A new photography book, *Trees of Great Britain and Ireland*, reproduces over 60 photographs originally taken between 1906 and 1913 for Henry John Elwes and Augustine Henry's ambitious seven-volume catalogue of tree species. The images, mostly by uncredited photographers, were printed using a collotype process by the Autotype Company and are now newly lithoprinted to preserve their tonal subtlety. The book includes an introduction by Michael Pritchard and notes by photographic historian Björn Andersson, highlighting the historical and aesthetic significance of these botanical photographs.
The book matters because it revives a landmark early 20th-century photographic project that combined scientific cataloguing with artistic vision, anticipating later works like Sebastião Salgado's tree photographs and Cesare Leonardi and Franca Stagi's *The Architecture of Trees*. It underscores the enduring role of photography in documenting the natural world and the stately presence of trees in British and Irish visual culture over the past 120 years.