”I am the Lorax, I speak for the trees.”

I expected this book by Jared Farmer to be about giant sequoias and bristlecone pines and their competitors. What I got was a jeremiad about climate change and the other bad things people have done. Although there are appearances by: Cedrus libani, Sequoiadendron giganteum, Pinus longaeva, Taxus baccata, Agathis australis and their kin, the real star (and, of course, villain) is Homo sapiens.

Raised a Mormon, Farmer says that “patriarchal temporalities and biblical dispensations now repel” him. To me, this book is evidence that while you can take the man out of the religion, maybe you can’t take the eschatology out of the man. Farmer seems very, very concerned about the end times.

My rating for Elderflora comes from averaging 5 stars for talented writing with 2 stars for tendentiousness. The latter comes particularly fast and furious in the epilogue:

P. 349 “The oldest living thing ever known to science succumbed to male knowledge seekers.”
P. 351: “For centuries, male scientists had searched for fame and glory by age-dating trees.”
P. 359: A bristlecone pine tree cutter was a “masculine violator who succeeded”.
P. 359: “Many fully credentialed men of Currey’s generation did wrongs in the name of science.”
P. 359: “Currey was just another male researcher in pursuit of measurable data and the career validation that data provided”.
(Emphases added.)

On a mundane note, I was surprised that there were no photographs or illustrations in the book. Thank goodness for Google and Wikipedia. ( )