Jonathan Drori's deep-seated love of nature is contagious in this tree-by-tree journey across countries and continents.

Bestselling author and environmentalist Jonathan Drori follows in the footsteps of Phileas Fogg as he tells the stories of 80 magnificent trees from all over the globe. He is on the board of Cambridge University Botanic Garden, and is a Fellow of the Linnean Society, the Zoological Society of London and the Royal Geographical Society. The Blastophaga wasps that pollinate the common edible fig are female, stingless and just a couple of millimetres long.Proust played on this in À la recherche du temps perdu, in which the narrator dips a madeleine cake into lime-blossom tea, triggering a chain of involuntary memories. This is a wonderful tour of the Earth’s trees, revealing their unique characteristics and the vital roles they have played in human life and culture. In a previous life at the BBC, he was Executive Producer of more than fifty prime-time science documentaries and popular series. As the book takes the reader on a journey around the world, it reveals trees that give us food and medicine, trees with ancient legends, record-breaking trees and more.

Nimble goats have learned to avoid the thorns and leathery leaves of the argan to gorge on its sweet-smelling fruit.Guardian Australia acknowledges the traditional owners and custodians of Country throughout Australia and their connections to land, waters and community. Jonathan Drori is a Trustee of The Woodland Trust and The Eden Project, an Ambassador for the WWF and was for nine years a Trustee of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Each tree is beautifully illustrated by Lucille Clerc using a subdued but rich palette of greens and browns, with occasional splashes of more vibrant colour. By day, the distinctive monochrome pattern of snow-clad birch forests is dazzling and disorientating, but during long boreal nights, their moonlit, ghostly forms take on an eerie power.