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Trees in paradise : the botanical conquest of California / Jared Farmer.
LIBRA F861 .F37 2017
Available from offsite location
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Farmer, Jared, 1974- author.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Landscape assessment--California--History.
- Landscape assessment.
- Trees--California--History.
- Trees.
- Giant sequoia--California--History.
- Giant sequoia.
- Coast redwood--California--History.
- Coast redwood.
- Eucalyptus--California--History.
- Eucalyptus.
- Citrus--California--History.
- Citrus.
- Palms--California--History.
- Palms.
- Horticulture--United States--History.
- Horticulture.
- Human ecology--United States--History.
- Human ecology.
- History.
- California--History.
- California.
- United States.
- Genre:
- History.
- Physical Description:
- xl, 548 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Berkeley, CA : Heyday, 2017.
- Summary:
- At the intersection of plants and politics, Trees in Paradise tells a story of ecological mythmaking and conquest. After the gold rush, the Americans who claimed California were dissatisfied with the state's wetlands, grasslands, and chaparral. In just one century, they transformed those landscapes according to the aesthetic values and economic interests of settlers, urban planners, and boosters. In Southern California, entrepreneurs amassed fortunes from vast citrus groves; in the Bay Area, speculators invested in nonnative eucalyptus, only to let their plantations go wild; and across the state, developers and designers used palms to sell the California Dream to tourists and homebuyers. Meanwhile, thousands of old-growth redwoods were logged to satisfy an insatiable suburban demand. Revealing differing visions of what the Golden State should be, this natural and unnatural history unravels the network of forces that shape our sense of place. Book jacket.
- Contents:
- Part I. Redwoods: the value of longevity : Twilight of the giants : Debut of the big tree ; American remains ; Land going to waste ; Consuming the redwoods
- The perpetual last stand : Saving the redwoods ; Clean logging ; Park politics ; Old-growth crusade
- Part II. Eucalypts: the taxonomy of belonging : Immigration and naturalization : Acclimatizing with blue gum ; New varieties, new authorities ; Boom and bust ; Sense of place
- Natives, aliens, and (bio)diversity : Putting out fires ; Tree hazards ; California native plants ; Invasion of the nonnatives ; Sense of place, again
- Part III. Citruses: the industry of growth : Orange revolution : Special fruit ; The citrus belt ; Problems of plenty ; Tree workers ; Managerial control
- Cultural costs : Laboratories in the grove ; To smudge or not to smudge ; Subdivide and uproot ; Bugs in the system
- Part IV. Palms: the ecology of style : Cosmopolitan fronds : Domestic exotica ; Street trees and city boosters ; Flora of the stars
- Aesthetic infrastructure : Sunbelt design ; Wilted crowns ; The plasticity of trees ; Beyond L.A.
- Epilogue
- Appendix : Common and scientific names of species.
- Notes:
- Originally published as Trees in Paradise: a California History, New York : W.W. Norton & Company, 2013.
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 461-522) and index.
- ISBN:
- 9781597143929
- 1597143928
- OCLC:
- 961800730
- Publisher Number:
- 99983728203
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