誤把馮京當馬凉？談 "花博" 的英文 flora expo

"花博" 的英文 flora expo，相信很多人都深信不疑，因為 2010 台北國際花卉博覽會的中英對照標示以及網站出版品都是這樣翻譯的。然而，打從台北市區一年前開始出現花博的預告開始，我對這樣的英譯就一直滿腹狐疑。

"博覽會" 是 expo (或 exposition) 殆無疑義，問題就出在 flora 這個字眼上。第一個字母大寫的 Flora 在羅馬神話裡是 "花之女神" (後來也作女子名)，英文的 flower 就是源於此。可是問題是，落入凡間的 flora 已經擺脫了 "花" 的制約，語義轉為 "植物群" (即 "某時、某地所有的植物")。請看英美詞典權威、《牛津英語詞典》和《韋氏第三版新國際英語詞典》的相關定義和例句/書證：

The Oxford English Dictionary, Second Edition

3. a. The plants or plant life of any particular region or epoch. Cf. FAUNA 1.
1778 G. White Let. in Selborne (1877) I. 217 Chalks, clays, sands..woodlands, and champaign fields, cannot but furnish an ample Flora. 1830 Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 92 The flora of a country is peculiarly influenced by temperature. 1859 Darwin Orig. Spec. xii. (1873) 329 The floras of distant continents would not by such means become mingled.

b. The plants or plant life of any particular type of environment.
1874 D. Brandis (title) The forest flora of North-West and Central India. 1880 A. R. Wallace Island Life ii. xxiv. 507 The discussion of a series of typical Insular Faunas and Floras with a view to explain the interesting phenomena they present. 1908 Jrnl. Biol. Chem. V. 285 The gas ratio is not an especially important characteristic in mixed fecal flora. Ibid. 296 The influence of these organisms upon the intestinal flora of mice. 1909 Groom & Balfour tr. Warming's Oecol. Plants ix. lxvii. 257 In depressions lying within the subglacial tract where snow remains for a long time, one finds characteristic, greasy mud, which sustains a vegetation of its own—Öttli's snow-patch flora. 1939 A. Huxley After Many a Summer i. v. 65 He began to talk..about fatty alcohols and the intestinal flora of carp. 1971 Nature 8 Jan. 120/1 The resident flora of the external auditory canal.

Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language

2 a : plant life : PLANTS 〈recent flora exhibits many adaptations to habitat〉─ often contrasted with fauna b : the plants or plant life characteristic of, peculiar to, or adapted for living in a particular situation (as a geological stratum, period, habitat, or region) 〈the Devonian fossil flora〉〈postglacial floras〉〈a lacustrine flora〉〈the intestinal flora〉 c : plants or plant life of a particular kind or having some common characteristic 〈the gram-negative flora of the soil〉〈a large parasitic flora〉〈interesting moss floras〉─ see VEGETATION 3

證據如上。難不成是花博主辦單位望文生義，誤把馮京當馬凉，誤把 flora 當 flower？還是 flora 語義新增，連最新的詞典都來不及收錄？還是我學藝不精，根本沒搞清楚狀況？