Plant names in the linguistic perspective: Flora of Middle-Earth, dictionaries, and translations

This survey explores the problem of studying plant names. The fi rst part deals with the main aspects of studying phytonyms in Russian. The use of phytonyms as a feature of author’s individual style is noted as one important aspect of a lingustic approach to phytonymy. The second part examines recent research on the “botanical” theme in J. R. R. Tolkien’s writings. This section focuses on the book Flora of Middle-Earth: Plants of J. R. R. Tolkien’s Legendarium by Walter S. & Graham A. Judd (2017). This work can be considered as the only complete lexicographic description of phytonyms in the author’s individual style. In the third part, some linguistic observations of the book are illustrated with examples from fi ve Russian translations of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Some fl aws in the translations could be related to the insuffi cient knowledge of Russian phytonyms, as well as to the phenomenon of ‘plant blindness’.