Guide to European tree barks

While it is easy enough to recognise a tree by its flowers, buds, leaves or needles, identification based on the bark alone is, by contrast, much trickier. The difficulty becomes even greater when it comes to distinguishing between two species belonging to the same genus: being able to tell, for example, whether one is looking at a pedunculate oak or a sessile oak, a Swiss pine or a black pine, is a perilous task. The approach taken in this book is to offer a large number of photographs, showing each tree species in various locations and at different ages…