Leonard Cronin

This really could be retitled 'Key Guide to the Trees of the Eastern States with Some Cameos From Other States.' This, like many other '(insert natural thing) of Australia' books, suffers from being myopically focused on the Eastern States. This would be fine, except that in particular, Western Australia is one of the biodiversity hotspots in the world, with 50-80% endemic flora species, yet gets only about 60~ entries out of about 312 overall. I wouldn't recommend this book if you lived in show more the Northern Territory, South Australia, Western Australia or Tasmania. Western Australia has the largest and healthiest temperate woodland on the Earth at about 40,000,000 acres, but you wouldn't know it from this book, lol).

The illustrations are very beautiful. It really is a book only intended to expedite visual identification (which is handy), and doesn't teach or impart any information on the life-cycle habits of trees, interesting evolutionary features. The indexing isn't very handy for people new to tree identification, and presumably this book is meant to be catering to them as well, and the map locations are really quite tiny. I've used other identification handbooks that gave more page space to the map, which is very useful.

This is also by no means a complete guide. We have around 60 unique species of Banksia in the south west of Western Australia, granted not all have tree habits, but the book only looks at about 6-7 and misses the rest. I feel like this book could have been more robust, or alternatively, more frank about its Eastern States bias.

Imho, stick to FloraBase for now. It's free. show less

I'm often asking myself....I wonder what that tree is. Most recently...about a week ago...I noticed a heavily vegetated tree in a park near me and looked closely for some fruiting body (even on the ground) that might give me a clue as to the species. It looked rather like a rainforest tree but I couldn't find any evidence of a fruiting body ...even dead and on the ground. So when I came across this little book which promised a key guide to Australian Trees, I thought I was on a winner. Alas. show more I'm still not sure. Cronin hasn't really given us the classical botanical key hear. It's more a "layperson's" guide ...based on leaf shapes and form. And he separates the eucalyptus from all the others. It's actually not bad. And, if the tree I found in the park is Australian (And that's a big "if") then I suspect that it is probably a Kauri ...though well out of it's normal Queensland habitat. I guess, I'll have to wait for a fruiting body to form to be sure ...and who knows when that might happen. But it does seem a useful guide to Australian trees. One of the big problems, of course, is that there are so many varieties and sub species and a guide like this can only pick out the main species and not all the sub species etc.
Stil. Nice pictures and an easy key to use. Though I'm not sure just how reliable it is. A true botanical key is very complex to use and I would hardly ever work my way though they way I had to do when I was studying Botany. (And rarely managed to get the correct answer). S. reasonably satisfied. But I'll have a better feel if the "kauri" tree produces the right cones eventually. (And maybe this will never happen in the Sydney environment). Four stars from me. show less

Contents include: Frogs; Crocodiles; Turtles; Dragons; Monitors; Skinks; Geckos; Legless lizards; Snakes.

This is a duplicate copy of the book. See other entry for full review of 2023 edition. Though the book is still 2nd edition so doesn't appear to have been updated in 25 years.