I've noticed a recent urge to correctly identify trees (at least to
family or even better genus and species) after spending to many times
pointing out a bird "in the top of that ... err ... tree". Or worse
still saying it's in "the owl is in the pine" when it's in a Douglas
Fir.

I've been recently reading Colin Tudge's excellent (and amusingly
written) "The Tree" which provides great background on all the
families of all the trees in the world plus plenty of interesting
background on taxonomy, plant systematics and evolution. It managed to
clear out quite a few pre-conceived notions for me e.g. I expected all
the trees to form a clade i.e. to come from a single common ancestor
tree but of course they don't. Trees are just kinds of plants that are
"mixed up" amongst all the other plants. I though tree taxonomy would
be fixed years ago. No, it's still a very active field and still needs
a lot of work. You can find a copy at a local Half-Priced Books.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/15/books/review/Royte.t.html

So this and other books like Arthur Lee Jacobson's "Trees of Seattle"
are interesting but they didn't seem to be improving my ability to
identify trees although it does help you find particular trees of a
particular species in Seattle.

http://www.arthurleej.com/

And then I stumbled upon David Allen Sibley's upcoming "The Sibley
Guide to Trees" to appear in a weeks time on the September 15th. Ah, a
practical guide to tree ID. It might do for tree ID what Sibley did
for bird ID (for me at least -- it brought me back to this hobby).

So I though I'd gather all the links I've accumulated from looking at
this over the past week or so as I suspect some might enjoy them and
perhaps help a few more people get interested in tree ID. I've no
interest in this apart from really wanting to learn how to ID trees.

The details:

The Sibley Guide to Trees
Format: Hardcover, 464 pages
On Sale: September 15, 2009
Price: $39.95
ISBN: 978-0-375-41519-7 (0-375-41519-X)
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/9780375415197.html

There are a set of interesting "home made" videos to promote the book.
I rather liked them. Sibley comes over very naturally (perhaps a
little too much!) but he makes his point well and it illustrates why
this book is interesting and different from the other "tree field
guides".

David Allen Sibley on The Sibley Guide to Trees (using the Norway
Maple as an example he shows plenty of examples from his book. You get
a good feel of how the book "works".).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ0Y8t99ozI

David Allen Sibley: Writing the Sibley Guide to Trees
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07IBKbtgCos

David Allen Sibley identifies some trees (using binoculars too!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOgQpIDQKhg

David Allen Sibley: Why I Study Trees (particularly worth watching for
"outtake" at 0:46 with Sibley's ID by ear of a female Mallard's very
loud quacking... the director heard on the soundtrack is very
impressed by the ID but of course it made me laugh especially as he
why he knows it's a female from just the call and by the look on his
face it he seems surprised that the director wouldn't know that :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX-LSTGAOPc

David Allen Sibley: Tree Conservation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ico0oSktbYo

A Q&A with David Allen Sibley is a good read (with some tips on how a
beginning "tree-er" identifies trees).
http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/display.pperl?isbn=9780375415197&view=auqa

> Q: Were there major differences in writing this book vs. the Guide
> to Birds?
>
> DAS: The obvious difference is that trees are much easier to find.
> When I needed to study a particular species of tree I could just
> walk right up to it and spend as much time investigating it as I
> needed. Birds are more elusive. I had to spend years in the field in
> order to build up enough observation time to draw them well.
>
> Another key difference is that birds recognize each other by sight,
> the same way we do, and the evolution of their appearance has been
> guided and sharply limited by how they look to other birds. Trees
> can?t see, they communicate through pollen and some chemical
> signals, so one tree doesn?t ?care? what another?s leaves or bark
> look like. Their appearance has evolved for purely functional
> reasons. The exception is some flowers and fruit, which have evolved
> certain visual cues to attract the animals that pollinate flowers or
> disperse seeds.

They don't fly away when you approach. And they always stay where they
were last seen. I guess that's why there isn't a BARKERS tree-watching
email list.

His other answer I think is a very useful for triggering any JISS
style recognition when encountering new species and a new field guide.
I like his suggestion to take photos of a tree parts too, digital
cameras are everywhere and cheap.

> Q: What would you say to someone who is a beginner at tree
> identification? What are the key identifying features in a tree?
>
> DAS: The first thing I suggest is to spend some time with the guide.
> Try to become familiar with the characteristics of certain trees.
> Then go through the book and mark all the species that occur in your
> area. This will help you become familiar with the range of species
> that could be present so when you see an odd leaf shape, fruit,
> flower, bark pattern, etc.--even if you can?t remember the name--you
> can remember seeing it in the guide. Since trees are so easy to
> approach, you can simply take a photo of the key parts of any tree,
> or pick up a leaf or other part that has fallen on the ground, and
> identify it at your leisure.
>
> They key identifiers will always be the shape, color and size of
> leaves; the color and shape of twigs; the color and texture of bark;
> and the tree?s overall size and shape as well as habitat, any fruit
> or flowers, and the timing of seasonal changes. For example, in late
> May in the northeast, if you see a pale-barked tree with small
> silvery leaves just emerging (while other trees have well-developed
> green leaves) you can be virtually certain that is a Bigtooth Aspen.
> A multi-trunked, spreading tree in wetter soils, with clusters of
> straw-colored fruit hanging from the twigs all winter, is almost
> certainly a female Boxelder.

One thing I find amusing in the book description at Amazon is

> Species are arranged taxonomically, not by features such as leaf
> shape (as in most other guides), which will enable the user to
> browse the images to find a match for an observed tree in the same
> way a birder uses the bird guide.

That seems almost like a non sequitur. The order the trees are
presented doesn't matter if you don't know the taxonomic order of
trees and the particular family you are looking at (quick, is that
"cedar" a "true cedar" (genus Cedrus) or one of those "false
cedars" (genera Calocedrus, Thuja or Chamaecyparis -- they'd be
grouped in different places in taxonomic order -- same with the "true
Firs" or the "faux Firs" like the Douglas Fir).

Sibley himself says it a lot better in the "David Allen Sibley on The
Sibley Guide to Trees" video: "it has more pictures than other
guides ... it's a visual guide to trees". It doesn't rely on textual
description (though it does have some text) but on images. You flick
through the book comparing images and using some limited knowledge
("Hmmm, it must be a conifer of some sort"). Though like bird guides
after some use I presume you will absorb the taxonomic order by
osmosis ("Well, the conifers are somewhere near the front").

And in his interview

> Q: Why did you decide to structure your guide taxonomically?
>
> DAS: I think one of the keys to learning birds, or trees, or any
> other living thing, is to learn the taxonomy--the families and
> genera--and to understand which species are closely-related and
> which are not. My goal in studying trees is to gain a deeper
> understanding of them, and part of that is to learn the fundamental
> things that all maples, or all alders, etc. have in common.
> Presenting the species in the guide grouped with their closest
> relatives, helps readers begin to recognize those fundamental
> similarities, and then they?ll be able to look at a tree and say
> ?that just looks like a maple? in the same way that birders
> recognize a wren or a thrush.


The main issue to get over in tree taxonomy is common names often
don't reflect the taxonomny: a Douglas Fir is not a Fir in the same
way that all Grosbeaks aren't all in the same taxonomic family. So
embrace the scientific ("Latin") names for family and genus.

You can buy it at your favorite bookseller or compare the online ones
here:

http://isbn.nu/037541519X
http://www.amazon.com/Sibley-Guide-Trees-David-Allen/dp/037541519X

You can get a signed copy from Random House

http://www.randomhouse.com/signed/display.pperl?isbn=9780375415197

The book tour will come through Seattle on October 14th.

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl/display.pperl?isbn=9780375415197&view=isbn_events

I wouldn't be too surprised to hear him on Science Friday on NPR when
the book is published.

And Sibley's website still seems a bit out of date. I guess he's
painting rather than writing HTML. Good thing too :-)

http://www.sibleyguides.com/
--
Kevin Purcell
kevinpurcell at pobox.com
twitter: at kevinpurcell