Miami Tree Puzzle
An adaptation of a DELTA database generated by Dr. Roger Sanders and Dr. David Lee with revisions and additions by Dr. Stinger Guala and Dr. Patti Anderson
This is an Interactive Key using Navikey; it will take a few minutes to come up.
Learning the names of trees can be puzzling at first because many trees look similar and few wear name tags. Early botanists developed a kind of flow chart, called a dichotomous key, to help identify plants; specialists in a particular group of plants, or the plants of a particular geographical area, often write these keys to help others solve the "puzzle" of plant names. Computerized keys offer another tool for identifying plants through interactive keys. Common names are included in the character list but we use latin names in the key.
The Miami Tree Puzzle is an interactive key currently including 248 species of trees that are found here in the wild. Although some of these trees are used for landscaping in and around Miami, species that are found only in cultivation are usually not included. There are currently no palms in the database.
Some Characteristics and Species Illustrated
If you don't see the key above, you need to download and install the latest java plug-in :
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