I approach things from two directions. I look at plant books and see things whose names
I might have heard of but wouldn't be able to recognise and absorb a little bit of info about
them, but tend to forget it. Also I visit the local flowers and photograph them (carefully,
not disturbing them or their soil-mates too much!) and then google for things like "purple
flowers" and add supplemental descriptors like 'large' or 'small' etc.
Last year I was puzzled by a very strange looking flower that I didn't recognise and I
managed to ID it by googling for "odd flowers" as someone else had photographed it
and thought it was odd too - it turned out to be the third plant from the left on the
bottom
http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=odd+flowers and I have since found that
this is a
Passiflora caerulea.
So I have half remembered flowers in my head that might spark something when I'm
out 'in the field' and I've got candidate flowers for IDing later with the interweb and the
books and this is my method of expanding my knowledge bit by bit, nibbling away at
either end
I also find that I'm starting to notice more things about the plant - obvious things like
size of flower and leaf, but also shade of leaf and shininess / hairiness etc. etc.
whereas previously I wasn't really seeing this. Leaf shape can be helpful in directing
you to the relevant part of a book - for example there are lots of geranium leaves that,
even though they look quite different, have something about them that makes you think
'geraniumish'.
Also - I look here and see pictures and name suggestions offered by others, here's
an example of a similar thread:
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23075
At the moment I've got a small list of local plants that I'm pretty confident with including
alkanet, ragwort (couple of types I think), shepherd's purse, herb robert, larkspur, lesser
periwinkle (my excursions are fairly local and there are a lot of gardens with lovely flowers
in - I take nature as I can hehe), and yarrow was a recent discovery.
Sometimes the Latin names give clues about the plant, often not - I'm not sure how I
remember Latin or regular names to be honest. I either just know the name or not - I've
not particularly
tried to remember them. It seems to have just happened. Or not
The more you know though, the easier it becomes to add to the knowledge. It starts
off very slowly and it's a bit of a struggle but I think there's a long er... latency period of
building a 'bookshelf' of mental knowledge upon which to add your information as you
absorb it.
There are loads of plants I don't know but I think I've developed better strategies for IDing
them. An obvious one of course is photographing it and going "what's this?" on here!
For trees - winter twigs were a big help as I wandered around Blackheath with my guide
printed from the excellent Hainault Forest website and learned / guessed what my local
trees were. Then I was delighted to see them coming into leaf and largely confirming my
tentative IDs.
The next thing is to notice the bark a bit more, and the overall shape of the crown of the
tree - there are quite a lot of things that can ID a tree. Leaves are pretty good though.
Can't help you with insects unless it's
Amphimallon solstitialis which terrify me
annually - they actually chase me when I walk home across the heath. They're mean
