Also (8 whirtle-), 8–9 wortleberry. [South-western dial. form of HURTLEBERRY: cf. WHORT. Used by Lyte, a Somerset man, in his translation of Dodoens’ Herbal, whence app. by later writers on plants, so as to have become at length the usual ‘book-name.’] The blue-black fruit of the dwarf shrub Vaccinium Myrtillus, or the plant itself; otherwise called BILBERRY or BLAEBERRY. Also extended to the genus Vaccinium as a whole (excepting the species called CRANBERRY, V. Oxycoccos and V. macrocarpon).
Bear’s Whortleberry, a name for the Bearberry, Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi. Bog Whortleberry, Vaccinium uliginosum. Red Whortleberry, V. Vitis-Idæa. Victorian Whortleberry, Wittsteinia vacciniacea, a shrub allied to Vaccinium: found in Victoria.
1578. [see WHORT].
1671. Salmon, Syn. Med., III. xxii. 438.
1702. C. Mather, Magnalia, VI. ii. 11. Sometimes we liv’d on Wortle berries, sometimes on a kind of Wild Cherry.
1764. Ann. Reg., Char., 9. The hair … is dyed with the juice or the red wortleberry.
1778. J. Carver, Trav. N. Amer., xix. 504. The Whirtle Berry.
1816. Scott, Bl. Dwarf, xiii. A territory, which, since the days of Adam, had borne nothing but ling and whortle-berries.
1869. Blackmore, Lorna D., v. [They] laid him softly on a bank of whortle-berries.
attrib. 1770. J. R. Forster, trans. Kalm’s Trav. N. Amer., I. 66. A species of whortleberry shrub.
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, II. 340. A … whortle-berry pudding.
1863. Baring-Gould, Iceland, 178. Hot mutton flavored with whortleberry jam.
1884. Miller, Plant-n., Whortle-berry-bush, Victorian, Wittsteinia vacciniacea.
