Herbs are smallish smelly plants……Trees are quite large and usually made out of wood. help yourself to leaves, there are plenty around this time of year.

The general subject-area is Botany, and from there you can specialize. Most state colleges and universities carry that as a degree program. There are numerous websites that have the information you seek, but it may be better to take a field-guide into the woods and fields with you. Key identifying criteria that you will look at will be blossoms (If in season) Leaves, and bark. With some plants, you will need more than one of those to tell the difference twixt two very similar plants. Being wrong in some such cases can be fatal. Foxglove, (Digitalis purpurea) and Comfrey, (Symphytum officinale L.) are easy to differentiate from blossoms, but all-but impossible to do so from the leaves. Having a cup of Comfrey tea is soothing, having a cup of FOXGLOVE tea by mistake can be fatal, so don’t get over-confident in your identification skills at first.

The degree is botany. I took classes in the pharmacy department called “pharmocognosy” which were the study of medicines from plants. That is quite a big deal now.

Basic plant identification teaches the classification of the various plants families and species by their leaf, flower, and other characteristics. I am sure their are good websites where you can learn to identify some plants. There are guides to trees, wildflowers and grasses available, maybe at your local library, where you could learn

about the classification and naming of leaves and flowers to help you learn what is what.

Tree surgeon.

Have you herd of Big Brother? In England one of the contestants is one.

Botonists?

herbologist?