Robert Van Pelt, a
forest ecology researcher at the University of Washington and
Evergreen State College, has two lifelong obsessions: trees and
curious facts. So it seems inevitable that he would hunt out the
woody leviathans showcased in his book Forest Giants of
the Pacific Coast.
Measuring trees is a
science, and Van Pelt takes the reader through a brief overview of
how it’s done. But the bulk of the book is devoted to 117 champion
trees. Each of the 20 species covered has its own chapter that
begins with an informative but easy-to-read article giving
background on the featured species and a colorful map showing
species range and the locations of the giants. Individual profiles
of the big trees follow. Van Pelt provides the expected facts, such
as height, diameter and wood volume, but also goes beyond the
numbers to bring out the unique personality of each tree by delving
into the story behind the names (Riker!, named after the
Enterprise’s second-in-command on Star
Trek, is the second-largest noble fir in an area near
Mount St. Helens), highlighting some of the trees’ quirks (a cedar
in Olympic National Park has two full-size hemlocks growing on it),
and recounting some of the tales accumulated from the 200,000 miles
Van Pelt drove and 700 miles he hiked in search of these
trees.
Whether you’re a silviculturalist or
someone who can barely tell a spruce from a fir, the author’s
exquisite drawings of each tree are reason enough to pick up this
book and a good excuse not to put it
down.
Forest Giants of the Pacific
Coast, by Robert Van Pelt, Global Forest Society with
University of Washington Press, Seattle, 2002. Softcover: $35, 224
pages, 115 color illustrations, 115 line drawings, 22 color
maps.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Woody leviathans.
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