Like most scholars of his era, Linnaeus described organisms in Latin, using a string of words, a polynomial. This widely used system was precise but very difficult to use. In the margins of his books, Linnaeus gave an abbreviated two-word description. Willow oak was abbreviated Quercus phellos . These short descriptions, known as binomials were quickly adopted by taxonomists because they were easier to remember.
Binomial nomenclature is now our standard system for naming organisms, including trees.
The same tree may have more than one common name. For example, if we asked an Englishman and a Canadian to show us a sycamore, the Englishman would take us to tree in the genus Acer while the Canadian would take us to a tree in the genus Platanus . Each is using the correct local name for the tree. The problem is compounded when people use different languages for the same tree. In Canada, Platanus may be called sycamore by an English speaker, and platane by a French speaker.