In the introduction to her latest book “A Forest Language,” Hannah Fries acknowledges a fascination with the words we use to talk about trees – organisms she calls the backdrop of her life. From our human vocabulary of forest ecology and botany Hannah has collected some of her favorite arboreal terms to fill the new volume, ones referred to in its subtitle as “Words That Illuminate the Astonishing World of Trees.”

Do you know pitch from sap, for instance, or heartwood from sapwood? What’s a burl, a snag, a nurse log, a lenticel? In “A Forest Language,” Hannah brings to life the many layers of meaning she found within each word in its own little essay, and she is here today to talk trees.

Hannah grew up among the trees of New Hampshire and now lives in western Massachusetts. She is a poet, an executive editor at Storey Publishing, and the author of an earlier inspirational book about trees called “Being with Trees.”

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