The popularity of trees and forests as subjects for books is apparent from the number of such books to be found in the natural history sections of libraries and bookshops. Publications range in type from coffee-table books illustrated with magnificent photographs of trees, to the scientific, which deal with the biology of trees and the utilisation of timber. This book announces on its cover that it deals with biology, pathology, propagation, silviculture, surgery, biomes, ecology and conservation. It falls somewhere between the two extremes, being accessible to the general reader, while summarising some serious scientific issues. The editor, Brian Bowes, has assembled 14 chapters using a total of 16 authors selected for their expertise in the topics covered. After an introductory chapter (Brian Bowes) summarising the types of trees, their architecture, evolution and their importance for civilisation, there is a section of four chapters dealing with the world distribution of forests: northern boreal and montane (Aljos Farjon), temperate deciduous and rain forests (Hugh Angus), temperate mixed evergreen forests (Stephen D. Hopper, Erika Pignatti Wikus, Sandro Pignatti) and tropical and sub-tropical rain and dry forests (Ghillean T. Prance). Each chapter describes the environment in each zone and describes briefly its predominant tree species. This section is followed by a chapter on tree morphology, anatomy and histology, which gives an elementary account of secondary thickening in woody stems (Brian Bowes). This is a good basic account, but general readers may find parts of this difficult as it assumes a knowledge of the cell types found in wood. The fourth section deals with tree pathology, with the first chapter in this section describing the role of cell wall polymers in disease resistance in woody plants (Christopher T. Brett). This presents a good introduction to basic cell wall structure and considers the wall and its components in an original way. This is followed by a chapter on microbial and viral pathogens and plant parasites of plantation and forest trees in which Stephen Woodward describes the different major diseases that affect trees, their economic importance and management. A chapter by Clair Ozanne on insect pests complements the chapter by Woodward and completes this section. The final section of the book consists of five chapters that cover aspects of general and practical forestry, beginning with forest ecology (Peter A. Thomas), silvicultural systems (Peter Savill and Nick Brown), tree pruning and surgery (David Thorman), tree propagation (Brent McCown and Thomas Beuchel) and forest and woodland conservation (Ghillean T. Prance). Inevitably given the limited space available coupled with the fact that at least half of each page is occupied by photographs, the resulting chapters can best be described as tasters that will stimulate the reader to seek out more specialised works. In this they will be aided by a reading list for each chapter provided at the end of the book. Each topic is presented clearly and the book is well-written, very readable, and accessible to the general reader. However, as is also inevitable in attempting to condense as much as possible into very limited space, generalisations have been made here and there that the specialist reader may find over-simplified and with which they may disagree. As would be expected from the book's sub-title, it is what is usually described as lavishly illustrated. The photographs are in fact so numerous that it seems to have been necessary to keep them small, typically about 8 × 5 cm. In general the quality of the photographs is very good, but a number of those showing views of woodland or forest really should have been printed at a greater magnification to make their distinctive features clearer. For example, in the photograph of New Zealand's temperate mixed evergreen forest, the nikau palms it is claimed it shows are simply not distinguishable from the surrounding nondescript green mass of foliage. This is, however, a minor criticism of a book that will be very useful for students of economic botany in particular and as an introduction to forestry, arboriculture and conservation.