Reddit reviews Botanical Latin

Botanical Latin https://www.amazon.com/dp/0881926272/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_RQiODbD6MT818

Extremely helpful to understand the frequently descriptive nature of the plant names.

Try flash cards. Maybe common name on one side Latin on the other. If you run through these flash cards repeatedly you will actually know the common and Latin names of a bunch of trees.

You better have a hook on how you recognize what a leaf/seed/flower/bud looks like. All I can think is that it comes from repeatedly looking at the plant and naming it.

I keep a copy of Botanical Latin on the shelf. It is pretty useful.

What I really prefer tho is floras that include name meanings. It used to be more common, but some new floras still have them too.

Botanical Latin is my first go-to reference for explanations of Latin epithets. One way of thinking about scientific names is that Genus is generally considered a noun and species an adjective. For example Ulmus alata, or winged elm has the specific epithet of alata, which is derived from the Latin word for wings. It's called winged elm because the stems have corky protruberances on the stems that look like wings.

For a definition for a specific word or sets of words, just do a search for the word using Google. In my professional opinion, that's the fastest way to figure things out.

You are not going to find a single source for this. It's trivia and not something anyone usually cares about. For some plant names there's this, but it would only provide minor insights.

Stern's Botanical Latin

Now if you're looking for an explanation of how things are classified or arranged evolutionarily, that's something all together different.