SCOTCH NAMES OF NATIVE WILD FLOWERS. IOI 



of the brook. The common belief concerning all water plants still 

 is that they clean the water. Purslane — the name of another water 

 plant — means exactly the same thing. Pur is pure, and lane 

 means a stream. Lane is from the Anglo-Saxon word Minna, the 

 same word radically as the Gaelic word lyn. Lyn means, first, the 

 pool below a waterfall, and then both pool and waterfall. Hlinna, 

 or lane, means, first, a stream with one or more falls, and then 

 any stream whatever. It is the common name to-day for a burn 

 in all the Scotch counties drained into the Solway Firth. 



Ramp is garlic {Allium ursinum). The Swedish name is rams, 

 and both forms are from rampa, a paw, and the name describes 

 the bulb, or what is vulgarly called the root. 



Trees, Shrubs, and Fruits. 



Aik is the oak (Quercus Robur). Its seed, acorn, is the oak- 

 corn. Aikraw {Stictma scrobiculatd) is a lichen found on the 

 trunk of the oak. Raw means hair. 



Allar is the alder tree (Alnus glirtinosa). 



Averin is the cloudberry, or wild raspberry (Rubus Chamccmorus), 

 from aver, wild, and en, the juniper-berry. 



Berber is the barberry {Berberis vulgaris). 



Bindwood is the ivy {Hedera Helix), from its habit of growth. 



Birk is the birch {Betula alba) — pure Saxon. 



Blackboyds are bramble-berries (Rubus). Boyd is another form 

 of the word bud, meaning originally a gem, or button. Black- 

 boyds means black buttons. The long, stringy, young shoots of the 

 plant give it a second name, garter-berries. The North of Eng- 

 land name of this fruit is bumble-kytes — a most expressive term. 

 Bumble is a bumming or rumbling noise, and kyte is the stomach 

 or belly. The fruit is plentiful. It is late in ripening. Boys 

 are impatient and do not always wait for full fruition. They 

 gorge themselves with the unripe fruit, as English boys can do, 

 and the result is a loud bumble in the kite and general outcry of 

 the juvenile inwards against this breach of nature's law. 



Blaeberry ( Vaccinium Myrtillus) is named from the blue colour 

 of the ripe berry. 



Boretree, or bourtree, is the elderberry tree (Sambucus nigra). 

 The name is said to be derived from the verb to bore. The wood 

 encloses a large, soft pith, and is therefore easily hollowed or 



