The Genius of Trees

How trees mastered the elements and shaped the world

Harriet Rix

$36.99

Paperback

Forthcoming
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English

JONATHAN CAPE
12 August 2025

Mathematics & Sciences; Popular science; Ecological science, the Biosphere; Earth sciences; The environment; Trees, wildflowers & plants

A mesmerising, mind-expanding global story which shows how trees have learned to use the soil, air, water, plants, fungi, fire, animals and people around them to shape our world - possessing agency beyond anything we might have imagined.

Taking us on an awe-inspiring journey through deep history and across the globe, The Genius of Trees restores trees to their rightful position not as victims of our negligence but as ingenious, stunningly inventive agents in a grand ecological narrative.

Some have been using fire as a reproductive tool since prehistoric times. Others have gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure their fruits reach large primates, who can spread their seeds over vast distances, while poisoning smaller and less useful mammals. Some can split solid rock and create fertile ground in barren landscapes, effectively building entire ecosystems from scratch. For the first time, we witness the inventive and astonishing ways trees sculpt and even master their environment and understand the science of how they achieve these feats.

From oaks growing in Devon and Amedi in Iraq to the laurel rainforests of the Canary Islands, metasequoias in California and fossil forests preserved from hundreds of millions of years ago, we see how trees not only farm the landscape in which they grow but also manipulate the fundamental elements, other species and even humankind to achieve their ends.

At once transporting and expert, this eye-opening, mind-expanding journey into the inner lives of nature's most powerful plant is a profoundly new and original way of understanding both the miracles trees perform and the glories of our natural world.

By: Harriet Rix
Imprint: JONATHAN CAPE
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 153mm, Spine: 40mm
Weight: 700g
ISBN: 9781847927835
ISBN 10: 1847927831
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 12 August 2025
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Harriet Rix is a tree science consultant and writer. She was formerly based at the Tree Council where she supported Defra in researching tree diseases and urban tree strategies and was secretary for Hedgelink. Before joining the tree sector, she worked in landmine clearance in the Middle East. She is trustee of the Iraqi environmental charity Hasar. Rix holds a biochemistry degree from the University of Oxford and an MPhil in the history and philosophy of science from the University of Cambridge. She was a London Library Emerging Writer, and her writing and photography has been published in the Financial Times, London Review of Books and Times Literary Supplement and more. The Genius of Trees is her first book.