palmer shows America's trees and forests as never before portrayed in one volume of photography and text."--