The difficulty of researching plant names in Middle Persian texts

Research on plants and herbs has an important place in various fields of botany, pharmacology, medicine, geography, archeology and especially linguistics and compilation of Persian cultures. In this research, with the aim of studying linguistic strains, an attempt has been made to investigate the difficulties of identifying the nature of plant names in Middle Persian texts, considering its special feature as religious texts and not botanical or pharmacology. For this purpose, considering the continuation and continuity of the use of these plant names in Persian classical texts and also a brief review of these names in Arabic botanical sources and texts, some difficulties in knowing the nature and identity of these plant names will be explained and the question answered whether it is possible to identify carefully these flowers and plants by referring to their use in later texts, whether Persian or Arabic. This research is based on the data of Bundahšn's book (Iranian, Indian) and their continuation in classic Persian works of external writings, books related to botany and similar Arabic books. The results showed that the most important difficulties in the study of botanical names include the non-specialization of Middle Persian texts; text fonts and the possibility of different readings of a word; unrecognizability of some plant names that have not reached the classical texts, as well as the semantic and phonetic changes of plant names in the transition from the middle period to the new period. Therefore, even about plant names that can be recognized; to document the botanical names, it is necessary to conduct textual research studies based on the historical course. The Azariyun flower was attached as a sample after studying these issues.