Book a comprehensive field guide to Florida’s trees

By MIKE WALKER

The Trees of Florida : A Reference and Field Guide
By Gil Nelson, Ph.D.
Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 1994

It's rare for any book reviewer to go back over ten years to a book with an older publication date and select it for review-normally such will only be considered if a new edition of the volume  comes out or perhaps the book is tied to some newsworthy current event. Sometimes, though, you just have to dig back a decade or so to find the best books on a topic. Written in 1994, Gil Nelson's The Trees of Florida is indeed such a book. I love field guides in general: they allow the naturalist-whether professional or novice-ample information about the plants or animals they cover whilst actually out in the field or, in many cases, as a handy reference at home. As a writer concerned with ecology and natural history, I am constantly consulting various field guides in my work.

Nelson's book is really the first comprehensive field guide to Florida's trees and comprehensive it in fact is: Nelson provides pithy, detailed, sections on all the major native and introduced trees of the entire state and includes plenty of information on the taxonomy, morphology, natural history, range, growing conditions, and economic importance (if any) for these species. While Nelson himself is an accomplished writer, educator, and naturalist, he has gone to lengths with this volume to also consult some of the foremost botanists and experts on various genre of plants in the state and also includes a bibliography of useful references. The book is divided thus into two parts: the first is an introduction to Florida's tree families while the second is a field guide to various species and contains pen-and-ink illustrations and color photographs. This clear division of purpose reflects the book's title: a reference (first section) and field guide (second section).

What is most impressive about Trees of Florida is the quality of Nelson's writing: it is no easy task to present clear, nuances of botanical information on so many trees in a manner that is easy to approach yet detailed enough to be useful to experts but Nelson's clear prose allows this to be accomplished. I could easily skim the book and find things and if you are trying to identify a certain species it is a quick job to find the tree, then turn back to the first section and learn more about it in comparison to related plants. By reading through the entire first section, one can also gain a good understanding of the ecological diversity of Florida's trees. I could see this book for that reason being useful in college-level courses on Floridian botany or biology. When I sat down to take a first look over this volume, I couldn't help but read it through chapter after chapter because, if you're interested in plants, it is a very engaging book. Before I knew it, I was half-way through the first section.

As a field guide, Nelson's book measures up to what naturalists expect out of a quality botanical reference: Marvin Cook, Jr.'s illustrations are done in the pen-and-ink style standard for many years for such guides and are clear, intricate, drawings. Nelson himself also has contributed color photos that are useful in identifying various species, though I wish there were a few more of these although I do understand that color plates increase the cost of printing very quickly. Speaking of cost, at $19.95 this book can only be considered fairly-priced given its length, inclusion of color plates, and its wealth of detail. All I can complain about really is that, as a field guide, the standard paperback cover will not stand up to field conditions very long-especially in Florida's climate. Otherwise, Pineapple Press has put together a volume composed of outstanding layout 

Mike Walker

and design worthy of the very high quality of writing Nelson provides.

MIKE WALKER is a writer and journalist base out of Gainesville, Florida, who write for this paper and other  publications about ecology, natural history, travel and related topics. He may be contacted at: cloudrace@medscape.com