The Plant Kingdom comprises thousands of tree varieties. Scientists and botanists use a consistent naming structure to classify every variety properly. After all, without a consistent naming taxonomy, it would be very difficult to communicate about trees. We would have trees named by local colloquialisms. We can link each scientific name too many common names.
Carolus Linnaeus introduced the method of scientific names in 1753. We give each tree species two Latin names, one for the genus and one for the species. This system now called “binomial nomenclature” used for naming living things, including plants.
Altogether, this allows scientists to communicate no matter what native language they speak.
All trees are part of the Plant Kingdom. Trees are further broken down into Division, Class, Order, Family, and Genus.
All things considered, each species is known by its genus and species names.
What is the genus of a tree?
According to arborday.com, a genus is “a group of tree species that have fundamental traits in common but that differ in other, lesser characteristics”. Trees in the same genus share similar outward appearances and flowing structure. However, a genus still has some significant variations within it. A genus can vary in location, but still share the same physical characteristics. When referring to a specific species, the genus name always comes first.
The genera (the plural for Genus) for some well-known trees are:
Genera can vary in size. Furthermore, some have only a few species within them and some contain hundreds and thousands of species.
What is the species of a tree?
The species of a tree is a grouping of trees that have identical features. The bark, flower structure, leaf structure, seed, and general appearance all match. All in all, scientists estimate that there are 60,000 and 100,000 species in the world. The United States only contains about 1,000 species out of that list. However, Europe only contains 500 separate species.
The species and common names for some well-known trees are:
Scientific names are an excellent way for the entire planet to communicate about plants. The genus categorizes trees with many, but not all, similar characteristics.
At the same time, a species categorizes specific trees together. These trees share similarities between all their features with some slight variation.
Moreover, we can link many common names to one species, but the scientific names help streamline the process. It would be cumbersome to list all the genera that classify trees. However, this site has many pages dedicated to a specific genus for you to learn more.