There are a lot of gardening books out there, and a lot of books on trees. I have a thing for books that are heavier on ideas and photos and lighter on prose, but when I stumbled onto Donald Culross Peattie’s classic A Natural History of Trees: Of Eastern and Central North America, I read it like a novel.

A Russian novel, actually… Weighing in at 606 pages, you’d better be interested in trees and natural history if you’re like me and can’t stand not to finish a book if you start it.

But oh, what writing about trees. And I quote:

The most magnificent display of color in all the kingdom of plants is the autumnal foliage of the trees of North America. Over them all, over the clear light of the Aspens and Mountain Ash, over the leaping flames of Sumac and the hell-fire flickerings of poison ivy, over the war-paint of many Oaks, rise the colors of one tree — the Sugar Maple — in the shout of a great army. Clearest yellow, richest crimson, tumultuous scarlet, or brilliant orange — the yellow pigments shining through the over-painting of the red — the foliage of the Sugar Maple at once outdoes and unifies the rest.

Rarely have I ever read prose about trees so inspired, with such veracity. And yet this is an intensely useful book. Not only does Peattie tell of the folklore of every tree in it, he describes the natural habitat and growing conditions of each, and in the same compulsively readable prose. If you’re not up for digesting it all in one sitting, it’s still a valuable reference.

Be sure to buy the original (pictured) and not the newer abridged version. Woodcut illustrations are also not to be missed.