02148cam a2200313 4500 758536110 TxAuBib 20070702120000.0 060807s2007||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2006048646 9781400064892 1400064899 (OCoLC)71005885 DLC DLC BAKER MEA YDXCP C#P BTCTA BUR JRS IXA AGL VP@ DLC TxGR TxAuBib Preston, Richard, 1954- The wild trees [Book] : a story of passion and daring / Richard Preston. 1st ed. New York : Random House, 2007. 294 p. : ill., maps ; 25 cm. Hidden away in foggy, uncharted rain forest valleys in Northern California are the tallest organisms the world has ever sustained--the coast redwood trees. 96% of the ancient redwood forests have been logged, but the fragments that remain are among the great wonders of nature. The biggest redwoods can rise more than thirty-five stories above the ground, forming cathedral-like structures in the air. Until recently, the canopy at the tops of these majestic trees was undiscovered. Writer Preston unfolds the story of the daring botanists and amateur naturalists that found a lost world above California, dangerous, hauntingly beautiful, and unexplored. The deep redwood canopy is a vertical Eden filled with mosses, lichens, spotted salamanders, hanging gardens of ferns, and thickets of huckleberry bushes, all growing out of massive trunk systems, sometimes hollowed out by fire. Thick layers of soil sitting on limbs harbor animal and plant life unknown to science. 20070702. Coast redwood California, Northern. Coast redwood Ecology California, Northern. Forest canopies California, Northern. Forest conservation California, Northern. Tree climbing California, Northern Anecdotes. http://www.richardpreston.net/ Richard Preston website RV8