OPENING LINE:

They had discovered a lost world above California, and it was unexplored.

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Richard Preston is an exciting writer. He wrote the terrifying true account of an Ebola virus outbreak in his 1994 book The Hot Zone. The Wild Trees is just as powerful. It is a love story between Steve Sillett and Marie Antoine, two scientists who come together and discover the incredible secrets hiding in the tops of the ancient coastal redwoods. Before their work, arborists didn’t think there was much to be found in these canopies. This new breed of scientists, however, discover creatures who spend their whole lives without ever touching the ground. The giant redwoods that these explorers and their colleagues learn to climb and study are so massive that they literally have other trees of different species growing out of their limbs. Thirty stories above the earth there is another forest rising from the tops of the Sequoia sempervirens. Some of these trees are almost 2,000 years old. They survive periodic fires that can leave charred caves at their bases large enough for cars to drive through. The tallest of these trees was cut down in 1886 and was reported to be 424 feet. And of course the greatest threat to this glorious species is us: an estimated 95% of the ancient redwood forests have been cut down since the 1850s. Preston learned to climb these trees so he could follow the scientists into the hearts of the giants. He has written a book that takes the reader with him.

Check the BPL catalog for this title: The Wild Trees