Landmark Native Trees Book LaunchingTomorrow

To call this a landmark book is not an exaggeration, in fact it is a significant understatement. New Zealand’s Native Trees is not only a truly beautifully designed and superb book it is also clearly a work of great scholarship and quite the most important title in this subject area I have seen since Audrey Eagle’s complete trees and shrubs of NZ back in 2006. 

 New Zealand’s Native Trees by John Dawson and Rob Lucas is an encyclopedic publication that covers over 320 species, subspecies and varieties, in a substantial 576 pages with well over 2,000 photographs.A selection of his photographs are shown at the foot of this post which will give you some idea of the quality but you really have to see them in the book to appreciate their true excellence.

“One of the most remarkable features of the book is the stunning collection of photographs, almost all of them taken by Rob Lucas,” says the book’s publisher Jane Connor. “Over the last seven years, Rob has travelled from Cape Reinga to Stewart Island many times in search of trees at just the right stage to photograph.” 

“New Zealand is one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots. Not only do our forests look, smell and feel like no other forest on earth, the majority of plants occur nowhere else. As well as being a fabulous reference book, we hope it will inspire a new generation of New Zealanders to value and preserve our natural heritage,” says John Dawson.

Botanist John Dawson and photographer Rob Lucas have previously collaborated on several books, including Nature Guide to the New Zealand Forest.

From the massive kauri and the ubiquitous cabbage tree, to rare and endangered species found only on offshore islands, New Zealand’s Native Trees is a wonderful contribution to the documentation and understanding of the richness of New Zealand’s native flora. The book will be launched at Unity Books Wellington, by the Hon. Kate Wilkinson, Minister of Conservation, tomorrow, Thursday 15th September. Conservation Week begins on Sunday and runs 11-18 September.

New Zealand’s Native Trees by John Dawson &Rob Lucas is published by Craig Potton Publishing, Nelson.

Standard edition: ISBN:978 1 877517 01 3  RRP: NZ$120.00

Deluxe edition: ISBN:978 1 877517 65 5  RRP: NZ$180.00