Know Them by Their Fruit

This is a unique, first-of-its-kind tree book with beautiful illustrations of the fruiting twigs of 381 South African trees. The reason behind illustrating tree fruits is that, like so many tree-lovers, Trevor found it difficult to identify many tree species from their leaves as they are the most variable of all the plant parts. Fruits, like flowers, have much more stable shapes and sizes and, unlike flowers, are easier to identify macroscopically. Scratch around the under-canopy of trees and you may find the remains of fruit that can be useful for identification. Thus, this book was born, and it represents the culmination of some 40 years’ work by the author.