On the popular names of British plants : being an explanation of the origin and meaning of the names of our indigenous and most commonly cultivated species / by R.C.A. Prior.

  • Prior, R. C. Alexander (Richard Chandler Alexander), 1809-1902.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the popular names of British plants : being an explanation of the origin and meaning of the names of our indigenous and most commonly cultivated species / by R.C.A. Prior. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    with wudu-winde to form our modern name. Ger. in Taber- nsem. ii. 616, Wald-winde. Lonicera Periclymenum, L. Wood, A.S. wudu, G. wald, L.G. wold, O.H.G. vuitu, Ic. vidr, Wei. gwydd, a word that seems to have been used in the sense of a growing tree or standing forest, while, contrary to our present habit, trcow and tre were used for dead timber, lignum. It seems in the names of places, especially in the Western counties, to have been a good deal mixed up with the Welsh gwydd, as in Widcombe, Witmore, etc. Its root has not been eliminated. Wood-crowfoot, of Parkinson, Anemone nemorosa, L. Wood-Laurel, from its L. name laureola, all evergreens having once been included among the laurels, Daphne laureola, L. Wood-Lily, the lily of the valley, ' Convallaria majalis, L. Wood-nightshade, the bittersweet, Solanum dulcamara, L. Wood-nut, Corylus avellana, L. Wood-pea, from its small pea-like tubers, Orobus tuberosus, L. Wood-reed, in distinction from the pool-reed, Calamagrostis epigeios, L. Wood-roof, -rofe, -row, -rowel, or -ruff, A.S. ivude- rofe, from Fr. roue, a wheel, and its dim. rouelle, a little wheel or rowel, the leaves being set upon the stem in verticils that resemble the large rowels of ancient spurs. This is one among several other words that we find to have been adopted into Anglo-Saxon from the French, an occurrence a good deal more frequent than philologists seem to be aware, who, looking upon the former as a pure Germanic language, would trace its vocabulary too exclu- sively to native roots. Asperula odorata, L. Wood-rush, or -grass, Luzula sylvatica, DC. Wood-sage, Teucrium Scorodonia, L.