Number 6's Blog

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A Natural History of North American Trees by Donald Peattle is an unfinished condominium of the trees of North America. I’d recommend it for anyone who loves trees.

This book has a different format than other books about trees I have read. The others typically give the physically characteristics, how to grow it, where it can be grown, know problems, etc. This tree tome, however, in many case documents who discovered the tree, how it is used by the lumber industry, rates its hardness, and even incudes antidotal stories about the tree.

The first edition was published in 1950. It’s gone through several editions since then. The original was published as two volumes which have since been combined into one. Although not stated I believe the author planned to document all the trees in North America but for reasons not documented he did not complete. For example he mentions Live Oaks but did not include a section on that stately tree.

The book book does not have a “plot” or a narrative threading from cover to cover. Rather, each short paragraph documents a different tree species. Therefore the book is probably most useful as a reference to research particular tree species instead of reading cover to cover.

Below are a few examples of items I found interesting in the book:

• Many believe Redwoods and Sequoias are the same tree species but they are wrong. The giant Sequoia Sequoiadendron giganteum is the longest living and largest of all the tree species. It has a very limited range in a couple small areas of California. The [General Sherman ](The General Sherman Tree – Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks (U.S. National Park Service) is considered the largest of all trees by volume standing 275 tall and over 36 feet in diameter at the base. The Coast Redwood Sequoia Semppervirens is the tallest of all the trees with Hyperioncurrently believed to be the tallest at 380 feet..
• The Magnolia is another very interesting tree. It’s one of the older trees in the Planet predating even bees. The flowers may have developed to entice beetles to pollinate the trees. Fossils of plants identifiably belonging to the Magnolia Family have been dated to be 95 million years old
• The Quaking or TremblingAspen is the most widely distributed tree in North America. It has survived better from the saw of the lumberman much better than other trees in part because the fibers are too short for making paper.
• Mr Beattie includes the Canoe Cedar Thuja plicata . That term is no longer in use these 72 odd year later. The common term in use today is the Western redcedar. The original name came about because the Northwest Indians used the tree to make canoes. By the way Lewis and Clark also made canoes from this tree after they crossed the Continental Divide. The canoes were up to 65 ft in length and could hold 30 people. The Indians also used the Western redcedar for totem poles.
• The White Ash is one of the most used trees in North. America because of its white wood and its hardness (second only to Hickory in North America). Most young boys are familiar with white ash because all baseball bats are white ash. Among Darwin and others the white ash is considered the highest evolutionary scale of trees.
• Finally, here’s a typical vingette (one of hundreds): In olden times in Kentucky homemade soap was stirred with a sassafras stick to make a good quality soap