iRuRAL School Leaflet. 965 



Two sources of perplexity are likely to come up at the outset — con- 

 fusion of nomenclature, and ignorance as to what are botanical 

 species. You will find but one native beech, chestnut, or hemlock, but 

 several birches, oaks, or hickories. You may also find that what to one 

 child is a black oak, to another is a yellow oak, or lath oak, while a 

 third child may call an entirely different species black oak. In common 

 usage, even in the same locality, one species has often two or three 

 names and two different species the same name. 



Here the "Check List" will help you. Look up in the Index of Common 

 Names the name of each tree you think you have identified. If it is 

 "Black Oak" you will find six separate entries. Look up each of them. 

 The "Check List" enters each species under its scientific (Latin) name, 

 but it gives an approved common name for each, and also a list of other 

 common names in use. It likewise gives the range of each species. 



With a little patience you will begin to find your perplexity clearing 

 up, if you are in perplexity. Of the six black oaks indexed, two are 

 shown by their range to be Western species, and a third barely -enters 

 Long Island from the South. Black oak, then, in New York, may mean 

 either Qiiercus rubra, Quercus coccinea, or Quercus velutina, for which 

 the "Check List" gives as approved common names red, scarlet, and 

 yellow oak. Which is your specimen? If you cannot find out from 

 such books or other means of enlightenment as are at your command, 

 mail a twig to the Forest Service, Washington, D. C, to be identified 

 for you. You will do well to secure for this purpose a twig from a good- 

 sized tree, as conveniently situated as possible for your frequent obser- 

 vation. When it has been identified for you, study it closely in every 

 detail — bark, trunk, limbs, spray, twigs, and buds — and see whether 

 you can learn from it to identify other trees of the same kind. 



Thus, during the winter, teacher and pupil working together in a 

 "tree club" for mutual help, if need be, the puzzle of naming the various 

 trees in the neighborhood can be worked out. Meanwhile, in water 

 in the schoolroom and at home, twigs may be made to swell their buds, 

 stirring with life before the call of spring. You are now ready for the 

 putting out of leaf and blossom, which will permit you to take another 

 step in learning to know the trees. So far, you have merely been intro- 

 duced. But it is to be hoped there is not a child in school who is not 

 interested in every tree in sight and between the school and home, and 

 has not formed the habit of exploring with sharp eyes the roadside 

 growth of bushes, noticing and comparing the buds and sprays and 

 stems. Very likely there will be a pleasant surprise or two when the 

 bursting leaves bring recognition of some old friends that have been 

 masked in strangeness during the long season of bare boughs. 



