Posted by Gus on 11/5/2008, 1:21 pm, in reply to "The usual suspects!" Link: Eucalyptologics: Examples of Eucalyptus species identification
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Walt,
You did the right thing comparing different photos. Comparing tree parts is the way. In past, this was done comparing a sample of a mystery tree to a botanical plate of pressed dried plant parts, or to a drawing made by a naturalist from other plant specimen, or from a botanical plate. Now, with millions of cameras and plants people around, and with the Internet, possibilities multiply 
The botanists of the old days of Eucalyptus discovery would be puzzled!
But this type of comparison gives a big room for uncertainty many times, and for eucalypts it is a bit of complicated. Incomplete samples (or photos of, say, just the bark, or just the tree from far away) often cannot give enough hints unless you are used to see that same species in your area, because it is grown there, or because you have grown it The tiny parts of the trees are most important for "solved cases" of species ID. But... they are not there for every tree, and much depends on its age, the season, maturiy and general happiness growing in a given location. So it is usually good to see it as somewhat a "detective work", and to think like a tree: no big hurry.
For Florida there are some two dozen species that you could find in your wanderings (not the same ones in southern FL than in northern FL), and possibly more considering the good number of plants people growing "exotic stuff" around there in the last decades. Some of them are apparently quite common, so they would become the "usual suspects". But there are more! They might seem a lot, but it is surely less than the +700 possibilities back in Australia.
Eucalyptus botany is a very specialised knowledge that can only be learned in depth step by step. The more trees you see (or grow) and compare, the better. But it is as reachable as the trees are, for anyone, gardener, horticulturalist, forester, botanist or keen exotic plant grower regardless of their location. Like all the good people learning from each other in Ian Barclay's eucalypt board!
C. torelliana is ok. But you should also consider growing C. ptychocarpa!
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