December 15, 20202:21 pm Apparently Christmas is still happening, and if you’ve let this much of December go by without making a gift-giving plan, we’ve got a few suggestions, most made in Arkansas and all made to delight the recipient. Get cracking, though; if you’re sending these gifts through the mail instead of dropping them off locally, the clock’s ticking. UA Press “Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Arkansas” I’m fairly confident that I will win Christmas with my tree-obsessed son with a gift of “Trees, Shrubs, and Woody Vines of Arkansas,” a new 536-page field guide from the Ozark Society (and distributed by the University of Arkansas Press). It’s by several of the preeminent plant experts in the state: Johnnie Gentry, former director and curator of the UA Herbarium and emeritus professor of biology at UA; Jennifer Ogle, collections manager at the UA Herbarium; and Theo Witsell, ecologist and chief of research for the Arkansas Natural Heritage Commission and curator of the commission’s herbarium. Our family has gotten plenty of use out of the latest version Dwight Moore’s slender “Trees of Arkansas,” updated with photos and an improved identification key by Eric Sundell in 2014, and David Sibley’s beautiful (as always) “Sibley Guide to Trees.” The Ozark Society field guide was released today (Dec. 15), so I haven’t gotten to thumb through it, but judging by the preview pages on the UA Press website, this will become our essential volume. It includes more than 1,500 color photos and county-level distribution maps, and it appears to be thoughtfully arranged.