Straight from Maria Popova’s wonderful Brain Pickings blog, a review of an illustrated book on strange trees.
“In Strange Trees and the Stories Behind Them (public library), French author Bernadette Pourquié and illustrator Cécile Gambini choreograph an illustrated tour of the world’s greatest arboreal wonders, from species that have witnessed the dinosaurs roam this Earth to exotic marvels like Brazil’s ‘Walking Tree’ (Red Mangrove) and the Philippines’ ‘Rainbow Tree’ (Mindanao gum tree) to underappreciated procurers of human delights, such as the sapodilla tree that gives us chewing gum and the cocoa tree without which there would be no chocolate.
“Alongside each imaginative illustration, partway between botany and fairy tale, is a one-page autobiography of the respective tree, describing its natural and cultural habitat in a short first-person story fusing curious science facts, history, and local customs.” Read more.
I hope that John is reading this post. He’s officially on his town’s tree committee — promoting the value of trees in urban and commercial areas as well as residential — and he is leading a town tree inventory that was launched yesterday.
Illustration: Cécile Gambini 
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