In search of remarkable trees - Thomas Pakenham

Thomas Pakenham, no stranger to Africa with his award-winning books, THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA and THE BOER WAR, nor to remarkable trees with his best-selling MEETINGS WITH REMARKABLE TREES and REMARKABLE TREES OF THE WORLD, combines his two interests on safari in Southern Africa in pursuit of remarkable trees. His particular quarry is the rare, the giant, the very old, the extraordinary, or the simply beautiful, or those trees imbued with significance, written about by the great explorers of the past, or associated with magic, or folklore, or ritual.The result is a highly individual book, the product of a brilliant photographer and an original mind. In an opening section he describes his journey and the extraordinary moments of drama and even danger - scaling trees to escape from the enraged wildlife - and those moments of triumph as he stands in awe before a tree, connected by some primitive, atavistic bond. It is those moments we share in the resulting photographs. The texts that accompany each image are as individual as his photographs, a beautifully crafted blend of botany and social history.