It is a well-known fact of botany that there are in general three genders of flowers - male, female, and perfect. Each individual plant may posess one or more types of flower; for example, oak trees usually have male and female flowers on the same tree (such an arrangement being called "monoecious"), willow trees generally have only male flowers or only female flowers ("dioecious"), cherry trees have perfect flowers, and some maple trees have male and perfect flowers on the same individual tree (one possible form of "polygamy"). Regarding the presence or absence of each of the three types of flowers as three independent binary (i.e. 2 possible values, "yes" or "no") variables, it is immediately apparent that there are 8 different combinations of flowers possible (including the combination having no flowers of any kind):

1) no flowers of any kind
2) male flowers only
3) female flowers only
4) separate male and female flowers on the same tree
5) perfect flowers only
6) male and perfect flowers on the same tree
7) female and perfect flowers on the same tree
8) all three types of flower on the same tree.

Thus, there are in essence 8 possible genders of trees (or other plants). This obviously causes problems in referring to or addressing trees with pronouns, since the pronoun system of most languages cover only cases 1-3 above ("it","he", and "she", respectively). This appalling situation has motivated the present work, which one hopes will lead to better communication between ourselves and our leafy fellow beings.

Structure of the Pronouns

The pronouns proposed here will be composed by stringing together basic units composed of a prefix indicating 1st, 2nd, or 3rd person, and a suffix indicating gender. A generic gender suffix must also be available for collective reference to several individuals whose genders are not the same. In some cases, the plural will be indicated simply by specifying each individual explicitly; in other cases, generic plural indicators will have to be added. Inclusivity and exclusivity in 1st person plural pronouns will be denoted by infixes - "na" for inclusive, "va" for exclusive. Examples given below will make these general remarks clearer.

The simplest part of these new pronouns is the indicator of person. For 1st person, the prefix "mi" will be used, with "ti" for 2nd person, and "as", "at", or "ay" for 3rd person, depending on whether the individual referred to is "here", "there", or "yonder" (i.e. out of sight), respectively. The need for a distinction between familiar and polite forms has not yet been established, but courageous researchers are at this very moment engaged in field surveys to settle this question.

The gender-bearing part of the pronoun must now be described. A simple diagram will be of great aid in constructing the appropriate syllable:

	m f p (male/female/perfect)
present:	b o g
absent:	p i c

Use of this table is best illustrated by examples. Thus, a male ash tree has m present, f absent, and p absent, so the gender syllable will thus be "bic" ("b" for m present, "i" for f absent, and "c" for p absent). A male ash tree referring to himself (note that in this case the ordinary "he" can be used) would thus use the pronoun "mibic". An oak tree having both male and female flowers (but no perfect ones) and which is out of sight of the speaker would be referred to as "ayboc" - "ay" for "out of sight", and "boc" meaning m present, f present, and p absent. A male ash referring to himself and an oak he's addressing would thus use either "mibictinaboc" as the inclusive dual, or "mibictivaboc" as the exclusive dual 1st person pronoun.