The author/photographer presents the most spectacular, striking, and remarkable examples of bark that he has found across five continents. Each image is a work of art in itself and is accompanied by a photograph of each tree in its natural environment, along with information about its species, origins, uses, habitat, and location. Cédric Pollet, whose background is landscape design, has combined his scientific and botanical background with his passion for plants to create a highly informative text, which compliments the beauty of his photographs. Bark is ideal for any nature lover.

INTRODUCTION
I was born in Nice, a region of France that abounds with a lush natural beauty, made even more alluring by that subtle quality of light that artists love so much. My family's roots are in two different regions of France - the Mediterranean on my mother's side and the Savoy on my father's. This particular combination gave me, from the very earliest age, the chance to get to know the world of trees: the olive trees, umbrella pines, eucalyptus and other exotics of my mother's part of the world and the larches, spruces, beech trees and silver birches of my father's. My deep-seated passion for plants found its first actual expression while I was studying for my degree in agricultural engineering at Lyon. In 1999, I had the opportunity to study in the Landscape Design department at Reading University. It was during that time that, full of enthusiasm for English gardens, I first taught myself to take pictures using the classic silver-process photography technique. After spending a lot of time visiting gardens in search of what I hoped would be my ideal subject, I realised one day that flowers didn't really do much for me. But I couldn't leave without some kind of souvenir. On my way out of that garden, the gnarled trunk of a centuries-old oak tree caught my attention and literally opened my eyes to a hitherto unknown domain: the world of bark. It turned out to be a revelation that changed the course of my life.
Several months later, returning to my native Cote d'Azur, I began to take notice of the trees in its avenues, parks and public gardens; it felt as if I were visiting my home town for the first time. Before then I had been blinded by the brilliantly exuberant displays bougainvillea, lagerstroemias and oleanders; after that visit, my ideas underwent a radical change of direction. The ubiquitous plane trees, relegated in so many towns to the role of background street furniture, turned into a source of never-ending inspiration for me; my new-found love for its bark encouraged me to travel far afield - to the terraces of paddy fields and the high mountain lakes - in my efforts to capture images of it. From that moment on, I felt that native trees (be they planes, strawberry trees, white poplars, pines and so on) were just as interesting as their rivals from foreign lands (eucalyptus, monkey puzzle trees, the cajeput, banana trees, palms and so on). In fact, the idea of seeing trees in their native habitat began to interest me more and more. Still, it would have been hard to imagine then that my sudden and inexplicable attraction to bark would become, just a few years later, my future career. I put together, for my father's 52nd birthday, a photographic exhibition entitled Vortex, consisting solely of assembled photographs I had taken of bark. This exhibition caught the eye of an art expert who urged me to continue down this path...

EUROPE
Yew
Taxus baccata
Found throughout Europe, the yew has long been under threat of extinction, particularly during the Middle Ages when armies exploited its properties of flexibility and hardness to make their bows and other weapons. Although the wood is also highly prized for its attractive reddish grain, the reputation of yew has suffered because all parts of the tree are extremely poisonous, apart from the red flesh of the little fruits, each one containing a single seed which itself is highly poisonous. The very slow growth rate of yew has in part been responsible to its decline. In France, for example, there are only a few ancient yew plantations left, mainly in Normandy, but there are a few rare relics of yew forests left too, like the one at Saint Baume in Provence. In the last few decades, scientific research into the anti-cancer properties of yew may have served to halt its decline - in the nick of time.

White poplar
Populus alba
The white poplar extends over a huge territory from the southern and central parts of Europe as far as southern Siberia and the Himalayas. It is a species that spreads rapidly by suckers, in particular along water courses. Copious quantities of seeds are produced, each encased in a little parachute, which enables the seeds to disperse very easily in the wind or in water. Its foliage, dark green on the upper side of the leaves, and white and downy on the underside, flutters constantly in even the lightest of breezes. The white trunk is covered with lozenge-shaped scars, little 'openings' in the bark that help the tree to breathe*. Poplars belong to the willow family and their young shoots have been used for centuries. Willow is highly regarded for its healing properties, in particular for the bark from which aspirin is obtained.