The Scottish Naturalist. 271 



THE GAELIC NAMES OF PLANTS. /&%^zA 



By JOHN CAMERON. f-C AT^«^ <2\ 



{Continued from p, 229.) LIB' *'- » 



" Do'n t-siol chruithneachd, chuireadh gu tiugh ; ^C^/V^VfA 3 



Cha b' e' n fhiteag, no' n coirc dubR." — M'Donald. N^/*/ 



When oats become black with blight, the name coirc dubh is 

 applied, but especially to the variety called Arena strigosa. 



Hordeum distichon — Barley ; the kind which is in common 

 cultivation. (" Barley " comes from Celtic bar, bread, now 

 obsolete in Gaelic, but still retained in Welsh — hence barn, 

 and by the change of the vowel, beer.) Gaelic and Irish : eorna, 

 orna. Irish : earn (perhaps from Latin, horreo, to bristle ; 

 Gaelic, br, a beard) — O'Reilly. " The bearded or bristly bar- 

 ley ; " " brog" a sheaf of corn. Hordeum, sometimes written 

 ordeum (Freund), is from the same root. " It was cultivated 

 by the Romans for horses, and also for the army; and gladia- 

 tors in training were fed with it, and hence called hordiarii" 

 It is still used largely in the Highlands for bread, but was for- 

 merly made into " crowdie," properly corrody, from Low Latin, 

 torrodium. a worrv. 



" Fuarag eorn arm' sail mo bhroge, 

 Biadh a b' f hearr a fhuir mi riamh. " 



Barley-crowdie in my shoe, 

 The sweetest food I ever knew. 



Irish : eaineog, oats and barley — from cain (Greek, ktjvo-os ; Latin, 

 census), rent, tribute. Rents were frequently paid in " kind," 

 instead of in money. 



Secale cereale — Common rye. Gaelic and Irish : seagall. 

 Greek : (jzyakr). Armoric : segal. French : seigle. 



" An cruithneach agus an seagall." — Exodus. 

 The wheat and the rye. 



Welsh : rhyg, rye. 



Molinia caerulea — Purple melic- grass. Gaelic: bunglds 

 (M'Donald), punglas. {Bun, a root, a stack ; gtds, blue.) The 

 fishermen round the Avest coast and in Skye make ropes for their 

 nets of this grass, which they find by experience will bear the 

 water well without rotting. Irish : mealoigfer corcuir (O'Reilly), 

 — mealoig= melic (from me/, honey), the pith is like honey; 



