Q:
Do you know of a good Spanish resource with technical plant terms, maybe a college or university text we can create a dictionary from? I work at a greenhouse and am trying to open bilingual communications. At the moment, we have many informal words for things like "callus" and "crown" to describe our tissue culture plants, but we would love to know the actual terms for them (and other plant parts) in Spanish so we can educate everyone equally.
A:
Here are my recommendations:
- Glosario de sanidad vegetal — Mónica Alcalde & César Omar Núñez (2023). Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto, Argentina. A glossary with more than 100 terms, short definitions with some photographs to illustrate the terms. Includes some terms from plant pathology and crop management.
- Glosario botánico online — Universidad de Navarra. Interactive online glossary. Useful for quick reference.
- Spanish-English Horticultural Dictionary — D. O’D. Bourke, L. Fanjul, A.J. Rendell-Dunn (2024). Revised Edition. A specialized dictionary for horticultural terms, offering equivalents in English and Spanish. Ideal for professionals in plant cultivation.
- Glosario bilingüe de términos botánicos — Nidia Amador Domínguez (2007). Forage and Pasture Research Center. Univ. Matanzas, Cuba. It contains more than 500 botanical terms, presented in English with a brief explanation in that language, followed by their Spanish equivalent and definition.
- Thomson’s Spanish-English English-Spanish Illustrated Agricultural Dictionary — Rice, Robert P. A basic bilingual agricultural reference, useful for quick terminology checks and introductory understanding of technical terms.
- Diccionario de floricultura Ball/Ball Floriculture Dictionary: English-Spanish/Spanish-English with Spanish Definitions (1995) — Veronica Hoyos de Martens and M. L. Nydia Palma de Villarreal. Bilingual dictionary with specific terms including those that relate to the biological, botanical, and entomological applications in the industry.
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