Desert Tree Finder

May Theilgaard Watts was an esteemed naturalist and celebrated ecologist, as well as a writer, poet, illustrator, and educator. She served as a naturalist at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. She taught natural history classes and shared the stories written on the land by wind, rain, and fire; by animals and plants; by time; and by history. In 1963, she was credited with proposing a plan that would ultimately become the national rails-to-trails program. She was the author of such books as Reading the Landscape of America, Flower Finder, and Tree Finder, which has exceeded 150,000 copies sold. May passed away in 1975.

Tom Watts was an author and an illustrator. He and his family are credited with creating the Nature Study Guides series of field guides. The concept began with Tom’s mother, May Theilgaard Watts, a naturalist in Berkeley, California, who created student handouts in the 1930s. Those handouts evolved into pocket guides, and some 30 years later, Tom turned them into a business venture. The publishing company known as the Nature Study Guild was born. Tom contributed text and illustrations to several of the guides, including Flower Finder and Tree Finder. Tom passed away in 1992, but his book series remains popular, helping hundreds of thousands of people across the United States and Canada learn about and connect with nature.