On Oct 8, 8:21*pm, wrote:
In article ,
Bogdan wrote:
I assume there must be something like a "dictionary" somewhere, where
I*can search for traits and find the matching species. I looked around
on the net but found only small boy-scout-type "know the trees in your
area"*info. But my trees are in France, and besides, I*have no idea if
those particular trees are "native" or not.

What you're looking for is a taxonomic key, a sort of flow chart or
decision tree that you follow to identify a plant, a process called
'keying it out'. *Keys generally apply to plants of one geographical
area or related group. *So if these are native trees, you can find them
in a key for trees of France or western Europe.

Aren't there such taxonomic keys available for groups of related
plants? I mean, given that one looks like a chestnut, do I*have to
just search descriptions of all chestnut-related species to identify
it, or is there a that directly points out what I*should be looking
for?

Actually, I*imagine there are such keys, but is there a place on the
internet people-in-the-know might visit and find easily all sorts of
keys, or should I*just look generally for chestnut fans and hope
someone wrote one? Same for yews.

Thank you both for the help! I'm standing in an University and
I*didn't even think of searching for a professor... though I*doubt
there is one.