Twelve Trees

The Deep Roots of Our Future

By: Daniel Lewis

Narrated by: Kaleo Griffith

A compelling global exploration of nature and survival as seen via a dozen species of trees, offering “extensive insight into the ways in which humans and trees are interconnected” (BookPage), revealing the challenges facing our planet and how scientists are working urgently to save our forests and our future.

The world today is undergoing the most rapid environmental transformation in human history—from climate change to deforestation. Scientists, ethnobotanists, indigenous peoples, and collectives of all kinds are closely studying trees and their biology to understand how and why trees function individually and collectively in the ways they do. In Twelve Trees, Daniel Lewis, curator and historian at one of the world’s most renowned research libraries, travels the world to learn about these trees in their habitats.

Lewis takes us on a sweeping journey to plant breeding labs, botanical gardens, research facilities, deep inside museum collections, to the tops of tall trees, underwater, and around the Earth, journeying into the deserts of the American west and the deep jungles of Peru, to offer a globe-spanning perspective on the crucial impact trees have on our entire planet. When a once-common tree goes extinct in the wild but survives in a botanical garden, what happens next? How can scientists reconstruct lost genomes and habitats? How does a tree store thousands of gallons of water, or offer up perfectly preserved insects from millions of years ago, or root itself in muddy swamps and remain standing? How does a 5,000-year-old tree manage to live, and what can we learn from it? And how can science account for the survival of one species at the expense of others? Twelve Trees “brims with wonder, appreciation, and even some small hope” (Booklist) and is an awe-inspiring story of our world, its past, and its future.

Note—species include: * The Lost Tree of Easter Island (Sophora toromiro) * The coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) * Hymenaea protera [a fossil tree] * The Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) * East Indian sandalwood (Santanum album) * The Bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) * West African ebony (Diospyros crassiflora) * The Tasmanian blue gum eucalyptus (Eucalyptus globulus) * Olive tree (Olea europaea) * Baobab (Adansonia digitata) * the kapok tree (Ceiba pentandra) * The bald cypress (Taxodium distichum)

©2024 Daniel Lewis (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio

I love trees and this is a great tribute to them in all aspects

The prose describing trees is great and the science and symbiosis of trees to everything around them was wonderful

Disappointing

This is a series of dry, thoroughly researched essays that show little evidence that the author has spent much time with actual trees--digging them, planting them, caring for them, etc. I finally stopped listening part way through the chapter on olive trees, which offers only a brief description of the tree, and is almost entirely (note that I didn't finish the chapter) about olive oil, it's production, regulation, distribution, and rating by professional tasters. There is much discussion of acronym agencies in the public and private sector that are involved in these activities, and a wine review is quoted at length to establish the point that wine and olive oil are not assessed in the same way. There's a lot of filler here. To be fair, there is also some good information.