From stink Davie to witches thimbles, Scotland's plant names in Scots, Gaelic, Doric and Pictish explored

From stink Davie to witches thimbles, the way people have named plants across Scotland through time shows a powerful connection with what grows around us.

From stink Davie, witch gowan and doon-head clock, the humble dandelion is known as many different things across different parts of Scotland.

Now the varied roots of these words will be explored in a new dictionary of plants in Scots, Gaelic and Doric, with even the odd Pictish word making an appearance.

Scottish Plant Names, an A-Z, by botanist Dr Gregory J Kenicer and published by Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, has been described as a “small book of wondrous plant names”. The publication looks at the descriptive and often amusing ways in which language has influenced how we have come to know flowers, fungi and mosses.

Illustrated by Hazel France, artist and horticulturist at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, the dictionary depicts some of the plants as they appear in the wild, while other drawings are a literal take on some of names they have been gifted throughout history.

Marsh-marigold appears as ‘demon water-horse’s shoe’, foxgloves as ‘witches thimbles’, bluebell as ‘crows toes’, and the rose as ‘itchy coos’.

Others speak of the use of the plant and some are poetic and poignant. Some names have religious origins or roots in wider folklore, whilst others are very recent inventions.

Dr Kenicer said the book reflected the power of observing, classifying and naming while giving an insight into the past, people’s relationships with plants and ways of looking at the world.

He said: “It has been a joy to research this book. The diversity and evolution of plant names is intricate, so delving in to the etymology and uncovering the stories behind them has been fascinating.

“Over the years, plants have been named in a variety of ways – from the simple changes in spelling from existing names to naming for similarity – for example, the slender, curving stems of bramble are one of several plants called ‘leddy’s garters’ in Scots, or ‘lady’s garters’ in English.

"I came across some scurrilous names in my research too, often with political undertones. For example, there are several smelly plants called ‘stinking Billy’ in ‘honour’ of William of Orange.

“Names are very powerful things. They are a crucial part of the way that we see and classify the world around us. Humans instinctively group things, compare them and identify them, but it is only by giving these things a name that we can truly communicate them to others.

"These common names are wonderfully varied even across short geographic distances, hence we use scientific names to help keep things standard wherever you are in the world.”

The book has its origins in the institution’s Flora Celtica project, which began collating Scottish plant names in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Established by William Milliken and Sam Bridgewater, the project’s focus is on the plant lore of Scotland.

There are now more than 9,000 entries to the database for 1,000 species of flowering plants native to Scotland. English and Gaelic, making up 2,000 of the standard common names

“The remaining 7,000 reflect the richness of Scotland’s languages and the importance of plants to its people through the ages,” Dr Kenicer said.