What’s in a name?
Many Scottish lichens have three names:
- • a Gaelic name, once regularly used by the Highlanders and Islanders, but now forgotten and only found in dictionaries. They used crottle as a general term for lichens,
- • a Common name which refers to some conspicuous feature or property. Two of the examples given have old names, dating back to Mediaeval times, when physicians practised a 'Doctrine of Signatures'. They believed that parts of the plants that bore some resemblance to parts of the human anatomy had special properties to heal ailments occurring in the affected parts of the human body. Anyone with a lung complaint, for example, would be made a concoction of lungwort,
- • the scientific Latin name which is also descriptive of the species if you are a classical scholar.
The Common names of many Scottish lichens are pure poetry: Sunburn, Rock Hair, Yellow Candles, Golden Pine Lichen, Little Clouds, Oak Moss, Crab's-eye, Coral Crust and Sea Ivory.
- Gaelic: Crotal Coille - wood crottle
- Common: Tree Lungwort - due to the underside of its lobes bearing a resemblance to the inside of a lung,
- Latin: Lobaria pulmonaria
- Gaelic: Lus Ghoinnich - a plant for wounds,
- Common: Dog Lichen - a cure for the bite of a mad dog - due to the underside bearing fang-like structures,
- Latin: Peltigera canina
- Gaelic: Crotal Dubh - dark crottle,
- Common: Heather-rags - ragged and grey, growing amongst the heather,
- Latin: Hypogymnia physodes