Loftwings and Demons

After I learn to identify whether something is a pine, spruce, or fir, I also want to learn what specific type of pine, spruce, or fir they are.  Preferably down to the species, but since that's not always possible in plant identification, at least as specific as I can get by just using my own senses.

At some point, I'd like to try some of the edible varieties, but before I do that I also want to look closely into how to avoid mistaking a poisonous plant for the plant in question and what other things I should watch out for that could make eating a plant unpleasant or deadly (besides it just being poisonous in and of itself).

In this case my knowledge so far consists of what the basic difference between pine, spruce, and fir needles are, some interesting info about the cones, and the  fact that the highly poisonous yew tree is an evergreen tree with needles and so it's very important to be able to differentiate it from edible pine, spruce, and fir.  Fortunately there are a number of ways to positively differentiate edible species from this deadly plant.

The dandelions are really coming up right now.  I also saw a thistle today.  The US has a number of thistle species, both native and non-native.  I'm fascinated to see if I can identify the one I saw, as I'm curious to know what variety it is and whether or not it is edible.  I practiced taking some video of bees enjoying the clovers coming up all over the park.  I also took some pictures of some other plants I saw in the park today, both ones I'm familiar with and ones I'm not.  I really love taking pictures of plants and animals, and observing what's going on.  I'd love to get more organized with recording this kind of information so it could be more useful as a record and perhaps for scientific purposes as well.