Harriet Rix

Sublime … Through the scenes we glimpse an Indiana Jones figure who is both an eminent, travelling scientist and a born writer … Dazzling … Non-fiction rarely sees a debut like The Genius of Trees. It is a true masterpiece

A wondrous spreading canopy of a book that gives us trees as we’ve never seen them before: as dynamic forces, founders of our world, and agents of their own destiny - as well as ours. This is science writing at its best - beautifully explained, brilliantly written and perception-changing

An exceptional book. Up to date scientifically, beautifully clear for all of us, it changes our entire view of trees while carrying us to other worlds and times. Enchantingly written, it has personal touches which unite science, travel and fine literature and lead us by the hand through woods we never understood before

Robin Lane Fox, historian and gardening correspondent for the Financial Times

Very few book reviewers are so captivated that they read the book carefully from end to end - not once, but twice. That is my boast about this extraordinary first work from Harriet Rix ... Rix has given us a completely new vision of how trees came to dominate our continents

Extensively researched [and] elegantly written ... Trees emerge as entities which are just as dynamic as animals - including, dare one say, humans

A compelling journey of a book, full of wonder and revelation. Highly recommended

Sue Stuart-Smith, author of the Sunday Times bestselling The Well Gardened Mind

If I was dazzled by nature and in awe of trees before I read this book, I now know how much we are indebted to them for the way they have shepherded life on earth for millions of years

Kirsty Wark, television presenter and journalist

Fascinating and evocative, an intimate ride into the magical world of trees. This book contains everything you ever wanted to know - and so much you never knew you wanted to know - about these incredible organisms

You will forever love trees after you read this wonderful book. Not only is the text brilliant, but the author is genius. Harriet Rix's stories range from why sloths are shaped by trees to be greenish in colour, to the chemical secrets of chocolate trees, to how one fragile moth pollinates the Joshua trees. You will want to read this book again and again

Meg Lowman, aka Canopy Meg, author of The Arbornaut

A magisterial tour de force. Rix packs in several lifetimes of science into this sweeping story of the amazing genius of trees. I learned so much. Surely destined to become a classic

Trees are not passive passengers in Earth’s story; they are the engineers of life itself. The Genius of Trees is a rare blend of science and wonder, reminding us just how much we still have to learn from these ancient organisms. Harriet Rix captures their wonder with clarity and awe

Thomas Crowther, Ecologist and Climate Scientist

In her wonderful book, Harriet Rix has given us a unique vantage point on the inalienable agency of trees. The Genius of Trees is both shocking and poetic, full of detail and even then dotted with fascinating footnotes. I left the book feeling invigorated and inspired

[Rix] is an intrepid and erudite guide

How trees mastered the elements and shaped the world

The Genius of Trees tells a mind-expanding global story revealing the inventive and astonishing ways trees learned to shape our natural world. 
 
Over hundreds of millions of years, from prehistoric forests to the trees around us today, we see trees using fire as a reproductive tool, harnessing large mammals to spread their seeds (but poisoning smaller, less useful mammals), and splitting rock to create fertile ground in barren landscapes. 
 
Because trees, we discover, manipulate fundamental elements, plants, animals, bacteria, fungi, and even humankind to achieve their ends. From the laurel cloud-forests of the Canary Islands to the magnificent sex-shifting oaks of Iraq, from the giant sequoias of California to the carbon-spinning junipers of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border – trees sculpt their environments. 
 
At once transporting and expert, this profoundly original exploration of the science of trees is a startlingly new way of understanding these glories of our natural world. 
 
The Genius of Trees gives us hope for the future. It enables us to see trees, for the first time, not as victims but as agents of change in a grand ecological narrative – and as leading actors in the great drama of life on earth.

Harriet Rix

Praise for The Genius of Trees

Sublime … Through the scenes we glimpse an Indiana Jones figure who is both an eminent, travelling scientist and a born writer … Dazzling … Non-fiction rarely sees a debut like The Genius of Tree ...

A wondrous spreading canopy of a book that gives us trees as we’ve never seen them before: as dynamic forces, founders of our world, and agents of their own destiny - as well as ours. This is scienc ...

An exceptional book. Up to date scientifically, beautifully clear for all of us, it changes our entire view of trees while carrying us to other worlds and times. Enchantingly written, it has per ...

Sublime … Through the scenes we glimpse an Indiana Jones figure who is both an eminent, travelling scientist and a born writer … Dazzling … Non-fiction rarely sees a debut like The Genius of Tree ...

A wondrous spreading canopy of a book that gives us trees as we’ve never seen them before: as dynamic forces, founders of our world, and agents of their own destiny - as well as ours. This is scienc ...

An exceptional book. Up to date scientifically, beautifully clear for all of us, it changes our entire view of trees while carrying us to other worlds and times. Enchantingly written, it has per ...

Sublime … Through the scenes we glimpse an Indiana Jones figure who is both an eminent, travelling scientist and a born writer … Dazzling … Non-fiction rarely sees a debut like The Genius of Tree ...

A wondrous spreading canopy of a book that gives us trees as we’ve never seen them before: as dynamic forces, founders of our world, and agents of their own destiny - as well as ours. This is scienc ...

An exceptional book. Up to date scientifically, beautifully clear for all of us, it changes our entire view of trees while carrying us to other worlds and times. Enchantingly written, it has per ...

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter