Ghost Trees

Bob Gilbert is the author of Ghost Trees and the presenter of BBC Radio 4's The Passion in Plants. He is also the author of The Green London Way (Lawrence & Wishart, 2012) and has written a column for Ham & High on urban wildlife for the last twenty years. A regular contributor to TV and radio, including Natural World and BBC Radio 4's The Food Programme, Bob has also been a stand-up comedian, a long-standing campaigner for inner city conservation and chair of 'The Garden Classroom', a charity that promotes environmental education in London. Ghost Trees is out in paperback and hardback now.

• Introduction; Hunting the Poplar Poplar; Myth and the Mulberry;The Recuperative Power of Planes; A Year Observed; After the Fire; Dowsing the Black Ditch; The Post-Human Tree; The Beating of the Parish Bounds; Bibliography; Acknowledgements; Index

"Warm, rich and fascinating... [Gilbert] is a generous guide, with a deep knowledge of plant life and a fine turn of phrase." Jon Day, Guardian (books of the year); 'A joyous hymn to the urban wild and a clarion call for better - greener, wilder - cities.' Patrick Barkham; "Maps in fascinating detail how the trees in Poplar have defined each of its contrasting epochs." Joe Shute, Sunday Telegraph; "One of the best non-fiction books about London. Bob Gilbert's gifted style of writing [and] simple, clear but hilarious storytelling helps to make this secret life of trees an unlikely page-turner." The Londonist