We have determined that the synthesis of heat shock proteins is regulated ultimately at the translational level in heat-shocked carrot callus cells and somatic embryos. Polysome analysis revealed that heat-shocked callus cells do not translate most heat shock transcripts, which they abundantly synthesize and accumulate. By contrast, heat-shocked globular embryos accumulate low levels of heat shock mRNA but selectively translate more of the heat shock mRNA molecules compared to callus cells and embryos of later stages. The overall result of these different translational control schemes is that undifferentiated callus cells and globular embryos synthesize comparable levels of heat shock proteins even though they have large differences in heat shock transcript levels.