“I have traveled a great deal in Philadelphia,” Jon Spruce writes in his exploration of the city’s landscape.

Navigating his way through the urban understory, he discovers lost creeks still running through the backyards, tracks down rare and remarkable trees and flowers, stumbles into groves of nature hiding within the grid, and keeps uncovering misremembered parts of Philly's botanical history. And the whole time Coyote the Trickster, ancient god of the Lenape people, is on his trail.

A field guide with a narrator, and featuring cameos from Philly’s most famous trees, parks, and creeks, this is Jon Spruce’s first volume of adventures through the wild parts of the fifth largest city in America.

“In The Philadelphia Understory Volume One, Jon Spruce takes us on his personalized historic tour of Philadelphia where the landmarks are not edifices but rather trees, other plants, and living landscapes…The tour presents its quirky natural history of Philadelphia in a self-reflective style that entertains and illuminates. I look forward to reading volume two.” — Dr. Kenneth Frank, author of The Ecology of Center City, Philadelphia.