Looks at the world of trees, journeying around the world to explore the facts, characteristics, natural history, life cycles, evolution, and environmental impact of trees and forests.

"The Variety of Life achieves in one volume what most people would think impossible. It introduces all the principal groups of creatures that are now believed to have existed in the history of the Earth. It reveals their astonishing range of form and lifestyle, showing in passing that animals and plants are really very similar, compared to many (or most) of the rest. Yet it shows how all earthly creatures are related to all the others, despite the...