Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast

I paid 25.00 for this paperback book by the time shipping was added. I bought it to identify the trees on my farm only to find that many trees have leaves that look alike, the leaves in this book were drawings many times and not actual photos. I did not know there were red, black, yellow, white and chestnut oak trees. They don't all have the same leaves or bark and many of their leaves and bark are similar to other trees. That leaves the reader to guesstimate which tree is which. There is no definitive answer for the reader. I have decided to check out these reference books at the library before I buy another one online to determine if the book is actually worth the price of adding to my library, many times, it is not.

I have two filed guides to trees, one better than the other, but this one fills a big gap: how to classify bark and identify trees starting with the bark instead of the leaves. As the author points out, the bark is at eye level, while leaves at human height often are not typical beacuse of being shaded, confounding ID by the leaves. After carefully reading his first three chapters, on the structure of bark and how to recognize the different types, I feel reasonably confident about going out and using the guide. Note that he covers only trees commonly found in New England and eastern New York state, and this is not a guide to every species out there, but many of the species he covers are much more widespread. The photos show the primary keys from the inside front and back covers, and the first two pages of the detailed keys. Following those keys leads to pages describing each species in more detail.

In order for this book to be useful you need to read the first section on how to use the book. I did that and then went out in the neighborhood and quickly identified 2 different trees, by the bark only following the steps. I went a bit further and found a far more complex bark on several trees and had to go really far through the key to get to the type of tree. I did not believe that it was the species that the key concluded, and wasted time looking at the wrong pages, then picked up a leaf, bought it home and it was the tree that the keys took me to first. Lesson learned, follow the book. I am pretty happy with this book !

I live in the Midwest and this book covers the Northeast. Most of the trees in the book are also found in my area. This book had so much detail and explanation. This is not a guide that you need to take with you on each outing (unless of course you want to). This book teaches you how to identify trees. Once you understand the system and bark descriptors you can apply this to trees anywhere. The only thing that would make this book better is more trees! Would love to see a version specific to Midwest. I have no buyer’s remorse on this one.

A fair book on identification but needs more identifying characteristics, Needs more and larger pics perhaps with little arrows pointing to very definitive markers and also how some of these could be confused with other trees and how to rule out one from another. Exact and clear pics of twigs and leaf buds would also greatly help.on the facing page. A reasonably good starting book that could be greatly improved upon.

Moved to a cabin in the woods on acrage with many trees and we wanted to identify what we had on our property. This is a great book to stroll with to identify the many trees that are out there. The photos are clear and help with identifying bark pretty easily. We have made notes where we found the trees on the pages and it seems to help when you come across a familiar bark. Great for walks or hikes in the park forest areas too. It's well written and the photography is excellent. There is good information with each entry and is learning experience. Highly recommend if you have children as so they can research and learn about the many trees that abound in your neighborhood and forests.

I spend a lot of time in the woods around my home in Ohio. The forests on my parent's property in central Ohio (NW Coshocton County) are mostly native trees, with a few random pines and the occasional fruit tree. In the fall I spend several days sitting in the middle of the woods in a tree stand, holding as still as possible while waiting for a white-tail deer to wander into the range of my muzzle-loader rifle. While spending my time up in the trees I love to try to identify the timber that surrounds me, as well as the birds and wildlife. My parents and their parents have sold timber off the farm as if it were just another cash crop so I grew up looking for the long straight trunk of hardwoods that indicated value in the lumber mill. My Grandpa's favorite wood was the black walnut, and my dad's favorite is the now extinct* American chestnut. My mom favors the wild cherry with its red grain and light sap wood and my younger sister is the curly maple fan. I can spot a potential curly maple (looking for an older maple that edges the fields and has an uneven canopy), I can easily spot the wild cherry trees, beech and sycamores but without leaves I couldn't tell the sassafras from the walnut, nor the various 0aks and I can mix up tulip poplar with maple... My dad's extra years in the woods has allowed him to recognize a tree by the bark and the way the tree grows, it's branches reaching up to the sun or growing straight away from the trunk. Most of this is unconscious and he'll struggle to explain how he knows one tree from the other. This book, while targeted for the New England states, seems to share most of the trees we have in our hardwood forests. We don't have most of the birch trees, and only a few native conifers but overall it's been very helpful. I will take a little time one of these days and jot down and indication of whether or not the different species are supposed to grow in Ohio and fold a map of the farm inside with marks for various groups of trees. What's cool is that after only a few quick reads through the book, I can talk with my 75 year old dad, and discuss the quality of the black walnuts growing down along Earl, or the Beeches that have been blowing down on the East side of Turkey ridge. As we walk along the field above the barn, I can ask if those 18" diameter sassafras trees shouldn't be harvested for firewood to allow more light in for the shell bark hickories? My parents had different goals for the woods than my sisters and I - but all of us appreciate both the value of the woods as an ecosystem, and the potential dollars for standing lumber in the forests. We weight the opportunities to have the now grown over upper pasture cleared for "chipping", losing all the crabapples that feed so much of the wildlife, with the potential funds we could get to pay for a new roof on the house. I look at the black locust trees that are almost 3' in diameter and visualize the beautiful hardwood floors in the cabin I want to build while noting the young cherry trees that will receive the better light to allow them to fill in the canopy and create more fruit for the turkeys and birds. After spending most of this past weekend trying to puzzle out the tree my deer stand was in, as well as the young trees growing around it (Tulip Poplar and dogwoods) I was anxious to get home and dig into this book yet again. Now I'm planning a trip to the back woodlot on my own property to see just what I have back long my creek and if there are some trees that need removed to allow food producing nut or fruit trees to come in and help feed our livestock (chickens and goats) as well as the wildlife in our far more urban Northeast Ohio home.

Bark is the only feature I can access on many tall forest trees (even in summer, where distance and canopy overlap make even binoculars and fallen nut observations less than entirely helpful). The schematic feature sketches and diagrams in key of this book ("decision tree" for identification) combine with very well produced young-mature-old (plus variations) photos under each tree's dedicated page-spread. Tom Wessel's seal of approval (Wojtech is his former student) gives me great confidence that this is meticulously accurate -- at least for the NewEngland (plus east-upstate NY) area covered. Clearly, too, the book is intended not just to help readers identify tree species by name, but to appreciate what the bark of trees can show us about their history and ecological relations.

Bark alone simply does not give enough info to reliably identify most unknown deciduous trees in winter. But this book is a terrific aid for overall tree identification and has helped me identify many unknown trees. With the help of a leaf sample you can very accurately ID most trees that grow in the NE. Also, this book makes you look closely at bark and notice how details differ during the life-span of trees. I hope the author will write another book on tree bark, expanding the geographical range of trees covered a bit more.

I was really excited to see this book, and I think it's great to see that someone has covered tree bark in this level of detail. It is ironic that most tree field guides focus on buds, twigs, flowers, and leaves; yet almost all tree recognition in the field is done on the basis of bark and shape, and nothing else. This book helps us understand why this is so. It is hard to find specific, concrete, easily describable, or "keyable" characteristics for bark. Bark is essentially a texture, and textures are hard to describe. Or perhaps, such descriptions are hard to assimilate. The author has done a great job--indeed, I don't think I've seen bark texture and pattern ever described in greater detail, or in more concrete terms, than in this book. Despite this, bark alone remains a difficult way to IDENTIFY a tree. Once you have identified a tree many times and have taken the time to become familiar with the bark, however, you will find bark to be the most useful feature for RECOGNIZING a tree. A similar pattern holds true for herbaceous plants, too. We learn them by such details as their leaf shape and arrangement, stem cross-section, flower structure and cluster arrangement; but once familiar, we recognize them foremost by their shape and leaf and stem texture. It's almost as if texture, whether of bark or leaves, is too complex for the conscious, logical mind to readily process, but just right for the subconscious process of pattern recognition or "search image." The reason I only gave four stars is because, as much as I like the book's concept, I don't think it quite accomplished its goal. I can recognize all of the trees in the book at a glance by bark, but I don't know if I could do it with some of them, starting over as a novice, using the book. I'm not sure if that's a failure in the book, or because it is just inherently difficult. I can see a few ways that the book might be able to work better for its intended purpose, though. Pattern recognition is dependent on seeing a pattern multiple times, and I often felt like the book didn't show us enough. The author could have used a wider angle lens to get longer sections of trunk in each shot, preferably using highest depth-of-field settings, and have more photos the full length of the page, so we could see the pattern over a longer section of bark. This would imitate real life better, as in nature we don't see trees as rectangular blocks of bark. There are also several trees for which the photos did not seem to show enough of the common range of variability. All told, however, I'm glad I got the book and enjoy the closer look I've been taking at tree bark since. It helped me put words to patterns that I was seeing and not thinking about. The classification system for bark types is useful, and I really enjoyed the discussion of bark physiology, growth, and anatomy. If you are learning trees, this book will definitely be helpful. You will be able to identify many trees by the bark alone with this field guide, even if you are occasionally left "stumped." What I'd like to see? A detailed tree book that included this kind of depth about bark alongside the normal identifying characteristics. That would be super.

I paid 25.00 for this paperback book by the time shipping was added. I bought it to identify the trees on my farm only to find that many trees have leaves that look alike, the leaves in this book were drawings many times and not actual photos. I did not know there were red, black, yellow, white and chestnut oak trees. They don't all have the same leaves or bark and many of their leaves and bark are similar to other trees. That leaves the reader to guesstimate which tree is which. There is no definitive answer for the reader. I have decided to check out these reference books at the library before I buy another one online to determine if the book is actually worth the price of adding to my library, many times, it is not.

I have two filed guides to trees, one better than the other, but this one fills a big gap: how to classify bark and identify trees starting with the bark instead of the leaves. As the author points out, the bark is at eye level, while leaves at human height often are not typical beacuse of being shaded, confounding ID by the leaves. After carefully reading his first three chapters, on the structure of bark and how to recognize the different types, I feel reasonably confident about going out and using the guide. Note that he covers only trees commonly found in New England and eastern New York state, and this is not a guide to every species out there, but many of the species he covers are much more widespread. The photos show the primary keys from the inside front and back covers, and the first two pages of the detailed keys. Following those keys leads to pages describing each species in more detail.

In order for this book to be useful you need to read the first section on how to use the book. I did that and then went out in the neighborhood and quickly identified 2 different trees, by the bark only following the steps. I went a bit further and found a far more complex bark on several trees and had to go really far through the key to get to the type of tree. I did not believe that it was the species that the key concluded, and wasted time looking at the wrong pages, then picked up a leaf, bought it home and it was the tree that the keys took me to first. Lesson learned, follow the book. I am pretty happy with this book !

I live in the Midwest and this book covers the Northeast. Most of the trees in the book are also found in my area. This book had so much detail and explanation. This is not a guide that you need to take with you on each outing (unless of course you want to). This book teaches you how to identify trees. Once you understand the system and bark descriptors you can apply this to trees anywhere. The only thing that would make this book better is more trees! Would love to see a version specific to Midwest. I have no buyer’s remorse on this one.

A fair book on identification but needs more identifying characteristics, Needs more and larger pics perhaps with little arrows pointing to very definitive markers and also how some of these could be confused with other trees and how to rule out one from another. Exact and clear pics of twigs and leaf buds would also greatly help.on the facing page. A reasonably good starting book that could be greatly improved upon.

Moved to a cabin in the woods on acrage with many trees and we wanted to identify what we had on our property. This is a great book to stroll with to identify the many trees that are out there. The photos are clear and help with identifying bark pretty easily. We have made notes where we found the trees on the pages and it seems to help when you come across a familiar bark. Great for walks or hikes in the park forest areas too. It's well written and the photography is excellent. There is good information with each entry and is learning experience. Highly recommend if you have children as so they can research and learn about the many trees that abound in your neighborhood and forests.

I spend a lot of time in the woods around my home in Ohio. The forests on my parent's property in central Ohio (NW Coshocton County) are mostly native trees, with a few random pines and the occasional fruit tree. In the fall I spend several days sitting in the middle of the woods in a tree stand, holding as still as possible while waiting for a white-tail deer to wander into the range of my muzzle-loader rifle. While spending my time up in the trees I love to try to identify the timber that surrounds me, as well as the birds and wildlife. My parents and their parents have sold timber off the farm as if it were just another cash crop so I grew up looking for the long straight trunk of hardwoods that indicated value in the lumber mill. My Grandpa's favorite wood was the black walnut, and my dad's favorite is the now extinct* American chestnut. My mom favors the wild cherry with its red grain and light sap wood and my younger sister is the curly maple fan. I can spot a potential curly maple (looking for an older maple that edges the fields and has an uneven canopy), I can easily spot the wild cherry trees, beech and sycamores but without leaves I couldn't tell the sassafras from the walnut, nor the various 0aks and I can mix up tulip poplar with maple... My dad's extra years in the woods has allowed him to recognize a tree by the bark and the way the tree grows, it's branches reaching up to the sun or growing straight away from the trunk. Most of this is unconscious and he'll struggle to explain how he knows one tree from the other. This book, while targeted for the New England states, seems to share most of the trees we have in our hardwood forests. We don't have most of the birch trees, and only a few native conifers but overall it's been very helpful. I will take a little time one of these days and jot down and indication of whether or not the different species are supposed to grow in Ohio and fold a map of the farm inside with marks for various groups of trees. What's cool is that after only a few quick reads through the book, I can talk with my 75 year old dad, and discuss the quality of the black walnuts growing down along Earl, or the Beeches that have been blowing down on the East side of Turkey ridge. As we walk along the field above the barn, I can ask if those 18" diameter sassafras trees shouldn't be harvested for firewood to allow more light in for the shell bark hickories? My parents had different goals for the woods than my sisters and I - but all of us appreciate both the value of the woods as an ecosystem, and the potential dollars for standing lumber in the forests. We weight the opportunities to have the now grown over upper pasture cleared for "chipping", losing all the crabapples that feed so much of the wildlife, with the potential funds we could get to pay for a new roof on the house. I look at the black locust trees that are almost 3' in diameter and visualize the beautiful hardwood floors in the cabin I want to build while noting the young cherry trees that will receive the better light to allow them to fill in the canopy and create more fruit for the turkeys and birds. After spending most of this past weekend trying to puzzle out the tree my deer stand was in, as well as the young trees growing around it (Tulip Poplar and dogwoods) I was anxious to get home and dig into this book yet again. Now I'm planning a trip to the back woodlot on my own property to see just what I have back long my creek and if there are some trees that need removed to allow food producing nut or fruit trees to come in and help feed our livestock (chickens and goats) as well as the wildlife in our far more urban Northeast Ohio home.

Bark is the only feature I can access on many tall forest trees (even in summer, where distance and canopy overlap make even binoculars and fallen nut observations less than entirely helpful). The schematic feature sketches and diagrams in key of this book ("decision tree" for identification) combine with very well produced young-mature-old (plus variations) photos under each tree's dedicated page-spread. Tom Wessel's seal of approval (Wojtech is his former student) gives me great confidence that this is meticulously accurate -- at least for the NewEngland (plus east-upstate NY) area covered. Clearly, too, the book is intended not just to help readers identify tree species by name, but to appreciate what the bark of trees can show us about their history and ecological relations.

Bark alone simply does not give enough info to reliably identify most unknown deciduous trees in winter. But this book is a terrific aid for overall tree identification and has helped me identify many unknown trees. With the help of a leaf sample you can very accurately ID most trees that grow in the NE. Also, this book makes you look closely at bark and notice how details differ during the life-span of trees. I hope the author will write another book on tree bark, expanding the geographical range of trees covered a bit more.

I was really excited to see this book, and I think it's great to see that someone has covered tree bark in this level of detail. It is ironic that most tree field guides focus on buds, twigs, flowers, and leaves; yet almost all tree recognition in the field is done on the basis of bark and shape, and nothing else. This book helps us understand why this is so. It is hard to find specific, concrete, easily describable, or "keyable" characteristics for bark. Bark is essentially a texture, and textures are hard to describe. Or perhaps, such descriptions are hard to assimilate. The author has done a great job--indeed, I don't think I've seen bark texture and pattern ever described in greater detail, or in more concrete terms, than in this book. Despite this, bark alone remains a difficult way to IDENTIFY a tree. Once you have identified a tree many times and have taken the time to become familiar with the bark, however, you will find bark to be the most useful feature for RECOGNIZING a tree. A similar pattern holds true for herbaceous plants, too. We learn them by such details as their leaf shape and arrangement, stem cross-section, flower structure and cluster arrangement; but once familiar, we recognize them foremost by their shape and leaf and stem texture. It's almost as if texture, whether of bark or leaves, is too complex for the conscious, logical mind to readily process, but just right for the subconscious process of pattern recognition or "search image." The reason I only gave four stars is because, as much as I like the book's concept, I don't think it quite accomplished its goal. I can recognize all of the trees in the book at a glance by bark, but I don't know if I could do it with some of them, starting over as a novice, using the book. I'm not sure if that's a failure in the book, or because it is just inherently difficult. I can see a few ways that the book might be able to work better for its intended purpose, though. Pattern recognition is dependent on seeing a pattern multiple times, and I often felt like the book didn't show us enough. The author could have used a wider angle lens to get longer sections of trunk in each shot, preferably using highest depth-of-field settings, and have more photos the full length of the page, so we could see the pattern over a longer section of bark. This would imitate real life better, as in nature we don't see trees as rectangular blocks of bark. There are also several trees for which the photos did not seem to show enough of the common range of variability. All told, however, I'm glad I got the book and enjoy the closer look I've been taking at tree bark since. It helped me put words to patterns that I was seeing and not thinking about. The classification system for bark types is useful, and I really enjoyed the discussion of bark physiology, growth, and anatomy. If you are learning trees, this book will definitely be helpful. You will be able to identify many trees by the bark alone with this field guide, even if you are occasionally left "stumped." What I'd like to see? A detailed tree book that included this kind of depth about bark alongside the normal identifying characteristics. That would be super.

The pictures are good but bark changes as the tree ages and this book tries to train you to use a somewhat complicated key...I'm not sure If I have the patience required. Maybe I will try again in summer when I can more clearly tell the tree species by the leaves and then look at the bark.

This book is designed for easy identification of New England trees. It shows bark at different ages which is the most accurate method mainly because bark is there year-round. Drawings of the leaf and range maps. More detailed information isn't present but that would require more pages. There are many trees so this book is superior for identification. I recommend it highly. It's the best by far for identification of native trees of New England.

This book, the extended outcome of a master's thesis, delivers just what it promises. The first 85 pages are largely text, although with illustrations, covering "How to Use This Field Guide," "Bark Structure," "Bark Types," "Secondary Identification Keys," and "Bark Ecology." I've read many tree books, though not a botanist at all, and this one is quite clear. Although the chapters just mentioned can for the most part be read separately, the book is indeed set up as a key. First you figure out which of the seven major types of bark you're looking at: 1. Peeling Horizontally in Curly Strips, 2. Lenticels Visible, 3. Smooth/Unbroken, 4. Vertical Cracks or Seams in Otherwise Smooth Bark, 5. Vertical Strips, 6. Scales or Plates, or 7. Ridges and Furrows. Then you follow the indications to go to the sub-types. Best of all, for me, in the next 180 or so pages, 67 typical northeastern trees are covered, with actual pictures of young, mature, and old bark for each species. Anyone who has ever suffered through trying to match a single picture in a field guide to a tree right in front of her, when the age of the tree in the picture and the age of the tree in the field not matching, knows just how frustrating it can be to work with just one picture. For example, seeing the three pictures for snakebark maple in this book took me back to a hike on which I was looking at an older tree, which by its leaves certainly seemed like a snakebark, but without the whitish-greenish lines. If I'd had this book, I'd have been able to know--even if I kept the book at home and just looked at it then. The book could get 4 or 5 stars. I'd like to have had a clearer presentation, ideally with one overall diagram, of the layers of bark; I found the discussion of the two growth layers a bit confusing. And it would be great if the book covered more trees, especially those that we city-dwellers might more often see than some of the forest trees here. But overall--a fine book!

When there is only bark to identify a tree....and maybe its bud type and leaf scars, then here's the book that provides photos, scale, and color to inform of the beauty and distinguishing features of our NE trees. About 25 pages of Key are included, but the most effective thing is the photos with items that give a sense of scale...vital not only to identification but also to this wonderful thing called bark and how it grows, changes through a maturation process, and charms us into being tree worshippers. 67 trees in this book. 450+ photos....lots of tips and nice comments about uses and history of these trees.

I thought this guide would only be useful in the winter, but it's also great when trees are so high that you can't see their leaves well. For example in my area (NJ/PA) the tulip trees are sometimes really tall, above the rest of the canopy, so although they have distinctive leaves, the leaves are hard to see. Wojtech's book helped me notice that tulip trees sometimes have whitish areas between the bark ridges, which is really distinctive. It has a good intro section to help you understand how to think about bark development, and it has a clear, easy to use key to help you narrow down which trees you might be looking at. The bark pictures in this book are really good, I know because now I've tried to take some of my own, and it's hard!

Okay detail, top seller, for Eastern Region which they cut the continential US in half and call the midwest part of the eastern classification by most all authorities in Tree/ Forestry arenas....however, for example, the walnut trees in MN, WI, IA, IN, and IL look nothing like the bark in the book, there also exists similar variations in other species too.

A Unique Approach to tree identification! We took a local tree ID class and this text was used by the instructor. Nice to find it on Amazon! Identifying trees via their bark is quite different and we are enjoying this helpful guide!

This book is excellent, I have several books on trees, I’m a licensed arborist and this book helps define the “Grey Area”. Leaves only tell so much, take this book out in the winter and give it a whirl you’ll be happy you did!! Pictures are very detailed and it gives several age variety pics which I struggled with until this book. You won’t regret having it to back up what you know or want to learn.

I bought this in the middle of winter to use in lieu of tree id by leaves. It did indeed work, but it offers so much more that in any season I would find it useful. The author gives concise descriptions of bark categories, such as smooth, deeply fissured, etc. that get you in the right ballpark and his pics are excellent. I'm using this to learn trees by their bark alone and I believe this gem of a book will get me there. Excellent for kids too.

An excellent guide for any one who wants to deepen their knowledge of, and ability to identify, trees!

Provides all the information we need to identify trees by bark.

Excellent resource . I am studying bark now.

Unless you are a forester or seriously interested in ID-ing forest trees by bark alone, this is a difficult task. When I saw this book and explained its premise to my husband (who is a forester) he and I were skeptical about its usefulness. After giving it a few field tests, it is a good book to have along with you, but sometimes the use of another field guide might be necessary. This book is not for a beginner, because bark is not always the same and the limited pictures don't always lead you to a definite answer. Use cautiously.

Finally, a book that pays attention to bark! Most guides talk about leaves, fruit, flowers, fruits, buds and twigs. On most trees, leaves aren't available in the winter. Flowers are only available for a few weeks in the spring. Fruit are available mostly in the fall. Buds are only available half the year or so. All five of them are often up too high to reach even when it is the right season. I can often recognize a tree by its bark, but telling someone else how I knew was impossible - I just didn't have the vocabulary! And I couldn't figure out how to describe a bark I saw to remember it when I didn't have a guide with me. The use of the quarter for size basis is wonderful - I hate descriptions that are in centimeters or fractions of an inch! The photos are amazing. Anyone who has tried to photograph something like bark will know how the light has to be just right. Too dim, no detail. Too bright, too many shadows and washed out color. I don't know how he did it! It is definitely useful as a field guide - good descriptions, keys, but with interesting reading to boot. A great book that I am so pleased to have in my library.

Just received about 2 months ago and have found this to be an invaluable resource and referred it to 3 other woodland/forest owners. With leaves off trees up to 7 months of the year, bark is the only way to determine type/variety of tree you are looking at. Book provides very good diagnostic tools and many pictures to assist the reader in accurate tree identification. Really have enjoyed and highly recommend.

It is easy to use with clear photos of bark to provide a handy reference while in the wintertime when no leaves are present. However, I would have liked to have had pictures of each full-sized trees from a little more distance just to compare the different barks. Sometimes the closeups make it hard to differentiate between certain trees by the bark alone. Otherwise, very nice size to carry along, and full of useful information about each type of tree.

NIce book, though I wish there were more photos and maybe more content for the price. A little expensive for the size, to me at least, but still worth having in my home library. I would recommend.

Summer or winter bark is the skin one can use to really get to know the structure of the trees. This book has photo that make it possible to see trees in a way that is beyond leaf structure.

No other book can help you identify trees like "Bark". The author has truly produced a unique field guide like none other. I was amazed when, after spending only about 20-30 minutes reading the introductory notes, I was able to start identifying all sorts of trees in my forest by the bark alone.

A gift for my daughter, she is thrilled with it. It has a lot of information in it that will help her to identify the trees she is not sure of.

It's a good reference book. I sell firewood and I didn't see much on how it burns or if it should be burnt. Also there are a few drawings of leaves but no way to tell the size. My plan is to make my own notes as I go along

Great information

I loved seeing a new way to categorize trees! It’s intuitive and exciting. I’m disappointed the book only covers the northeast.

I work in an area where deciduous trees have no leaves almost half the year so I pay a lot of attention to bark. This book contains many helpful photos and descriptions. Several of my colleagues have borrowed it and had good things to say about it.

Bought for a friend who's a tree hugger and loves to ID trees as he jogs - A1 according to him.

Great book. Takes some time to go through the pages to actually ID a tree, but take your time and have fun with it.

This book was recommended to me. The pictures are very good and I've added some notes to it about twigs and buds.

Those folks not interested in trees as such, but with interests that impact nature, completely useful in field, and creates interesting thought about wildlife, climate and the majestic strength of these absolute beauties as they clearly dictate and demand greater respect. Very good place to start.

Great! Love it.

Good information, needed especially in winter.

I held my own when it came to identifying trees when their leaves were still on the branches, but when they dropped, that's another story. This book changes all of that, it makes identification a whole lot easier.

Unique book on tree identification by the bark. Especially good in the Northeast. Useful as a beginning guide in the Southeast. Good photos, useful keys. Well organized and written.

This book introduced a lot of trees, a lot of tree species, I learned a lot of knowledge of trees, bought it on the right, thank the business

"Bark: A Field Guide to Trees of the Northeast is a helpful addition to my Arboriculture library. With extra irrigation, we in the Northwest also grow many of these Northeastern trees. The duel young and old bark photos are uniquely helpful.

Book is very thorough in covering a very complex and varied subject. Served me well in the Viginia Highlands and down in the NC Smokies while sampling forest plots mid winter. Could use a bit more info on leaves to make it a better year round book, but can't really fault it as the focus is clearly bark and it does it well.

You'll never look at trees the same way again once you've dipped into this book. It's well-organized and a great tool for identifying the trees you'll encounter in a woodlands walk.

Finally a good guidebook on the subject that most "tree id" books skim over - bark, the largest and most observable component of the tree itself, 2nd only perhaps to the leaves...? Highly recommended...author very knowledgable...don't miss this opportunity to expand your understanding of what's what out in the woods !

it puts down in photos and print the stuff that us old timers knew from experience, This is hard information to teach. The book fills a important gap.

Great photos

Love it. Learned from it. Great resource.

Found thid to be an extraordinarilly useful guide

I learned a lot about bark, very informative, I wish there was one for the Midwest.

This book is great to have as a learning tool and resource guide. Want to know how to tell what kind of tree it is by the bark it has this is the book for you.

great info

I am currently studying tree identification, and this book has been an absolute blessing. Summarizes decades of field knowledge and has made my journey much smoother.

Read through the early chapters and you will find the guide to be helpful.

Great book for identifying tree bark on the East Coast.

good

excellent book on bark. I have taken this book out this winter to identify trees and it has clearly helped me decide what tree is what

This book has mature as well as young trees, very helpful, well organized. The writing and photos are quite fine.

Great idea for tree identification: look at the bark! I am not the first person to report this but it is a simple and worthwhile idea. Trees have bark all year but not always leaves. The book shows several views of the bark using different ages of the tree. Very useful. Wish it covered all of the eastern US but it is still useful for me (Ohio).

Yes, yes, yes!!!

Good book on tree identification

Excellent teaching guide if you want to learn how to identify trees by their bark. This tells you how, step by step. Beautiful photos, beautiful work.

Very, very good photos of bark on trees, with easy to follow descriptions of what tree it is. Nicely done!!

A most helpful resource for my hikes in the woods.

Nothing is perfect that's why it's at 4. Very useful book pictures are awesome well worth the money.

I purchased this book for a wetland delineation project I had in North Carolina in February. This is a good book to have if you are working in 'leaf-off' fieldwork and need to identify trees. However, it should be noted that this book is for trees based in New England, so southern trees like water oak aren't in the book. It's still helpful. Ps. This book has nothing to do with dogs!

Bought this book for my fiance because he taps maple trees for sap and wanted to learn more about telling trees from their bark not leaves. Wojtech really knows his stuff!

This book has already been very helpful and I haven't done much more than scan through it. I'm looking forward to reading it in its entirety. Would the author consider a similar book with some of our Missouri trees?

Love it! Read through the intro and then go outside- you've never seen a tree in this way before!

I am a new forestry major at the Univeristy of Maine at Fort Kent and this book came in handy when it came to tree id.

lots of pics

This book makes it possible to identify trees by their bark. I have always wanted this information in a form I can keep with me for reference. I have it in my car so I can use it whenever I want to use it.

Sure appreciated their quality book shipped in excellent time! It's a special book, with a wonderful new (for me) way of looking at and identifying trees. Many thanks.

Even with this book, it is hard to id every tree. But the chapters on bark structure, type, and ecology really add to the book's value as a field guide.

Excellent treatment of the subject. I highly recommend it.

I love this book. Another way to ID trees not just leaves. Definitely a nice gift for a nature person.

Happy to get this, will enjoy when we go on our winter walks.

Great seller, happy customer. :)

Good book on tree bark

Great winter forest book.

A good reference.

Purchased as a requested gift from Amazon

I didn't get to review this book to much because my brother had to have it!

Great photos; it is winter in New England, so I have not used it for identification yet.

Michael Wojtech's book has been my bible for the last year as I try to thin out (heresy, I know, to some!) our heavily overgrown 3-acre lot in New Hampshire. I've been able to identify so many trees with it. The photos are clear and crisp. I especially like how there are photos at each age (young-mature-old). The drawings of the leaves match what we've got. The little factoids are fun, too. After I used the book for a while I discovered that it's actually better to read it like a book, rather than use it like a guide. I probably should have done that to begin with, but I was so anxious to begin ID'ing trees. I only wish there were Southern and Western versions of it for family members. I also wish there were an average lifespan, an oldest-living age, and a height range. Other than that, it's a terrific find.

Love this field guide! The pictures are excellent! This is an awesome book to introduce bark identification to students or to increase your own knowledge/skills. The focus is on bark but there is additional information provided for each species.

We recently took a 4 hour workshop with Michael at the Boston Arborteum. The workshop used his book and included 2 hours outside looking at trees. Michael took on an incredibly ambitious project of identifying trees via bark. His book is very practical and clearly written to be use as a field guide. The pictures are great and the 7 step guide is very useful. While tree identification can be difficult, even for experts, this book is an important guide to help and supplements a leaf guide well.