Why is it that you only fail to identify a tree when someone who esteems your gardening knowledge points to a tree and asks, “What type of tree is that?”
You grasp around for moments (that seem like hours) racking your memory banks like a computer accessing it’s hard-drive only to realise that you deleted that picture last month.
Oh! The humiliation! Fortunately, the National Arbor Day Foundation (national to the US, that is) has developed a great animation for you to hone your skills with tree identification.
Words like palmate, petiole, bud scar and bract will roll seemlessly off your tongue as you endeavour to become the tree know-it-all that your friends have come to expect.
I know that feeling so well. Almost anything is identifiable unless it’s in the hands of someone asking you to name it. All the while you know that it looks so very familiar, but the name will just not come.
I had an even more embarrassing instance a couple of years ago. As I get older I find that I can forget things in the space of a few seconds (both frustrating and alarming at the same time). A gentleman walking along the footpath stopped to ask me about a couple of plants in my garden. He was interested in the silver-leafed Pyrethrum, which is one of my favourite plants. I explained how easy it was to grow and so very drought tolerant. We moved on to another area of the garden and then he asked another question about the Pyrethrum. My mind went blank and I was silently asking myself “What the hell is a pyrethrum?”. We’d only been talking about it a minute earlier. Fortunately, my brain clicked into gear before I’d made too much of a fool of myself – I think!