Biology professor Chris Martine and his wife, Rachel, artist relations and educational programs coordinator at the Weis Center, publish new guide to shrubs and vines of the mid-Atlantic states

LEWISBURG, Pa. — A Bucknell University couple has published a new edition of their field guide to the shrubs and woody vines of the region, a project that has been a true labor of love since the turn of the century.

Written by Professor Chris Martine, biology, Shrubs and Vines of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic States covers roughly 120 species. The book features more than 70 pen-and-ink illustrations by Rachel Martine, artist relations and educational programs coordinator at Bucknell’s Weis Center for the Performing Arts.

Martine first started thinking about writing a shrub guide in the late 1990s when, while working as an outdoor educator with the New Jersey Forest Service, he authored the Trees of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic States pocket guide as a tool for students and nature lovers to get to know their arborescent friends.

“The tree guide was an exciting project and a lot of people were happy to use the book,” says Martine, “but the one thing that I kept hearing was that there were plenty of guides to trees out there – but very few resources that people could use to identify the shrubs that they were also seeing.”

Martine — who earned his bachelor’s degree at Rutgers where he had been teaching dendrology as a part-time instructor — made a proposal to John Kuser, a professor in their ecology, evolution and natural resources program, to do an illustrated field guide to shrubs as a master’s thesis.

When Professor Kuser asked who might do the illustrations, Martine had a quick answer: his wife, Rachel, an artist who was taking botanical drawing courses at the New York Botanical Garden. She had provided a handful of illustrations for the tree book, but this time she’d draw everything.

For roughly two years, the Martines’ apartment was “shrub central” – with Chris out in the field collecting specimens during the day and Rachel drawing what he brought back after she got home from her day job.

“We were only married for a couple of years at that point,” says Rachel, “and I figured that if we could get through this project, we’d probably be okay for bigger ones later – like, you know, buying a house and raising children. This book was kind of our first baby.”

The first edition of Shrubs and Vines of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic States was published out of New Jersey’s Forest Resource Education Center (FREC) in 2022. In combination, Chris says the shrub and tree guides have sold “tens of thousands” of copies – and the tree guide is now in its seventh edition.

“About a year ago, I got an email from Christina Yuncza at the FREC saying that the second edition of the shrub guide had run out,” says Chris, “and she asked if I was interested in revising the publication for a long-awaited third print run. I was, like, twist my arm.”

Chris spent a few months updating nomenclature, fielding suggestions from other field botanists, and rewriting text – and, because the original digital files had disappeared, re-scanning all of Rachel’s original artwork. After several rounds of review by staff at the Forest Service, the new edition was printed in December. It’s a tribute to the couple’s partnership — and to the individuals who not only inspired the project when it began more than two decades ago, but first taught Chris some of the natural history that appears in the guide.

“We dedicated this edition to Dr. Jim Applegate, one of the best profs I had at Rutgers, who died last year,” says Chris, “I learned a lot about nature from Doc and I am sure there are things in the pages of this book that I first heard from him during class.”

Chris teaches students in a similar way during his Bucknell field botany course, offered every fall since he started at Bucknell in 2012. This past semester the class visited 18 field sites and the students learned to recognize around 130 plant species. Chris believes strongly in the value of courses that teach students to recognize the nature around them.

Life has changed a lot for Chris and Rachel since they first started working on the first edition of the book. But one thing hasn’t changed very much, according to Rachel, who continues to make art and is currently designing and leading the production of river-themed puppets as this year’s featured artist for the Handmade Parade preceding Lewisburg’s Polar Plunge on February 8.

Ordering information for the third edition of Shrubs and Vines of New Jersey and the Mid-Atlantic States can be found online at https://www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/forest/education/treebooks.html. The book is available locally at Mondragon Books in Lewisburg.

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CONTACTS: Chris Martine, 570-577-1135, chris.martine@bucknell.edu; Mike Ferlazzo, 570-577-3212, mike.ferlazzo@bucknell.edu