Books for holiday gifts (part two): Trees

Twin Elm trees in Dundee Quebec

We love riding though Quebec cities, towns, and the countryside. We learned that enjoying cycling means you have to stop looking at the wheel in front of you, and look up and look around and see the beauty in the world.

Some of this beauty is nature, some of it is man-made. Today's installment in our series Books for holiday gifts covers the beauty-of-nature side of things. Specifically trees, the glorious gift of nature that reach up into the sky. Most of us have difficulty to name any tree that doesn't have the leaf on our national flag. We had this problem, and how did we solve it? Books to the rescue!

Cyclotourism means many things, but one thing is that knowing the name of the trees around you will enrich the quality of your ride.



Best. Book. Ever.

This book is extremely complete and extremely recommended. It is also available in french.




Trees in Canada page on the Elm tree

We'll compare how each of the three books presents information, using the Elm tree as our guide.



Arbres et plantes forestieres du Quebec et des maritimes

This book is useful for its focus on the eastern part of Canada, and for other forest plants in addition to trees.


Arbres et plantes forestieres du Quebec et des maritimes' page on the Elm tree




Pocket-size Les Arbres du Quebec

This smaller guide has a focus on common Quebec trees.




Les Arbres du Quebec page on the Elm tree

That's one good looking Elm tree!


And a very useful blog about Quebec trees:


Foretmontreal.blogspot.com

The Foretmontreal blog is a great resource, and is also a Montreal Gazette saturday edition weekly feature. If you want to learn more about the trees in our landscape, this blog is highly recommended.

Please click here to visit part 1 in our holiday book series: Quebec's covered bridges and waterfalls.

Coming soon in the holiday book series: Guides to cycling in Quebec.