Joe A. Edmisten, Ph.D., botanist and former professor of ecology at the University of West Florida, runs an ecological consulting company in Pensacola, Florida.  He was raised in Boone, North Carolina, where much of his family still lives.  His Daddy was a farmer and a game warden; his momma raised five strapping sons and one feisty daughter (She had to be).  His Granny knew all there was to know about medicinal plants and herbs.  He and his writer wife, Patricia, divide their time between Pensacola, Florida and their farmhouse in Montezuma, North Carolina where they put in a big garden every summer.  They have a blended family of six children and fifteen grandchildren.

The tree of Plenty is an environmental morality tale set in a poor, rural, mountainous community.  The people struggle to make ends meet, while, nearby lives a mad scientist who invented a tree that grows every conceivable material good.  Its boughs groan under the riches hanging from its limbs, but a fierce dragon guards it.  A generous and decent woodsman and his two daughters devise a way to improve all their lives, but disaster strikes and the father must help his daughters and the villagers live in a sustainable way through education, hard work and the skills and know-how of their ancestors.