> Has anyone an idea if my dictionary is too small or there is indeed no
> "talem" in latin which should mean hard, dry, strong"?
No such word. For "hard", you can have the following, plus a few compounds:
(a) durus, rigidus, ferreus, adamantinus,
(b) [= cruel] saevus, immittis, ferus, crudelus, asper, barabarus,
trux,dirus, atrox, truculentus, sangineus, cruentus, inhumanus,
(c) [= difficult] difficilis, arduus, gravis, operosus
For "dry" there's only siccus, arens, aridus, siccatus, siticulosus
Peter