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destroy it. Borrach (in some places), parching. Cai-ran (Stewart),. 

 a name given also to Spergula arvensis. To this grass and other 

 rough species, as rushes, sedges, &c, the name riasg is given- 

 Anglo-Saxon: risce, a rush. 



" Cuiseagan is riasg 

 'Chinneas air an t-sliabh." — Macintyre. 



Aira flexuosa — Waved hair-grass. Gaelic: mbin-fkeur, peat- 

 grass. It grows generally in peaty soil. 



CRYPTOGAMIA. 



FlLICES. 



Filices — Ferns. Gaelic: raineach, roineach. Irish: raith, 

 raithne, raithneach; also, reathnach. Manx: rhenniagkt. Welsh: 

 rhedyn. Perhaps formed from reath, a revolution or turning, 

 about, or rat, motion, from the circinate revolution of the young 

 fronds — an essential characteristic of ferns. 



Polypodium vulgare — Cloch-reathnach (Armstrong), the stone- 

 fern ; dock, a stone. It is common on stone walls, stones, and old 

 stems of trees. Ceis-chrann. Irish : ckis chrainn — cis, a tax, 

 tribute, and crann, a tree, because it draws the substance from the- 

 trees ; or from the crosier-like development of the fronds, like a 

 shepherd's crook, "cis-cean.'' Sgeamh nan clock. Sgeamh means 

 reproach, and sgiamh or sgeimh, beauty, ornament; "■nan clock," of 

 the stones. The second idea seems, at least in modern times, to- 

 be more appropriate than the first, especially as the term was- 

 applied to the really beautiful oak-fern. 



Reidh raineach — reidh, smooth, plain. Raineach nan crag, the 

 rock-fern. Meurlag (in Lochaber), from meiir, a finger, from a 

 fancied resemblance of the pinnules to fingers. (See Ceterach.) 



P. dryopteris — Oak-fern. Gaelic and Irish: sgeamh dharaich 

 (O'Reilly), the oak-fern. No Gaelic name is recorded for the 

 beech-fern (P. Phegopteris). 



Blechnum spieant — Hard fern. The only Gaelic name supplied 

 for this fern is "an raineach ckruaidk," hard fern. It is impossible 

 to say whether this is a translation or not. Being a conspicuous 

 and well-defined fern, it must have had a Gaelic name. 



Cystopteris fragilis — Bladder-fern. Gaelic : friodh raineach, 

 or frioth fhraineach — "frioth," small, slender. The tufts are- 

 usually under a foot long ; stalks very slender. 



