28 POPULAR NAMES 



applied to rye, a crop of that grain sown on land that has 

 borne rye the previous year. Molb. D. D. Both these 

 words seem, like Brake, to indicate what grows on fallow 

 land. Pteris aquilina, L. 



BRAMBLE, A.S. bremel, brembel, or brcembel, in Pr. Pm. 

 brymmeylle or brymbyll, Du. braam, G. brame, O.H.G. 

 pramo, words, which, as Grimm remarks, signify prickly 

 or thorny bushes, but are connected etymologically with 

 G. brummen, L. fremere, and others indicating " noise." 

 Bramble means usually the blackberry bush, 



Rubus fruticosus, L. 

 but in Chaucer, 1. 13676 : 



" The bramble flour that bereth the red hepe," 

 is the dog-rose, Rosa canina, L. 



BRANDY-BOTTLE, a name usually explained as alluding 

 to the odour of the flower, but rather more probably taken 

 from the shape of the seed-vessel, the yellow water-lily, or 

 can-dock, Nuphar luteum, L. 



BRANK, buckwheat, from a Latin word, brance, that 

 occurs in Pliny, 1. xviii. c. 7, where it seems rather to 

 mean a barley : " Gallise quoque suum genus farris dedere, 

 quod illic brance vocant, apud nos sandalam, nitidissimi 

 grani." The word will be identical with blanc, white, 

 Port, branco, and equivalent to wheat, which properly 

 means " white." See Diefenbach, Orig. Europ. p. 265. 

 Pol. pohanka, Polygonum Fagopyrum, L. 



BREAKSTONE, from L. saxifraga, a plant that fissures 

 a rock, understood as meaning a lithontriptic plant, to be 

 administered in cases of calculus, a name applied to several 

 different species belonging to different genera, viz. 



Pimpinella Saxifraga, L. Alchemilla arvensis, D.C. 

 and more particularly the genus Saxifraga, L. 



BRIDE'S LACES, see LADY'S LACES. 



BRIDEWORT, from its resemblance to the white feathers 

 worn by brides, Spiraea ulmaria, L. 



