The Trees of North America: Michaux and Redoute's American Masterpiece

François André Michaux (1770–1855) was a French botanist whose work on the trees of North America gave the world’s first illustrated account of American trees east of the Mississippi. From 1841 to 1849 the English botanist and one of the greatest plant explorers of North America, Thomas Nuttall (1786–1859), prepared supplementary volumes to Michaux’s landmark work, The North American Sylva. More than 150 years after the final publication, this volume includes full-color reproductions of all of the more than 270 plates in a single volume for the first time.

Mirroring Abbeville’s best-selling National Audubon Society Birds of America, the book includes capsule summaries of every species featured, written by New York Botanical Garden curators, along with reference paintings of the trees and range maps by one of the world’s best-known natural history illustrators, David Allen Sibley. Garden President Gregory Long provides a special foreword in honor of the Garden’s 125th Anniversary in 2016. Sibley prefaces the book with an essay on the connection of art and natural history. Award-winning horticultural writer Marta McDowell relates the stories of explorer-scientists Michaux and Nuttall.