On 2006-04-21 12:39, andrew_and_inge wrote:
> Aren't brambles plants of a type generally referred to in the country
> side as existing at the edges or borders of forests, farms, ditches
> etc?
Perhaps. But *bre:m- (*bre:m-o:, *bre:m-o:n-, *bre:m-a-, *bre:m-ila-...)
refers to various thorny plants, especially the broom (_Cytisus_), which
I've seen mostly on open, sunny areas of waste land. I remember in
particular the slopes of Cornish hills covered with a spectacular mass
of flowering broom as far as the eye saw. I think the really distinctive
characteristics of the plants with *bre:m- names in Germanic is their
thorniness.
Piotr