Introduction. "We appreciate the symmetry of human and sylvan life"
"So great a botanical curiosity" and "the celestial tree" : introducing the ginkgo and ailanthus
"No man does anything more visibly useful to posterity than he who plants a tree" : inventing Arbor Day and cities of trees
"A demi-god of trees" and "the tree doctor" : Charles Sprague Sargent and John Davey
"This fungus is the most rapid and destructive known" : a plague strikes the American chestnut
"Washington would one day be famous for its flowering cherry trees" : Eliza Scidmore and David Fairchild
"I knew that there were no roads in China" : plant explorers Frank Meyer and E.H. Wilson
"A poem lovely as a tree" : cherishing memorial and historic trees
"The two great essentials for an arboretum, soil and money" : Chicago, D.C., and Boston
"Imagine the wiping out of the beautiful avenues of elms" : battling to save an American icon
"A forest giant just on the edge of extinction!" : discovering the dawn redwood
"There was no question that people wanted to save this tree" : crusading for a new American elm
"Having cities work with forces of nature" : the rise of the new urban forestry
"Trees are the answer" : John Hansel, Henry Stern, Deborah Gangloff, and George Bush
"Don't trees clean the air?" : Rowan Rowntree, Greg McPherson, and David Nowak
"We stand a great chance of seeing a return of the stately and valuable American elm" : rebirth of an iconic tree?
"I never saw such a bug in my life" : attack of the Asian long-horned beetles
"On that branch was a four-inch green shoot with leaves" : Ground Zero survivor trees
"I was surprised it was so aggressive" : waging war on the emerald ash borer
"Putting in an urban forest instead of a storm drain" : high-tech meets a million trees
"Help restore a lost piece of American history" : return of the elm
"Oh, my God! They're really here" : further conquests of the Asian beetles
"A tree is shaped by its experiences" : the survivor trees
Afterword. "The answer is urban forests".
