Instrumental Books

Brando CalPankian · Feb 2, 2025

I did terrible in water management, like 50%. And ID because of latin names, again like 50%. It was humbling.

ATH · Feb 2, 2025

Brando CalPankian BCMA said:
I'm back on a book collecting kick. I passed my BCMA, but realized I have deficiencies in my knowledge.

One of the main things I need to get better at is learning to identify trees by their scientific names. I figured I should learn Latin, or at least horticultural Latin. Any good books on this topic?

I also need to shore up my understanding of soils.

We're looking into more landscape maintenance projects and becoming MNLA members/certified. Anyone a big gardener/landscape plant lover that could give some advice?

Our employees love our library, so I want to make sure it's stocked with everything they need to keep learning.

congrats on the BCMA!

Up By Roots is a good one about soils - especially soils in urban settings. But he also covers some basic soil stuff as groundwork (pun unintended)

See if you can get ahold of some old hard copy soil surveys for your area. Look at the maps and see which soils dominate the areas you work and read the writeups on those. They'll at least give you a good primer of what to expect - but don't let that be your only source of info about the soil...read the ground too.

I cannot say I know of a good book on horticultural Latin...but I'm sure there is one out there. It does help to know the meanings of some words (or rough translations of rough usage sometimes). I still remember some of those things from taking dendrology class 29 years ago. For example, the hickories: Mockernut vs Pignut ... Carya tomentosa (Mockernut) Carya glabra (Pignut). They can look similar, but the leaves and rachis of C. tomentosa are "tomentose" which (roughly) means fuzzy while glabrous means smooth as the Pignut leaf and rachis is smooth. C. ovata = oval shaped buds. (I just looked up cordiformis to see what that means...apparently heart-shaped for the nut. I don't see it).

But sometimes they aren't terribly helpful...Like occidentalis which means "western". As in Thuja occidentalis (obviously eastern white-cedar or arborvitae) and Celtis occidentalis (Hackberry - the northern cousin of Sugarberry) and Platanus occidentalis (American sycamore - native to the eastern U.S., not to be confused with P. racemosa or P. wrightii both of the SW U.S.). I'm assuming in these cases the "western" refers to US being west of Europe.