Ulster-Scots Names for Plants
This list of local plant names has been put together by some of our contributors. It is only a list of the most common words still in use today. If you can think of any more - send them in.
whin - gorse
birns - charred stems of whins or heather
buckies - wild roses; rose hips
itchypoos - a child's name for rose hips
buckie breer- a wild rose bush
bread-an-cheese - young green leaves on a hawthorn hedge
fir tree - any coniferous tree
aish - ash tree
haw bush - hawthorn
skeagh - hawthorn
bush (rhymes with LUSH) - any shrub or small tree
the bushes - scrubby wasteland ('Tyrone among the bushes')
rowan - mountain ash, rowan
corn - oats
abraird - seedlings showing above the ground
scrog - scrubby woodland or a stunted bush
fairy thorn - a hawthorn tree standing by itself in an open field. Supposedly a haunt of the fairies. It is bad luck to cut a fairy thorn down.
plantin - a copse of trees; woodland
greenwood - growing branches with sap still in them
sally, saugh - willow
scobe - a sally or briar rod used for thatching
soupple - a pliable sally rod used for basket-making.
brammle, breer - blackberry, bramble
boortree bush - (boor rhymes with LURE) - elderberry tree
breer - any rambling thorn bush
cheeser- chestnut
blaeberry - bilberry
goosegab - gooseberry
bullace, slae - damson
slae bush, slae thorn - blackthorn
aipple - apple; also used for the small round fruit of the potato and tomato plants
orkie, orchy - small garden orchard
nits - nuts
kale - cabbage
lint, lin' - flax
fog - moss, lichen
scallions - spring onions
turmits, neeps - turnips
pratoes, praties, tatties - potatoes
skeedyins - small potatoes
soorlicks, sourleeks - sorrel
cratay. crawtae - possibly the birds-foot treefoil, or the bluebell?
wild carvey - wild carroway
day nettle - dead nettle; hemp nettle
dockins - docks
benweed, ragweed - ragwort
gowans - daisies
gillgowns, geelgowans - yellow daisies, corn marigolds
burrs - burdock
thrissle - thistle
buck-thrissle - Scots thistle
swine thrissle - sow thistle
bog-bean - ?
Easter lily - daffodil
fairy fingers, sheegy, or fairy thimble - foxgloves
pish-the-bed - dandelion
sagens, sagins - bullrushes
sagins raip - a twisted rope made of bullrush leaves
heids - weeds (especially dandelions) that have gone to seed
green-heids - top layer of moss when cutting peat
soorig - vetch
scutch grass, quickins - couch grass
gress, gerss - grass, a lawn (you cut the 'gress' rather than the 'lawn' - and so a lawn-mower is a 'gress-cutter')
eddises, eddices - after-grass, new growth after cutting for hay
bent - coarse grass; marram grass (on sand dunes)
robin rin-the-hedge - cleavers
guse grass, goose grass - cleavers
fitchy peas - vetch
The Editors would like to thank all those who provided words for this list, in particular the Society's Committee members, as well as Mr Norman Cubitt of Ballycarry and Mr William Thompson of Carrowdore.
[From Ullans, Nummer 1, Spring 1993]