The Trees Honor confuses a lot of people right at the start, for one simple reason: the name sounds like gardening. It isn't. No one here needs to plant anything. The work is field work and study: going out, observing, collecting a leaf, identifying the species and building a small herbarium that stays as a record of what you learned.
The heart of the badge is a single task: building exsiccatae of 15 different tree species, each one labeled with scientific name, family, common name and characteristics. Around that work come the requirements that give it meaning: knowing how to tell a tree from a shrub, understanding the parts of a leaf, and recognizing the species out in the wild, not just on paper.
This guide shows the whole path: what the honor requires, how not to confuse it with Gardening, and the step by step of the herbarium, the part that fails people the most, because it demands something children and teenagers don't have to spare: patience to let the leaf dry. Requirements verified on 07/22/2026 in the South American Division Honors Manual.
What this honor is (and what it isn't)
Before collecting the first leaf, it's worth setting expectations. The Trees Honor sits in the Nature Study area of the South American Division (SAD) honors program, and the verb that defines it is identify, not grow.
That sets it apart from two neighbors it's often confused with:
- Gardening is the honor for those who prepare the bed, sow, water and tend plants until they grow. It's hands-in-the-soil work, over months. If your interest is making things grow, the destination is Gardening, not this one.
- The nature-overview honors give a broad view of ecosystems and living beings. Trees is the opposite of broad: it goes deep into a single group, trees, and requires you to recognize individual species.
The core of the work is the herbarium: an organized set of dried, identified plants. In your case, a small herbarium, with 15 species. Each dried plant mounted in that collection has a technical name, exsiccata, and almost everything that follows revolves around it.
A note of editorial honesty: the exact requirements and the official wording of each item are in the Honors Manual and on the badge card, which is the document your counselor signs. This guide explains how to earn each part well; it doesn't replace the card or the guidance of whoever will evaluate you.
Tree or shrub? The question that opens the honor
One of the first requirements asks you to know how to describe the difference between a tree and a shrub. It sounds like a trick question, but it's the foundation of everything: if you don't know what a tree is, you don't know what can go into your herbarium.
The difference isn't just size. It lies mainly in the stem. Both are woody, they have a hard, wooden stem, but they're organized in different ways:
| Feature | Tree | Shrub |
|---|---|---|
| Stem | A single, defined main trunk | Several stems coming up near the ground |
| Branching | Starts only at a certain height above the ground | Branches from the base |
| Typical size | Generally over 3 meters | Generally under 3 meters |
| Overall look | Visible trunk, then the crown | A lower, fuller clump from the base |
In the field, the quickest test is to look at the base: if there's a single trunk that only opens into branches up high, it's a tree; if several stems sprout together from the ground, it's a shrub. Size helps, but doesn't decide on its own: a young tree can be short and a shrub can be tall. What rules is the stem structure.
Keep that ruler handy, because it avoids the classic herbarium mistake: collecting a leaf from a rosebush, a hydrangea or a garden hibiscus, all shrubs, and presenting it as if it were a tree. The evaluator notices immediately.
The parts of the leaf and the two great divisions
Since the herbarium is made of leaves, the honor requires you to know how to read a leaf: diagram the parts of a complete leaf and recognize them in the leaves you collect. It's the vocabulary you'll use in the characteristics field of the label.
A so-called complete leaf has three main parts, and it's worth drawing each one in your notebook:
- Blade: the wide green part, the lamina of the leaf, where photosynthesis happens.
- Petiole: the little stalk connecting the blade to the branch.
- Sheath: the widened base of the petiole that attaches to the stem (not every leaf has a clearly visible sheath).
On the blade you also observe the veins, which are the "skeleton" through which the sap runs, and the margin, which can be smooth, serrated or lobed, a detail that helps a lot in identification.
The other theoretical piece is knowing the two great divisions into which trees fall, by scientific name:
- Gymnosperms (Gymnospermae): "naked seed" trees, with no fruit enclosing the seed. These are the pines, araucarias, cypresses. They usually have needle- or scale-shaped leaves.
- Angiosperms (Angiospermae): trees that flower and whose seeds come protected inside a fruit. This is the vast majority of the trees you see on the street and in the wild: trumpet trees, mango trees, jatobás, aroeiras.
When it comes to collecting, that division has a practical consequence: almost everything you find will be an angiosperm. If you want a gymnosperm in the herbarium to show you understood the difference, go looking for a pine or an araucaria on purpose: they won't show up on their own in your list.
So what is an exsiccata?
If a single term sums up this honor, it's exsiccata. It's worth understanding well before heading out to collect.
An exsiccata is a plant sample that has been pressed, dried and mounted on a sheet of rigid card stock, accompanied by a label with the plant's and the collection's information. It's the basic unit of any herbarium in the world, from scientific ones to school ones; the great university herbaria hold millions of them. In your case, you'll build 15.
Notice what the definition requires, because every word is a hidden requirement:
- Pressed and dried: a fresh leaf won't do, nor a merely wilted one. It needs to become flat and dehydrated, or it rots.
- Mounted: fixed on a firm base, usually card stock, so it can be handled without breaking.
- With a label: without the identification label, it's just a dried leaf. What turns the leaf into an exsiccata is the information beside it.
That's why, in the Trees Honor, the card asks that each of the 15 exsiccatae carry on its label scientific name, family, common name and characteristics of the tree. A pretty leaf is worth nothing without that data, and that's precisely where a lot of people turn in the work half done.
Read alsoBirds Honor: a guide to observing and identifying birds in your clubHow to build the herbarium, step by step
This is the practical part, and the one that fails people most due to haste. Do it in order, without skipping the drying.
1. Collect carefully. Choose whole, healthy leaves, without holes or fungal spots. Pick a branch with a few leaves when possible, it helps with identification. Note down on the spot, in a little notebook, where and when you collected and what the whole tree looked like (size, trunk, crown). That field note is what will later become the "characteristics" on the label.
2. Press it while still fresh. Place each leaf well spread out between sheets of newspaper, without folds or overlap. Stack it: newspaper, leaf, newspaper, leaf. Put that stack between two pieces of cardboard or wood and press with weight; heavy books work, or tie it firmly with string. A herbarium press is just two boards clamped by straps; you can improvise one at home.
3. Change the paper and wait for it to dry. This is the step no one can speed up. In the first days, swap the damp newspaper for dry newspaper once a day; the moisture leaving the leaf is what causes mold if it stays trapped. Complete drying takes one to three weeks, depending on the leaf and the climate. The leaf is ready when it turns rigid, with no soft or cool-to-the-touch parts.
4. Mount it on the card stock. Fix the dried leaf on a rigid piece of card stock, of a standard size so they all come out alike. Use proper tape, dabs of glue or small strips of paper over the petiole and branches; no drenching in glue. The leaf needs to be held in place, but visible on both sides whenever possible.
5. Label each one. The label goes in the bottom corner of the card stock. For this honor, it must contain, at minimum:
| Label field | Example |
|---|---|
| Scientific name | Handroanthus impetiginosus |
| Family | Bignoniaceae |
| Common name | Pink trumpet tree |
| Tree characteristics | Size, leaf type, where it lives, use |
| Place and date of collection | Central square, 07/12/2026 |
| Who collected it | Your name |
The first four fields are the ones the card requires directly. The last two, place, date and collector, are the good practice of every real herbarium and boost your work in the evaluation. Write the scientific name in italics (or underlined, if by hand), with the genus capitalized and the species in lowercase: it's the universal rule and the evaluator notices.
Which 15 species to choose?
The honor asks for 15 different species, and the best path is to bet on trees native to your region. They're easier to identify with certainty, they tell the story of your own biome, and they avoid the mistake of filling the list with mango, avocado and other backyard exotics (which count, but don't teach as much).
Since Brazil is enormous, there's no single list. But these native trees are common in squares, parks and roadsides across much of the country and tend to be recognizable:
| Common name | Scientific name | Family |
|---|---|---|
| Yellow trumpet tree | Handroanthus albus | Bignoniaceae |
| Jatobá | Hymenaea courbaril | Fabaceae |
| Brazilian pepper tree | Schinus terebinthifolia | Anacardiaceae |
| Surinam cherry | Eugenia uniflora | Myrtaceae |
| Blue jacaranda | Jacaranda mimosifolia | Bignoniaceae |
| Glory tree | Pleroma granulosum | Melastomataceae |
| Ambay pumpwood | Cecropia pachystachya | Urticaceae |
| Angico | Anadenanthera colubrina | Fabaceae |
Round out the list with what exists near you; the goal is for them to be species you can find again in the field, because the honor also requires you to recognize them from memory and point out another individual of the same species live. There's no point collecting a rare leaf you'll never find again.
To confirm the scientific name and family with certainty, use serious sources: a biology teacher, a tree guide for your region, or databases like Flora e Funga do Brasil. Be wary of identification done by app photo alone: they get it wrong quite often with an isolated leaf, and a wrong scientific name on the label is exactly the kind of thing the evaluator checks.
The mistakes that get the exsiccata sent back
Almost every failure in this honor falls into a handful of known mistakes. Steer clear of these:
- Leaving it for the last week. It's the champion. The leaf doesn't dry in time, molds inside the newspaper and arrives black at the evaluation. Start with at least a month of slack.
- Not changing the newspaper. Trapped moisture is what rots the leaf. Changing the paper in the first days is the secret to a clean exsiccata.
- Incomplete label. A gorgeous leaf, with no scientific name or no family. Half the requirement is the information, not the plant.
- Confusing a shrub with a tree. Rosebush, azalea and hibiscus go into the herbarium as if they were trees. Review the stem ruler.
- Badly written scientific name. No italics, all caps, or spelled by ear. The convention exists and is checked.
- 15 leaves from the same tree. They need to be 15 different species, not 15 leaves.
A counselor's tip that saves rework: make a test exsiccata first. Collect, press and dry a single leaf, see how many days it took in your climate, adjust the process, and only then run all 15 in a batch. Discovering the drying time on a "guinea pig" leaf is far better than discovering it with the whole project molding together.
How to earn it and what comes next
The path is simple to organize. Split the work into three blocks and don't leave everything for the end:
- Theory: tree vs. shrub difference, parts of the leaf, the two divisions, the importance of conserving the vegetation of your region. You can study it at home and at a club meeting.
- Field: the outings to observe, collect and, later, recognize the species live. Take advantage of trails, campouts and even the neighborhood square.
- Herbarium: the weeks of pressing, drying and mounting the 15 exsiccatae. It's the longest block; start with it.
The one who signs off on completion is your counselor or the honor instructor, and the badge goes into your SGC record, the SAD's official club system. Like every honor, it counts toward the regular classes and helps those who are aiming, further down the road, for leadership.
And if you enjoyed the process, there's one more step: the Trees Honor — advanced, which has this one as a prerequisite and raises the bar to 35 species, on top of asking for classification of the leaves by shape and margin and the names of several botanical families. It's not for everyone, but for those who fall in love with identifying trees, it's the natural path. A well-made herbarium, by the way, doesn't die with the evaluation: it stays yours, and is worth having for years.