I WONDERED how could there be another work on such a well-worked subject that sprouts fresh growth and vitality, but Oak: The Frame of Civilization by William Bryant Logan stands out from the forest (Norton £10.99).

Partly it's the transatlantic stance, partly the engaging style, partly the selection the author makes - which branches to climb, which roots of history.

The tree "holds none of the records", it's not the tallest, the most ancient, it inhabits the Temperate Zone, "the middle world where the unexpected is commonplace".

Eating acorns is not the norm. Logan experiments with the fare from Korean supermarkets, is not impressed with the absent flavour, but is surprised by how sustaining the food. He follows his stomach and concludes that acorn flour was indeed the "manna from heaven", a staple from before the millennia of grain eating.

In California, there are remnants of the 100 tribes that relied on acorns, who would politely claim a tree or branch with a stick marker. A large tree would, after a day's work, yield 300-500lbs of acorns. Communal multi-hole grinding rocks are pictured; the tannins had to be leached out. In the Middle Ages in Switzerland and Germany, a couple had to plant two oaks before they could marry. But the acorn eaters could not take their oak trees with them, they were not fast food for those on the move.

The moving job is done by their "strange" partner, the much persecuted jay that, despite its impressive landscape memory, will be unable to find most of the 4,000 acorns it buries, one by one, for winter food.

Logan claims there are two versions of the world, the wooden for 12-15 millennia followed by coal and oil that has lasted 250 years. So there is plenty to relate.

There is a print of a "bark stripping party", the indelible story of gall ink, used for the US Constitution and by the German Government until 1974. One takes the "hard knots and empty pints" of building boats. Want to learn about American ships? They were good, as we found out. Viking longboats were fast because they would "wriggle" like a dolphin.

No-one used a saw in Europe before the 12th century, and oak was not bent to shape. It was selected growing in the right form, helped by the fact that "no tree is able to hold out heavier and longer branches for as long and as safely as an oak". Its roots will graft with another's and a dominant tree will supply its smaller suppressed or damaged kin with sugar foods.

Mr Logan will not have endeared himself to Parisians by repeating a description of the Eiffel Tower as a "truly tragic street lamp" and then compounding the slur by saying that it's a design copy of the American oak.

Now for a tree almost completely different and a book in some ways more important, The Black Poplar: Ecology, History & Conservation by Fiona Cooper (Windgather Press £18.99).

The cover shows a couple of specimens, tall yes, but leaning at dicey angle; that's normal in its wet terrain.

They have no symmetrical beauty, lower branches droop to the ground, "grotesque" but "charismatic".

There are only about 600 mature females in the UK, and they are past their best, and often unpopular on account of the white fluff they give off that upsets farmers of soft fruit and lettuce and even haymakers. One was destroyed because of fluff on passing cars.

The black poplar tests the skills of council tree officers and tree surgeons and a much-reduced specimen has become perhaps our most expensive tree at a cost of £20,000.

Cooper's passionate and scientific book might help you identify a black poplar, but this is not easy. Of the 7,000 on our islands, there is a concentration in the Vale of Aylesbury and a planted population in Manchester, the Manchester Poplar, and some in Middlesbrough.

The timber has had particular uses. It is shock absorbent and flexible and so was used for farm carts and wagons and aircraft ribs.

The wood will not burn, making it ideal for railway brake blocks. There is a gazetteer of notable specimens with grid references.