Twelve Trees: The Deep Roots of Our Future

Lewis (senior curator, History of Science and Technology, Huntington Lib., Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens; Belonging on an Island) sets out to understand how 12 different species of trees live individually and as communities and how human activities affect their abundance, genetic adaptations, and their (and human’s) very survival. Lewis notes that the approximately three billion trees on Earth are an essential element in maintaining the planet’s environmental balance. Of these, he focuses on trees as far-ranging as the Easter Island Sophora toromiro, coastal redwoods, Tasmanian blue gum eucalyptus, Indian sandalwoods, and the West African ebony. Enhanced by narrator Kaleo Griffith’s pleasant, well-paced presentation, this narrative engagingly relates Lewis’s exploration of trees in their natural habitats and visits to museums, botanical gardens, and research facilities. He outlines the delicate and often thorny social, political, legal, and environmental pressures that come to bear on the trees and invitingly provides captivating facts about how humans, other animals, birds, insects, and microbes use trees.