prairie point

a new field guide for trees

When it’s too hot or too cold to garden I can often be found passing the time with a book on gardening or on plants. In fact a book on either of these subjects is usually a good bet for a gift for me. That is how I recently came into possession of Trees of Texas by Carmine Stahl and Ria McElvaney.

It’s essentially a tree identification guide but it has it’s own unique twists on the genre. Some plant identification books rely on photos and others feature drawings or watercolors. Each has its advantages but I generally favor drawings, because the artist can bring out more of the unique features that you really need to make an ID. Photos are great for showing how a plant fits in its native setting but usually not so good at showing detail. This book uses photos but they are all black and white and they are of individual, life-size leaves, nuts and twigs on a white background, much the same way that an illustrator would have depicted them. There is a whole page for each tree and they are arranged so that similar leaf shapes are grouped together.

The pages are 8 by 11, which is fine for showing leaves full size, but rather awkward to carry on field hikes. I think it will turn out to work best for me if I break off the leaves that I need to identify and bring them back home for comparison. There are both native and non-native trees depicted, most of the ones that I am likely to run into either in the wild or on suburban lawns around here.

As for the text it is what you would expect in a book of this type, mostly discussing the range and related species. Not really a book for fireside reading but one I will likely find useful the next time I find myself asking “what kind of tree is that?”