Historia polskich nazw roślin występujących w poradniku P. Krescencjusza

The material presented in the article comes from the second edition (1571) of the Polish translation of the reference manual by Peturs de Crescentius. To the extent posiible, it was identified and confronted with the historical botanic vocabulary. The aim of the analysis is to trace the mechanism of naming plants described in the manual and to research how the fitonyms functioned in the historical Polish language at that time as well as in the subsequent centuries. It has been noticed that most names of the pre-Slavic and pre-Indo_European origin fossilize and do not alter throughout the history of the Polish language. Words of younger origin frequently illustrate the phonetic changes which took place in order to simplify articulation. Examples of secondary nominalization, taken from the text, other hand, they manifest the use of word-formative mechanisms. Some of the names have disappeared, while others have survived and appear in the botanic nomenclature of the 18th century (in K. Kluk). Moreover, the material analyzed shows the creative input of the translator of the work, who evinced good intuition in choosing the terms which have stood the test of time (e.g. faseol, lubczyk, por).