Pricked by one of Cupid's lead-tipped arrows, the wood nymph Daphne runs from the love-struck god Apollo and is changed into a laurel tree.
When a wicked king cuts down an oak tree sacred to Ceres, the Dryads who guard her holy grove seek retribution from the goddess.
A loving couple, Baucis and Philemon, lay a feast in their humble home for the disguised gods Jupiter and Mercury, and are rewarded with immortality in the form of entwined trees.
In contemporary, idiomatic prose, Crown of Leaves retells three arboreal tales from Ovid's Metamorphoses, with fifteen original illustrations by the author. Not for children only.