I learned one of my favorite tree facts from this book: the explanation of how water rises to the topmost, thinnest twig of the tallest trees--and does so with no energy expenditure on the part of the tree. Adhesion and evaporation of water molecules provide the mechanism. A water molecule is absorbed into a root and pulls other water molecules behind it; meanwhile a water molecule evaporates out of a leaf in the top of the tree. The next water molecule is pulled up by adhesion, pulling all the water behind it in a chain reaching all the way back to the tree's root. Water moves hundreds of feet straight up, one molecular step at a time.

Bernd Heinrich is a biology professor who grew up loving the woods of New England and was eventually able to buy his own large piece of forested land in Maine. Over a period of decades, he's studied and managed his forest. He plants for healthy native diversity, thins areas of rampant growth of a single variety, plants seeds to see how they develop over years, and marks trees for further observation. He makes detailed and beautiful drawings of hundred of trees and their flowers, seeds, and leaves, some of which are included in The Trees in My Forest. He supplements his experimentation with readings of the research of others, speculates on the influence of natural selection on the trees in his forest, and presents the results of his passionate study in this book.

Heinrich's writing style is so relaxed that I felt as if I were walking with him through his woods, with him pointing out amazing details and explaining their significance. He has strong opinions about lumber companies' replanted "forests," which aren't really forests but homogeneous crops of identical, cloned trees of the same age, and little else. A forest is a mind-bogglingly complex system, not a farm. But Heinrich doesn't raise the reader's blood pressure by stridently harping on the mistakes of the modern economy; instead he adds to our understanding and appreciation of forests. Most of his more activist-styled writing appears toward the end of the book and is as well-mannered as the rest of his writing.

Take a walk in the forest with this author.