Cryptozoology be damned

“Around the world in 80 trees” is a book published in 2018. The British author´s name is Jonathan Drori. The illustrations (which I frankly don´t like) were made by Lucille Clerc. Drori is the quintessential super-nerd, a guy who grew up outside the Kew Botanical Gardens in London and later became one of its trustees! He has also worked for the WWF and various other conservationist groups.

Drori and Clerc take us on a wild journey around the world presenting popular science facts (or factoids?) about 80 species of trees. Come and learn everything about the connection between the Leyland cypress, the British Anti-Social Behaviour Act and Lady Gardner, the Baroness of Parks. Or how about trees that can become 1,000 years old? Did you know that violins made from European spruce growing during the Little Ice Age make better sounds than any other? Or that alder made Venice a great military power during the Middle Ages, while literally keeping the entire city, ahem, above water? 

We also learn that neem oil is an excellent pesticide for use in organic farming, that goats love to climb argan trees, and that a poison extracted from the Chinese lacquer tree is used by Shingon Buddhist monks to self-mummify. Yes, you read that right. Meanwhile, Israeli scientists have managed to make 2,000 year old seeds found at Masada grow. The seeds belong to an extinct subspecies of date palm mentioned by Josephus. Or not so extinct, as it turns out! Finally, I have to mention the Wollemia, believed to be extinct for 65 million years, until it was rediscovered in a small corner of an Australian national park… Crypto-zoology be damned, here comes crypto-botany.

I´m not an expert on trees, but I did manage to find two factual errors in this book anyway. Yes, we are in “Well, actually” territory, boyz´n girlz. The first one is a major gaffe. Surely, the evil captain onboard the “Bounty” was named William Bligh, not Robert? The second one is that the author wrongly attributes “De Mirabilis” to Aristotle. It´s his distant evolutionary cousin Pseudo-Aristotle, of course. I also find Drori´s constant politically correct preaching about this and that annoying. Still, I don´t regret picking up a Swedish-translation copy of this book (full price) at my local bookstore. It did made me marvel more than once at the claim that humans (?!) are the crown of creation. Yeah, whatever…