Lichens Lichens - Scottish Natural Heritage

W hat’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,
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
• 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.
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
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.
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