TREES AND THEIR NAMES 



SOME kinds of trees have as many have tried to promote uniformity, often 

 aHases as the criminal with the by following the usage given preference 

 longest police-court record. For by the United States Forest Service, 

 many reasons this is most unfortunate, which has made a careful study of pop- 

 To scientists, the confusion which re- ular usage to the end that as much au- 

 sults when people mean different things thority as possible may be given to the 

 by the same word or use different words name most widely and commonly used, 

 for the same thing, is intolerable, and But unfortunately it is too much to ex- 

 therefore they use a carefully devised pect that absolute uniformity can ever 

 and carefully guarded system of nomen- be brought about, 

 clature. The trouble is almost always over 



The every-day man is apt to be im- what the botanist calls the specific name, 



patient with what seems the pedantic It is easy enough to tell an oak from a 



fondness of the botanist for jaw-break- maple, and there ought not to be much 



ing Latin names, which mean nothing to uncertainty — though there often is — as 



the uninitiated, when common usage to whether a tree is a pine or a spruce, 



supplies a familiar name. But the trou- But oak, maple, pine, and spruce are 



ble is that on the familiar name there is generic names, and each genus includes 



seldom any agreement. Hence many a number of species. Here begins a 



misunderstandings, many friendly dis- confusion which often approaches 



putes, and often failures even of those chaos. 



who know a good deal about trees to Not only do different localities apply 



distinguish correctly the different kinds different names to the same species and 



of trees and woods. the same name to different species ; in 



School teachers are paying more and the same locality several different names 



more attention to nature-study work, may be used for a single species, very 



and in nature study are paying more likely, with false distinctions where no 



and more attention to forest trees be- botanical basis for a distinction exists. 



cause of the general interest in forestry. For instance^ a certain oak often called 



At best there are difficulties enough in both black and yellow oak used to be 



the way for those who have not had spe- split into hand-made lath in early days, 



cial training in forest botany, when it and hence got also the name of "lath 



comes to identifying specimens of oak ;" but since to make good lath a 



leaves and twigs brought to them by straight-grained tree was needed, some 



their pupils. Leaves, particularly, often woodsmen think that a black oak, such 



vary greatly not only in different re- as the lath-maker would have selected 



gions, but also in the same locality, and by its looks, is a different kind of tree 



even from different parts of the same from other black oaks. Black oak is 



tree. The lack of agreement on the also used as a sub-generic term for all 



common name adds another complica- the many kinds of oak which, unlike the 



tion. white oaks, have leaves with bristle- 



If it were possible to bring every one tipped lobes, and take two years to ma- 



to accept one name for each kind of tree ture their acorns. 



there would be a decided advantage not Indeed, the local names given to the 



only through making it easier to recog- forty-seven different oaks which form 



nize trees, but also through clearing up forest trees in the United States are al- 



confusion as to the woods in common most without limit. The true white oak, 



use. The makers of popular tree books however, the noblest tree of the oak 



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