Research Guides: Botany: Dictionaries

What is a dictionary?

Subject-specific dictionaries are reference books that contain an alphabetical list of words with information about them that is specific to that particular subject and not necessarily generic like you would find in an average, everyday dictionary.

Dictionaries in the Library Collection

Elsevier's Dictionary of Plant Lore by Watts, Donald
Call Number: REF GR780 .W38 2007
ISBN: 012374086X
Publication Date: 2007
Knowledge of plant names can give insight into largely forgotten beliefs. This title contains over 30,000 vernacular and literary English names of plants. It is suitable for plant scientists, linguists, botanists, and historians.
A Dictionary of Plant Sciences, 4e by Michael Allaby
Publication Date: 2019
Completely revised and updated, covering all aspects in the field of plant sciences including biochemistry, plant physiology, cytology, ecology, genetics, evolution, biogeography, earth history, and earth sciences.
Plant Identification Terminology by James G. Harris; Melinda Woolf Harris
Call Number: QK9 .H37 2001
Publication Date: 2001
Visual glossary of botanical terms. The first section presents the alphabetical glossary of some 2,400 terms commonly used in plant description and identification. The second part groups related terms to facilitate study and comparison. Illustrated with clear B&W line drawings.

Online Dictionaries

African Violet Terms
African Violet Society of America
Botanical Glossary
B&T World Seeds
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An alphabetical listing of over 800 botanical terms and their meanings, helpfully hypertexed for rapid reference.
Cacti-Related Glossary: Nomenclature, Glossary, & Etyology
CactiGuide.com
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This section of CactiGuide.com provides in-depth explanations of the different terminology that a person might encounter while investigating cacti or cacti-related information.
Glossary of Mycological Terms
Ainsworth & Bisby's Dictionary of the Fungi
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Additional Reference: Hawksworth DL, PM Kirk, BC Sutton, DN Pegler. 1995. Ainsworth & Bisby's Dictionary of the fungi. International Mycologyical Institute.
Glossary of Ordination-Related Terms
Mike Palmer, Botany Department, Oklahoma State University
Glossary of [Plant] Terms
American Rhododendron Society
Guide to Poisonous Plants: Definitions
Colorado State University
Guide to Poisonous Plants: Glossary
Colorado State University
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Includes figures of the glossary text.
Index of Poisonous Plants
Botanical.com
Plant and Herb Common Name Index
Botanical.com
PlantFacts Glossary
Ohio State University
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The following list of horticultural terms were originally compiled from two OSU Horticulture & Crop Science courses (Landscape Plants and General Plant Biology) and the OSU Extension Master Gardener training manual. The addition of images linked from other sites has been accomplished by students in our distance education course, "Introduction to Horticulture."
Plant Ontology Consortium
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The main objective of the Plant Ontology Consortium (POC) is to develop, curate and share controlled vocabularies (ontologies) that describe plant structures and growth and developmental stages, providing a semantic framework for meaningful cross-species queries across databases. The Plant Ontology (PO) has been developed and maintained with the primary goal to facilitate and accommodate functional annotation efforts in plant databases and by the plant research community at large.
UCMP Glossary: Botany
UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology