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Tree-rific!

Four years ago, Thomas Pakenham set out on a towering quest. Armed with 30 pounds of camera equipment, the British historian went looking for fascinating trees. Trees, as Pakenham says, with "noble brows and strong personalities." The result is a new book with a collection of leafy characters, Remarkable Trees of the World (W.W. Norton).

The Roots of His Mission
Pakenham, 69, learned to love trees as a boy in Oxford, England. He spent hours high above the world in his favorite horse chestnut. There, he kept watch for German parachutists during World War II. Later, in 1961, Pakenham's childhood pastime turned into a serious study. He inherited a castle in Ireland—and several hundred acres of 200-year-old oak and beech trees that surround it.

His personal forest inspired Pakenham to begin a worldwide search for remarkable trees. His book is full of them. One, a California sequoia called General Sherman, is the largest living thing in the world. A "dancing lime" in Germany once held an orchestra on its bottom branches! Pakenham hopes these and other trees will help his message grow: "We shouldn't take them for granted."

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