As a naturalist who travels, I often find myself examining things that might be often overlooked, particularly in places where many people might not give them much thought. Such as case over the past few years has been trees in cities. I began to take greater notice of them a few years ago on a business trip to the U.S. city of Indianapolis, Indiana; an interest that received a significant boost when I discovered that in Nürnberg, Germany all the trees are given identifying numbers to make their care more efficient and effective. Then finally this past August, I downloaded the then new episode of In Defense of Plants and enjoyed Dr. Jessica Turner-Skoff enthusiastically and eloquently explaining why Cities Need Trees.
So when I noticed Prof. Sonja Dümpelmann‘s recently published book Seeing Trees; A History of Street Trees in New York City and Berlin in the Yale University Press catalog, I new this was a book about which I needed to learn more. Yale describes it as “a fascinating and beautifully illustrated volume that explains what street trees tell us about humanity’s changing relationship with nature and the city.” That’s more than sufficient for me to have added it to my reading list.
