The Blue Book of Trees - A Guide to the Ashes, Birches, Elms, Maples, and other broad-leaved trees of North America- a Whitman Nature Book It is one of a series of two tree guide books and this book is a guide book for broad-leaved trees by P. J. Van Melle and Illustrated by Rudolph Freund. It was originally copyright was 1948 and then again in 1956 by Whitman Publishing Company Racine, Wisconsin. This small pocket-sized book was printed in the United States of America.