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Trees are the Earth's lungs, climate regulators, and habitat protectors. Ever since our prehistoric ancestors emerged from the forest of a drying Africa, trees have given us shelter, medicine, shade, food and fuel in abundance. Max Adams in his eclectic and beautifully written sequence of reflections investigates stories and tree profiles, both the extraordinary biology of trees and humanity's relationship with wood and forests across the centuries. He reveals why birch bark makes the best fire-lighter, why the fruits of the rowan must pass through a bird's gut before its seeds can germinate, and how the wood of the venerable yew tree ensured that the English prevailed at Agincourt. In his investigation of the Scots pine he looks at a palette of forests, life in the woods, St Columbus's Coppice, the rarest tree and Woodwards and Pallisters. He considers the axe, the adze and wedge, the first carpenters and Stonehenge decoded, he looks at the engineers, hormones, machines, hydraulics and bodgers. He looks at the charcoal age and colliers, how to spot an ancient wood, forest gardens and the seasons. Liberally sprinkled with woody quotations, pen and ink and woodcut images from John Evelyn's classic Sylva of 1664. 256pp, glossary. 19cm square.