Names of Trees in Breton Place Names

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British friends of ours live in a lieu-dit called Le Chêne which they rather amusingly call 'the dog'. It is, of course, the '(white) oak'. Breton has a variety of equivalent forms: dervenn, derv, derf, dero or (Old Breton) dar/diri. These appear in: Kerderven, 'oak village'; Coat-Dero, 'oak wood';  and Dirinon, '(Saint) Non's oaks'. The Gaulish cassano appears in Quessoy.

ST. NON'S FOUNTAIN AT DIRINON

The 'sessile' oak (Quercus sessiflora) is tann and gives us Coat-Tan, Le Tanouët,Danouët, Danot and Kerdanen. If I hadn't been doing this research I wouldn't have heard of this tree: it is, in fact, the national tree of Wales and Cornwall. It prefers rocky (petraea), upland soils and is differentiated by its stalkless ('sessile') acorns.

SESSILE OAK

In this blog we have already looked at 'ash' trees (see F is for Fresnaye) and yews (see I is for Iff).

ASH

YEW

Here are a few more :

BRETON NAMES FOR TREES IN BRITTANY PLACE NAMES

CHESTNUT

HAZEL

BEECH