This is a beautifully illustrated guide to trees from around the world. It is a comprehensive guide to over 600 trees from the tropics and temperate worlds, with more than 800 photographs and illustrations. It includes conifers, deciduous broadleaf trees, striking cacti-like palms and fruit trees. It features stunning watercolour artworks of each tree through the seasons, and useful maps show the natural distribution of each tree. Without trees there would be no life on Earth, and this wonderful encyclopedia provides all you need to know about these amazing plants. This book explains what a tree is, how it lives, grows and dies, and describes the purpose of its buds, branches, flowers, leaves, roots, cones, fruit and bark. Each tree is each accompanied by a watercolour artwork, along with photographs of their defining characteristics to make identification easy.