Who knows there Latin?

[DTaylor]

Its about time I start learning the Latin names of these trees really. Starting to get embarrassing.....

Anyone got any tricks to help them stick?

[peatff]

Have them tattooed on the back of your hand ? Get some good glasses to read them though it will be very small writing

[Steve Bullman]

Unless you’re an academic (which most of us types aren’t) trying to learn them all at once is futile. What worked for me was aiming to learn one new one a day. Pick a tree from whatever site you are working on during the day that you don’t know, look it up and read about it. Long process but it works. Took me 23 years but I’m proud to say that I know at least 7 off by heart now 

[Mark Bolam]

I bought a pack of tree playing cards from a National Trust place as sort of a joke years ago, but they helped a lot with the most common trees.

Always have a decent tree book in the truck as well.

[Stubby]

What like Horseyus Chestnutius ?

[felixthelogchopper]

1 minute ago, Stubby said:

What like Horseyus Chestnutius ?

Or Biggus Dickus?

[Guest Gimlet]

2 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

I bought a pack of tree playing cards from a National Trust place as sort of a joke years ago, but they helped a lot with the most common trees.

Always have a decent tree book in the truck as well.

I carry tree and wild flora ID books in the truck as well and always look up unfamiliar species. 

Make it a habit to read the botanical name and hearing the sound in your head (or even saying it aloud) rather than just scanning forward to the common name, then you learn the two names in conjunction. I found that useful when learning about ornamental garden plants, not all of which have common names. 

 

Edited July 29, 2019 by Gimlet

[Khriss]

Ain't Latin really, but Linnaeus ideas of naming tree families, good system  but a bit out of date with advances in DNA sequencing. Wander round a tree nursery fr a morning to get the idea, then keep a notebook of what you have seen. K

[nepia]

If you can be bothered teach yourself some Latin words or get a dictionary or Google them.  You can often work out the meaning of names once you know/have looked up the Latin, e.g. angustifolia = narrow (angustus) leaves (folia).

[Rich Rule]

Got any nice parks near you?

 

I was living in South East London when I was training.  I had the books and was doing my best as I wandered through Greenwich park twice a day.

 

One day I was having trouble id’ing a tree from distance and I thought how convenient would it have been to have the common and botanical names labelled on the tree.  I went in for a closer look and notice a small grey square with the exact information I was looking for.

 

it wasn’t so much of a revelation as I wandered the rest of my route home.  Almost every tree had the tags on it.  

 

Pity I hadn’t notice it 2 months earlier.