i want to get better at tree identification, anyone feel like they are good at this and how did u learn (esp if someone didn’t teach u while growing up)
- see trees often. it's hard to cultivate a skill1 for identifying any type of thing if you're only around it frequently.
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actually see trees often. when you see a tree, take note of its features. how are its buds and branches arranged? how are its leaves shaped? what is the texture of its bark? pay attention to similarities and differences. try to figure out 2 or 3 identifying features of each species you see.
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look at trees with another person. if they know trees better than you, that's a huge help, but even if not, two heads are better than one.
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learn -- or make up your own -- mnemonics to match features to species. for example, in my region the trees with an opposite branching pattern2 are maple, ash, dogwood, and horse chestnut[^3]. the common mnemonic around here is MADHorse (or MAD bucking horse, if you want to separate Aesculus into horse chestnut and ohio buckeye), so it's easy to remember that if you see a tree that's oppositely-arranged, it's almost certainly one of those.
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develop a process. you could get this from reading a key cover-to-cover, but it might be easier to develop naturally or learn from someone else. for instance, the branching pattern i mentioned above. that's a good first step of my process because it can rule out a lot of options. then i usually move on to leaf structure (whether it's simple or compound) because it eliminates more possibilities.
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verify your guesses, either with a friend, with a phone app, looking it up on wikipedia, etc. give yourself slack at first -- if you can only identify that a tree is an oak and not a maple, and not that it's a swamp white oak and not a northern pin oak, that's good enough.
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just keep practicing. the more trees you identify, the better you'll get at it, sometimes without even trying. your brain might develop shortcuts on its own, like associating a vague texture and color of bark that you might struggle to describe in words with a particular bud shape or flower, that will help you arrive at an ID just from a glance.
thanks for reading my very disorganized instruction guide! here are a few youtube videos that touch upon a similar idea of developing an intuition-based approach to tree ID:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hkw7pyuzhCQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_UqDX7uHx4
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choosing my words carefully here: i think there's an important difference between learning how to identify a tree -- which can amount to learning how to use a phone app or, if you want a higher degree of accuracy and precision, a taxonomic key -- and cultivating the skill of tree identification -- which i think is what people mean when they ask this question: how to i become able to identify a tree just by looking at it. it's less about learning how to operate a tool and more about developing a search image in your brain
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and Caprifoliaceae but people usually leave those out because they're distinctly more shrubby and they don't fit the mnemonic very well
