The Nature of Eureka

521

Tree reads

Every once in a while, a book comes along that you didn’t know that you really need. Such is the case with the recent Ozark Society Foundation publication Trees, Shrubs and Woody Vines of Arkansas which was just released in January 2021.

The 520-page four-color soft-cover volume was written by senior author Jennifer Ogle, manager of the University of Arkansas Herbarium, and co-authored with Theo Witsell, Ecologist and Chief of Research for the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and Johnnie Gentry, Emeritus Professor and former director and curator of the University of Arkansas Herbarium.

This is not the first effort at interpreting Arkansas’s woody flora. A 1924 publication, Forest Trees of Arkansas by J. T. Buchholz and Wilbur R. Mattoon, was the first general work on Arkansas trees.

Many are familiar with the widely circulated editions of Trees of Arkansas, issued by the Arkansas Forestry Commission, first published in 1960. The most recent eighth edition, by Dwight Moore and Eric Sundell, was published in 2014 with color photographs rather than line drawings.

Other works included Carl G. Hunter’s 1989 work Trees, Shrubs, & Vines of Arkansas also published by the Ozark Society Foundation, along with his 1995 publication Autumn Leaves & Winter Berries in Arkansas. Gary E. Tucker’s 1976 A Guide to the Wood Flora of Arkansas, an unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, has also informed and inspired two generations of botanists in the state.

The new Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Arkansas greatly expands the scope by including all known woody plants, native or alien, established in the Arkansas Flora. The book contains more than 1,500 photographs and illustrations.

Arranged botanically by plant family, each species account includes a key (if four or more species are found in a genus); a detailed, readable botanical description; colored range map indicating whether native, introduced, rare or invasive; a collection of images detailing key diagnostic characteristics aiding in i.d., and additional notes (mostly of look-alikes, or aliens in horticulture).

In short, this is one of those books that should be in every home in Arkansas. We all have woody plants within our immediate view once we step outside almost any door or gaze out any window. I find myself casually thumbing through the book with one “aha” moment after another in arm-chair discovery and revelations of what I observe outdoors in Arkansas.

Trees Shrubs and Woody Vines of Arkansas by Jennifer Ogle, Theo Witsell, and Johnnie Gentry. Little Rock, AR: The Ozark Society Foundation, 2020, 520 pp., 1500+ photographs, softcover $29.92. ISBN 978-0-912456-00-3