The 27-year-old, originally from Australia, will be the only apprentice to attend this year's International Dendrology Society conference.
Mr Kuiper, who is studying for a level 4 horticulture course through Otago Polytechnic, said he had a particular fondness for conifers, and his favourite tree was the redwood.
He will be the only apprentice at the conference, which will involve about 32 long-term members of the society, many of them European.
''They have a passionate interest in dendrology, which is the study of woody plants,'' he said.
''These people are very highly experienced and they are very passionate about it.''
He will be travelling to various botanic gardens and arboretums, including ''a whole forest'' of conifer trees.
All of the places he was travelling to would have thousands of different species of plants, he said.
As well as learning to identify different trees, Mr Kuiper would learn more about the history and heritage of Hungary itself - something he was looking forward to, he said.
The conference would last six days, from September 8 to September 14, and then the society had given him extra funding, to look at some botanic gardens in the United Kingdom.
He would be bringing his knowledge back to the Dunedin Botanic Garden.
Mr Kuiper would be travelling all around the country, rather than staying in one place, he said.
4Trades facilitator Bruce Dunn said Mr Kuiper ''excelled'' at both his practical and his theory work, and he understood his bursary was very prestigious.
Mr Kuiper said he had always had a ''very keen interest'' in plants, ever since he was a little child.
He studied environmental science at university in Australia, before electing to come to Otago to complete the horticulture course, and hoped to become the curator of a garden or aboretum in the future.
