Another aspect to this - and one that can help with understanding and remembering the names - is to actually look up the names and break them down.
Take common basin sagebrush for example: Artemisia tridentata
Artemesia - from the Greek goddess Artemis (apparently Wormwood [family? in this case] was sacred to her?).
Tridentata - tri=3, dent=tooth. Look at the 3-toothed leaves and it makes good sense. Think tricycle (three wheels) and dentist as cognates.
Words, even Latin words, have meaning and there's (usually) a good reason for plants to have the names that they do. Exploring the etymology can (and probably should) be done for everything you're trying to commit to memory. And it's a fun exercise in its own right. It's an awfully lot like playing with conceptual (linguistic) legos.
