Informed by decades of researching tropical Asian forests, a comprehensive, up-to-date, and beautifully illustrated synthesis of the natural history of this unique place.Trees and Forests of Tropical Asiainvites readers on an expedition into the leafy, humid, forested landscapes of tropical Asia—the so-calledtapovan, a Sanskrit word for the forest where knowledge is attained throughtapasya, or inner struggle. Peter Ashton and David Lee, two of the world's leading scholars on Asian tropical rain forests, reveal the geology and climate that have produced these unique forests, the diversity of species that inhabit them, the means by which rain forest tree species evolve to achieve unique ecological space, and the role of humans in modifying the landscapes over centuries. Following Peter Ashton's extensiveOn the Forests of Tropical Asia, the first book to describe the forests of the entire tropical Asian region from India east to...