Trees of Great Britain and Ireland Revives a Monumental Botanical Archive
A new selection from one of the most ambitious tree catalogues of the early 20th century is bringing fresh attention to the meeting point between science, photography, and landscape. Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, published by RRB Photobooks on 1 December 2025, reproduces more than 60 photographs from Henry John Elwes and Augustine Henry’s original project, made between 1906 and 1913.
The source material was vast. Elwes and Henry’s seven-volume publication ran to 2,022 pages, included more than 400 photographs, and paired those images with botanical descriptions of over 500 species. Conceived as a sequel to John Claudius Loudon’s Arboretum et Fruticetum Britannicum, the project reflected a period deeply invested in cataloguing and classifying the natural world. It also anticipated the use of photography as a scientific record, in the spirit of Anna Atkins’s Photographs of British Algae.
The new 128-page edition restores that history with unusual care. The photographs were originally printed by the Autotype Company in the early 1900s using a collotype process known for its tonal range. In this selection, that delicacy survives in newly lithoprinted form, giving the images a restrained softness without sacrificing detail. Branches, leaves, bark, and winter silhouettes emerge in layered greys that feel both exacting and unexpectedly lyrical.
The book’s visual logic is simple but effective: each tree is shown with a person or group to indicate scale. That device can make the images feel almost theatrical, but it also sharpens their documentary force. A ladder in “Cherry at George’s Green, Slough,” or a figure perched high in the canopy, turns measurement into a human encounter. Other images, such as “Weeping White Lime at Hatherop Castle,” “Spanish Chestnut at Rydal,” and “Common Maple at Cassiobury,” reveal the structural intricacy of each specimen with remarkable clarity.
There is a broader cultural resonance here as well. The photographs sit within a long tradition of British and Irish art that has treated trees not simply as scenery, but as subjects worthy of sustained attention. They also arrive at a moment when woodland conservation feels especially urgent: according to the Woodland Trust, ancient woodland makes up less than 3% of the UK’s landmass.
The result is a book that works on two levels at once. It is a historical record of botanical observation, and it is a reminder that the act of looking closely can still carry aesthetic and ecological weight.
