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Land Above the Trees: A Guide to American Alpine Tundra
Book by Zwinger, Ann H., Willard, Beatrice E.
448 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1972
155 people want to read
About the author
Ann Zwinger
30 books16 followersAnn Haymond Zwinger was the author of many highly-regarded natural histories noted for comprehensive detail and lyrical prose.
In 1976, she received the John Burroughs Memorial Association Gold Medal for a distinguished contribution in natural history, Run, River, Run.
In 1976, she received the John Burroughs Memorial Association Gold Medal for a distinguished contribution in natural history, Run, River, Run.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 18, 2022
This is the book for anyone who loves the tundra and wants to understand its many faces.
I took a one-week class from Betty Willard; it was held on the summit of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mtn NP. We spent all day every day inspecting the variations in plant life, land form, and geology. We were out in biting cold wind, hail and snow flurries, and blazing hot sun. When lightning looked imminent, she had us crouch down (the mushroom pose).
I came away with a much better understanding of the diversity on a seemingly uniform expanse of high altitude desert. Most people obey the signs reminding visitors that the tundra is fragile, but if there's a picture opportunity, people step over barriers and climb the rocks. The life forms that thrive on the tundra already suffer from the impacts of a growing human population, and now climate change will have its impact.
We used this book for reference, but now it brings back pleasant memories.
I took a one-week class from Betty Willard; it was held on the summit of Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mtn NP. We spent all day every day inspecting the variations in plant life, land form, and geology. We were out in biting cold wind, hail and snow flurries, and blazing hot sun. When lightning looked imminent, she had us crouch down (the mushroom pose).
I came away with a much better understanding of the diversity on a seemingly uniform expanse of high altitude desert. Most people obey the signs reminding visitors that the tundra is fragile, but if there's a picture opportunity, people step over barriers and climb the rocks. The life forms that thrive on the tundra already suffer from the impacts of a growing human population, and now climate change will have its impact.
We used this book for reference, but now it brings back pleasant memories.
November 7, 2023
I'm a bit "schizophrenic" about Land Above the Trees. The book is divided into three sections: The Alpine World, Alpine Areas, and Man and the Tundra. The Alpine World, consisting of 13 short chapters, is excellent. This section presents an overview of alpine tundra ecology in the United States. It is well written, well researched, and fascinating. I suspect that co-author Willard played a major role in contributing to this section because the tone of the writing is a bit different from that of the rest of the book (and of that in Zwinger's other books).
The Alpine World, which makes up the majority of the book, contains six chapters (plus an introduction). These chapters review details of alpine tundra communities in six mountain ranges throughout the country. There is very little to "ground" the reader; Zwinger seems to wander the tundra landscape observing plants and making drawings. There are almost no narratives, just accounts of tundra peregrinations. This section would have been much more interesting if Zwinger had written about her explorations as directed nature walks (even if she had fabricated the narratives).
Although the book is long, a significant proportion is devoted to Zwnger's grayscale pencil drawing of individual plants. The plants are presented as specimens, with no ecological context (in the drawings; the ecological context is clearly presented in the text). There is no sense of relative size (in the drawings; a size bar would have been helpful). There are no notes on the images or arrows to emphasize details of the plants illustrated. And, of course, there is no color. As a result, except for some very distinctive plants, all the drawings pretty much end up looking like one another. It would have been useful to have photographs depicting the plant communities augmented by pencil illustrations of the plants comprising those communities.
Only in a very few instances are there any indications of botanical families; in my opinion, this is a serious deficiency. Zwinger should have included the botanical family of every plant she mentions and illustrates. Doing so would have yielded a more complete picture of the family groupings that occur in the tundra. Instead, the presentation is a scattershot of plants with little cohesive concept.
Most of Zwinger's writing is appropriately descriptive and evocative, but occasionally, especially in the chapter about Mt. Washington, she teeters very close to purple prose.
The short third section of the book, Man and the Tundra, includes a brief consideration of the value of alpine tundra for human beings, then wanders off into a lyric essay on the transformation of the tundra as winter approaches.
The book includes a comprehensive list of alpine plants organized alphabetically by scientific and common names, a list of references, and and index.
The Alpine World, which makes up the majority of the book, contains six chapters (plus an introduction). These chapters review details of alpine tundra communities in six mountain ranges throughout the country. There is very little to "ground" the reader; Zwinger seems to wander the tundra landscape observing plants and making drawings. There are almost no narratives, just accounts of tundra peregrinations. This section would have been much more interesting if Zwinger had written about her explorations as directed nature walks (even if she had fabricated the narratives).
Although the book is long, a significant proportion is devoted to Zwnger's grayscale pencil drawing of individual plants. The plants are presented as specimens, with no ecological context (in the drawings; the ecological context is clearly presented in the text). There is no sense of relative size (in the drawings; a size bar would have been helpful). There are no notes on the images or arrows to emphasize details of the plants illustrated. And, of course, there is no color. As a result, except for some very distinctive plants, all the drawings pretty much end up looking like one another. It would have been useful to have photographs depicting the plant communities augmented by pencil illustrations of the plants comprising those communities.
Only in a very few instances are there any indications of botanical families; in my opinion, this is a serious deficiency. Zwinger should have included the botanical family of every plant she mentions and illustrates. Doing so would have yielded a more complete picture of the family groupings that occur in the tundra. Instead, the presentation is a scattershot of plants with little cohesive concept.
Most of Zwinger's writing is appropriately descriptive and evocative, but occasionally, especially in the chapter about Mt. Washington, she teeters very close to purple prose.
The short third section of the book, Man and the Tundra, includes a brief consideration of the value of alpine tundra for human beings, then wanders off into a lyric essay on the transformation of the tundra as winter approaches.
The book includes a comprehensive list of alpine plants organized alphabetically by scientific and common names, a list of references, and and index.
July 29, 2023
Ever want to know how soil forms, how plants adapt, and what plants live in which ranges of the continental U.S. alpine tundra? This is the place. Beautiful prose, nice drawings, excellent explanations. Toss in discussion of the fauna in the area and you've got a winner.
The alpine tundra is slow to grow and incredibly fragile:
"Apple green map lichen has been used for dating in the central Rockies because the growth rate has been established at about three-eighths of an inch in diameter for the first thousand years."
"When heavy disturbance removes large numbers of plants, the bank of plants available to refurbish is depleted. Soil once lost on the tundra cannot be replaced for hundreds of years. Once climax plants and animals are destroyed, it is almost impossible to replenish large areas. The recovery of most plants and animals under ordinary circumstances is relatively quick. Under severe environmental conditions, it is limited and slow. The estimate for revegetation of a kobresia meadow, assuming that it is totally protected after damage, is, at the minimum, five hundred years."
I will not walk above treelimit (a nice word you'll learn and adopt if you read this book!) cavalierly again.
Some prose samples:
"The alpine tundra is a land of contrast and incredibly intensity, where the sky is the size of forever and the flowers the size of a millisecond. There are no trees to put one's arms around, against which to measure one's height. There are no houses or man-made mementos that give scale. The only objects larger than small are boulders. It is a strangely empty land. Few animals are in evidence. The plants are all small to infinitesimal, and in many instances relatively sparse. There is no in-between in the alpine tundra. And for humans, who live in an in-between-sized world, comprehension takes time."
"There is a rich vertical layering of plant cover from lichens crusting the soil to small plants and to the tall ones measuring the wind above. But when one thinks of a Washington rain forest, the environmental restrictions of an alpine world are dramatic. In the rain forest, trees reach to hundreds of feet, festooned with lichens and mosses, sheltering a rich understory of small trees, shrubs, and lower-growing herbs and ferns, with mosses blanketing the soil. But here no trees thunder to the ground; no waist-high bushes snag at one's passage. The inches of an alpine meadow's layering appear only when one partakes of Alice's bottle labeled DRINK ME and becomes eye-high to a hand-high forest, animated by a breeze that whispers secretly of other mountain tops and alpine meadows beyond one's horizon."
If all works could be half so pleasant to read.
The alpine tundra is slow to grow and incredibly fragile:
"Apple green map lichen has been used for dating in the central Rockies because the growth rate has been established at about three-eighths of an inch in diameter for the first thousand years."
"When heavy disturbance removes large numbers of plants, the bank of plants available to refurbish is depleted. Soil once lost on the tundra cannot be replaced for hundreds of years. Once climax plants and animals are destroyed, it is almost impossible to replenish large areas. The recovery of most plants and animals under ordinary circumstances is relatively quick. Under severe environmental conditions, it is limited and slow. The estimate for revegetation of a kobresia meadow, assuming that it is totally protected after damage, is, at the minimum, five hundred years."
I will not walk above treelimit (a nice word you'll learn and adopt if you read this book!) cavalierly again.
Some prose samples:
"The alpine tundra is a land of contrast and incredibly intensity, where the sky is the size of forever and the flowers the size of a millisecond. There are no trees to put one's arms around, against which to measure one's height. There are no houses or man-made mementos that give scale. The only objects larger than small are boulders. It is a strangely empty land. Few animals are in evidence. The plants are all small to infinitesimal, and in many instances relatively sparse. There is no in-between in the alpine tundra. And for humans, who live in an in-between-sized world, comprehension takes time."
"There is a rich vertical layering of plant cover from lichens crusting the soil to small plants and to the tall ones measuring the wind above. But when one thinks of a Washington rain forest, the environmental restrictions of an alpine world are dramatic. In the rain forest, trees reach to hundreds of feet, festooned with lichens and mosses, sheltering a rich understory of small trees, shrubs, and lower-growing herbs and ferns, with mosses blanketing the soil. But here no trees thunder to the ground; no waist-high bushes snag at one's passage. The inches of an alpine meadow's layering appear only when one partakes of Alice's bottle labeled DRINK ME and becomes eye-high to a hand-high forest, animated by a breeze that whispers secretly of other mountain tops and alpine meadows beyond one's horizon."
If all works could be half so pleasant to read.
April 19, 2023
This was a beautiful book that gives a great overview of alpine ecology, especially in the Southern Rockies. When I go on alpine hikes this summer, I can't wait to apply what I have learned.
February 13, 2017
Zwinger and Williard are extraordinarily eloquent in their scientific descriptions of the alpine environment, and its rich ecosystem. This book is an excellent choice for botanists who are fascinated by evolutionary adaptations.
September 15, 2016
What a "sense of place" I get when I read Ann Zwinger! She takes me deeper into the experience I've had in places we've both explored. I also like to read her experience in places I'm about to explore, knowing I will see, hear and feel more deeply the place, having read her observations first. Both the naturalist in me and the spiritual explorer are engaged as I follow her gaze and her experience in a place.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews