**"Beautiful, useful, inspirational" BBC Wildlife Book of the Month
**
"A delight on every page" Evening Standard
In 1664, the horticulturist and diarist John Evelyn wrote Sylva, the
first comprehensive study of British trees. It was also the world's
earliest forestry book, and the first book ever published by the Royal
Society. Evelyn's elegant prose has a lot to tell us today, but the
world has changed dramatically since his day. Now authors Gabriel Hemery
and Sarah Simblet, taking inspiration from the original work, have
masterfully created a contemporary version - The New Sylva. The result
is a fabulous resource that describes all of the most important species
of tree that populate our landscape.
Silvologist Gabriel Hemery explains what trees really mean to us
culturally, environmentally and economically in the first part of the
book. These chapters are followed by forty-four detailed tree portrait
sections that describe the history and the features of trees such as
oak, elm, beech, hornbeam, willow, fir, pine, juniper, plane, apple and
pear.
The pages of The New Sylva are brought to life with truly breathtaking
artwork from artist and co-author Sarah Simblet, who captures the
delicacy, strength and beauty of the trees through the seasons in 200
exquisite drawings.
With an interplay of black and red type on creamy paper, The New Sylva
recalls all the charm of traditional bookmaking. And at a moment when it
is vitally important for us to rediscover how to treasure our trees, the
time for this visionary, beautiful book is now.
This edition comes with illustrated endpapers and a ribbon marker.
