If these plants don't have established Italian names it
might be best not to translate

Jie-san Laushi schreef
I second that, with a proviso: you might just directly translate the English
names, e.g., Yellowwood, you could use the Italian words for "yellow" and
"wood." A better idea, IMO, is to use genus names -- in the case of the
acacias, use the word "acacia" followed by a suitable adjective, e.g.,
Acacia nigrescens could be called "black" acacia.

Jie-san Laushi

+ + +

Well, I could not disagree more about translating. That would be a very good
way to hopelessly confuse matters. Names are not logical but come into being
through unfathomable and often lengthy processes, different in each culture.

I would not care to guess how many ways there are to put yellow and wood
together. This will be different in every language and they will refer to
different woods in every language. In botanical names there are at least
four Greek words for 'yellowwood', none of which correspond to english
yellowwood.

I have a Dutch book here somewhere (which I keep as an example of how bad
things can get) which only uses translated names (bypassing even established
Dutch names). Although I am sure there is not a wood in there I am not
familiar with, in many cases it has proved impossible to find out what they
are. I can translate from Dutch back to all possible English equivalents and
then start guessing. In a few cases this helps but for others it is
hopeless.

As to the second recommendation: this comes close to the 'standardized
common names' that David Hershey already has condemned. Also there are
better than a thousand Acacia species and there are only a handful of
colors. Not to mention the fact that Acacia might be broken up (it is in the
air) and all the new 'Italian Acacia's' might get to belong to new and
differently named genera?

Actually I suppose part of the charm for an Italian reader in reading a book
set in South Africa is to encounter all the exotic place and plant names ...
PvR