Further reading: Documents

 

From parchment to paper to electronic formats, many important works on trees and tree-related matters have been issued as documents by the owners of trees, universities, government departments, companies and charities. The list of documents for download below contains a wide range of topics on trees.

 

 

Documents

 

The Independent Panel on Forestry published its Final Report at the beginning of July, 2012. Following this, the Environment Minister, Caroline Spelman is reported as saying, ”Our forests will stay in public hands“.

 

The London Assembly Environment Committee has published two reports on trees in London showing concerns that mature trees are reducing in number at an alarming rate. Download Branching Out, The future of London’s street trees 2011, and Chainsaw massacre, A review of London‘s street trees, 2007. The tally of street trees per London borough is contained in this table, Street tree numbers.

 

The Department for Communities and Local Government issued a report in 2008 on England's trees, Trees in towns II, which also charted the loss of broadleaf trees and recommended more planting of large-growing native trees rather than smaller ornamental trees.

 

The Trees and Design Action Group published Trees in the Townscape in June 2012. Based on 12 principles, it is a guide for everyone making decisions on trees in towns and for the development of the urban forest.

 

The Tree Preservation Order system has been modified by the government. It has published Main changes to the tree preservation order system in England from 6 April 2012.

 

Water is the most critical resource for trees to take up. Trees have developed control mechanisms to facilitate their use of water. This is described by Dr. Kim D Coder, University of Georgia, in Water movement in trees.

 

The management of ancient and veteran trees is a subject that has been of growing interest in recent decades. The UK has the most exceptional collection of such trees in Europe. An interesting overview of the reasons for arboricultural management of these trees and the methods being developed is given in a paper by Neville Fay, Survey Methods & Development of Innovative Arboricultural Techniques at Key UK Veteran Tree Sites.

 

An educational resource about the dating of trees, dendrochronology, and tree development, All about tree rings, has several links about tree dating – and to WesSpur's own tree climbing equipment. One of its links, Life of a tree, would appeal especially to young people learning about trees.

 

Another educational resource about tree identification and the potential effects of climate change is the TreeRemoval site, useful for field trips and recommended by a community group in the United States.

 

An introduction to soils, their variety and composition, and importance to plants, is simply described at PhysicalGeography.net. A more detailed Soil description and classification of soil is given in an article from the University of the West of England and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich. The soil Textural Triangle shows how common terms such as “sandy loam” and “clay loam” relate to one another.

 

An Oriental plane grows in the grounds of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. It is described with many lovely illustrations in The Great Oriental Plane Tree at Emmanuel College by Dr. Ron Gray.