Illustrated with fine photography, this book presents 140 of the most remarkable trees in Ireland, whether they are culturally or historically signficant, or are simply beautiful.

Rushing about our lives, we take our trees for granted. Yet they shape the world around us, our countryside, towns and villages, public spaces and private gardens, bearing silent witness to our ever changing world. This collection of portraits from around the United Kingdom records 88 individual trees of outstanding cultural and heritage value.

From ancient times, people appreciated the spiritual value of trees, singling out individual trees for special veneration. In Ireland the roots of tree worship reach deep into pagan Celtic religion and spirituality. This book explores the stories and legends of Ireland's sacred trees and reveals their spiritual, social, and historical functions from pagan times to the present.

‘Among all the varied productions with which Nature has adorned the surfaces of the earth, none awakens our sympathies, or interests our imagination so powerfully as those venerable trees, which seem to have stood the lapse of ages...’ John Muir, 1868 A fascinating celebration of the some of the oldest living organisms on the planet, from the grand Oaks of Europe and mighty Redwoods of California to Africa’s ‘upside-down’ Baobab tree, and from the Ginkgos of China and Korea to the Olive tree, the worldwide symbol of peace. Ancient Trees covers those species of tree that have lived for more than a thousand years: the Redwood, Bristlecone pine, Montezuma Cypress, the Monkey Puzzle, Amazonian Ancients, Yew, Oak, Sweet Chestnut, Lime, Olive, Welwitschia, the Baobab, Kauri, Totara, Antarctic Beech, the Fig, Cedar, and Ginkgo. Anna Lewington, the well-known writer on all things botanical, and leading wildlife photographer Edward Parker provide an illuminating and visually striking history of each tree species, including where the long-living species can still be found, the tree’s botanical details, and its mythical associations.

This edited volume examines how to develop a planning and design process with green infrastructure that creates technical answers to the social and ecological function of the city’s climate change adaptations demands. In this context, it proposes a process that engage the values linked to the art and culture of the place, capable of generating adoption by the population and promoting the right to landscape. Since the nineteenth century, many theoretical and practical experiences have integrated urban and environmental issues, revising the understanding of nature as an object and thinking of nature and culture in conjunction. However, consensus of the methodological strategies needed to guide the development of multi-scale landscape planning and design capable of responding to the climate emergency, heritage, water, biodiversity and social inclusion, among other issues has not been achieved. Green infrastructure has emerged as a tool to link considerations of the planning and design process to examine the impact urban nature can have at a global and a local scale. The book gathers together authors from different parts of the world and disciplines to showcase conceptual thinking, best practices and methodological strategies relating to landscape planning and design with green infrastructure adapted to climate change. The topic of this book is particularly relevant to scholars, practitioners and developers around the world who have an interest in planning and environmental management, landscape architecture, and socio-cultural understandings of landscape.