Around the World in 80 Trees by Jonathan Drori

I sat down to write about a captivating new book by Jonathan Drori, Around the World in 80 Trees.

So much for good intentions; I was endlessly diverted into exploring the use of timber to pave roads and the horror of urushi tea drinking by Sokushinbutsu monks in Japan, but more of those later.

Jonathan Drori has used plant science to map out the interaction of trees with human life, in a riveting world tour. Exploring, on his itinerary, trees as sources of medicines and trees as a source of poisons, trees as a building material and trees as a food source, the whole constitutes 240 pages of beautifully illustrated fascination.

It would be very natural to start wondering which 80 trees you would choose to accomplish a round world tour. I was pleased to see the Strawberry Tree (Arbutus unedo) in there. It has always fascinated me that it is classified in the family Ericaceae, the heathers. My example has travelled with me since 1976, but is now too big to move again; no longer an evergreen shrub, but a tree.

There are choices of trees with which many will agree. The rowan (I love rowan jelly),date and pomegranate. Then the reader will have a surprise with leylandii, the love-hate tree of England.

But what about this road paving? It seems that in the 1890s, many roads in London and other cities were surfaced with wood. Less important streets were surfaced with Swedish deal blocks. I leave the effect of horse urine on the absorbant surfaces in warm weather to your imagination. Smarter roads would be paved with Jarrah and Karri Eucalyptus hardwoods from Australia.

And lastly, the urushi tea drinkers reveal an horrific story. Turning to the pages featuring the Chinese lacquer tree (Toxicodendron vernicifluum), we learn about its introduction into Japan around 5,000 years ago and its use in the lacquering process. The sinister side lies with the sokushinbutsu (即身仏), which are a kind of Buddhist mummy. Becoming a sokushinbutsu (a Buddha in this very body) refers to the practice of Buddhist monks observing asceticism to the point of death and entering mummification while still barely alive. After a very prolonged period of fasting, the monks are said to have started drinking urishiol tea. Apart from being highly toxic, it could be suggested that they were varnishing themselves from the inside out. 16 extant sokushibutsu are currently known of in Japan.

If tales of the Chinese lacquer tree disturb you, you can always stick to the delicious fig tree and date palm pages.

Where can I buy ‘Around the World in 80 Trees’?

First stop might be your friendly, local independent bookseller or direct from the UK publishers (laurenceking.com).
Elsewhere, this book can be found at  Amazon

A final word of warning:

Once you have your copy, do not lend it should you want it returned to you.

About the Author

Jonathan Drori is a Trustee of the Woodland Trust and of the Eden Project. He is an ambassador for WWF and was for nine years a trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. He is a Fellow of the Linnean Society and of the Zoological Society of London, and is also a Member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. In 2006 he was made a CBE.

About the Illustrator

Lucille Clerc turns out to be an inspired choice for the illustrator of this book. Many writers and publishers might have turned to a classical botanical artist, but this book is so much more than a botanical tome. The illustrations all have a human touch and relevance, underlining the tree-human relationship explored in this book.

Mlle Clerc is a French illustrator and graphic designer, whose studio is in Dalston, London, just a mile from my old house. She set up her studio after graduating from Central Saint Martins with an MA in Communication Design. A lot of her personal work is inspired by London’s architecture and the relationship between Nature and urbanisation. In the past five years she has studied green spaces, both in the cities of London and Paris. If you have enjoyed her illustrations you will find a shop at her website:  https://www.lucilleclerc.com