I mean…honestly, as with most things Mirai, all our knowledge of trees in the wild comes from Ryan! And many times that does mean a field trip to Italy, or the Sierra Nevadas, or Spain, etc. Other than that, Ryan does have a degree in horticulture and grew up in Colorado, so he’s been looking at trees for a long time. We don’t have a database or anything like that, though that is an excellent idea.
If you were so inclined to collect them in the Forum, I think that’s totally reasonable. It could definitely be made searchable. If I was making it, I would create a thread for Pines, Deciduous, etc. (broad categories) and then post photos with exact species in the body of the post. Then, folks can use Ctrl + F and you can search within the thread for particular species. I would suggest doing this in the Design forum category. Hope this was helpful - if Ryan has any other insights I’ll let you guys know!
Edited to be clearer about what I mean with the forum threads - if you wanted it to be searchable, make each species group its own thread. Then post members of that species within the thread.