Grasping the Nettle: Handling Flora Entries in Dictionaries1

When working with flora in dictionaries, lexicographers who are not botanists, or botanically inclined, face particular difficulties with identification, synonyms, and description of plants. Working cooperatively with a botanist and following the guidelines outlined here can help ensure accuracy and completeness; these guidelines include criteria for inclusion of common names, collaborating with herbaria and botanists, finding sources for citations, and orthography. Botanical challenges for lexicographers include botanical terminology, scientific name change, source or locality for common names, availability of reference sources, and variation in ascription of medicinal properties. Challenges for both botanists and lexicographers involve polysemy and synonymy of common names within and between regions. This paper uses the Dictionary of the English/Creole of Trinidad & Tobago as an example, but the principles would apply to lexicographers in any area and to many specialist areas.