Alan F. Mitchell (4 November 1922 – 3 August 1995) was a British
forester,
dendrologist and
botanist, and author of several books on
trees.
Born in
Ilford, Essex, he almost single-handedly measured every notable tree in the
British Isles, founding the
Tree Register of the British Isles (T.R.O.B.I.), which held records of over 100,000 individual notable trees at the time of his death.
During the
Second World War, he served with the
Fleet Air Arm in the East Asia. Returning by troop ship in the
Red Sea at the end of the war, he pondered his future and decided it would be trees. In 1976, the
Royal Forestry Society of England, Wales, and Northern Ireland awarded him its Medal for Distinguished Service to Forestry (gold medal) during a Society meeting at
Westonbirt. (From a tribute by Esmond Harris, Quarterly Journal of Forestry, January 1996, page 67).
His 1987 book The Guide to Trees of Canada and North America is dedicated to his sister Christine. The book makes occasional oblique reference to a trip to North America in 1976.
Mitchell's Rule states: "If there are
tree stumps or felled
trunks nearby, count the annual
growth rings and measure the trunk circumference to find local growth rates".
1980. Native British Trees. Forestry Commission Research Information Note, 53/80/SILS Forestry Commission, Edinburgh.
1981. The Gardener's Book of Trees, illustrated by Joanna Langhorne. J.M. Dent, London.
ISBN0-460-86085-2. First published in paperback, with corrections, 1993.