dial. Also 6 Sc. veyton, 7 whitting, whiting, 9 witten. [Usually whitten-tree, repr. OE. hwítingtréow, f. hwíting (of identical formation with WHITING sb.) + tréow TREE.] A name for the water elder or wild guelder-rose (Viburnum Opulus), and the wayfaring-tree (V. Lantana). Also (by confusion with whicken, QUICKEN sb.1), the mountain-ash or rowan (Pyrus aucuparia), and some allied plants.
Whitten pear-tree, the service-tree (Pyrus Sorbus): see quot. 1833 s.v. WHITTY.
c. 1100. Ælfric’s Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 139/1. Uariculus, hwitingtreow. [Identified by Cockayne as Pyrus Aria, White-Beam-tree.]
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. 67. I sau veyton, the decoctione of it is remeid for ane sair hede.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, VI. lxxx. 761. Of Marris Elder, Ople, or Dwarffe Plane tree…. I take this to be a shrub that is called in Englishe, Whittentree, whereof are two kindes.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, III. lxxii. 1237. The water Elder is called … in English Marish Elder, and Whitten tree, Ople tree, and Dwarffe Plane tree.
1636. Johnson, Gerarde’s Herbal, Table Eng. Names, Whicken tree, i. wilde Ash…. Whitten tree, i. water Elder, or wilde Ash.
1668. Phil. Trans., III. 857. The Whitting or Quicking-tree, (Lat. Fraxinus Sylvestris, and by some Fraxinus Cambro-Britanica).
a. 1697. Aubrey (Royal Soc. MS. lf. 137), in Britten & Holland, Plant-n., About Cranbourn chace growes … a tree with a white leafe … no bigger than a cherry tree; they call it Whiting or Whitewood.
1847. Halliwell, Whitten, the wayfaring tree. Kent.
1868. Archaeologia, XLII. 125. The Rowan or Quick-bean,… popularly termed the Mountain Ash…, and, in some counties, the Whiten-tree and the Witty.
