These forms are also found in relation to types of grass; so we have bowel-hive grass (lady’s mantle) to alleviate inflammation of the large intestine and worm grass (stone crop) for curing worms. Yule-girse, also known as blackin girse, is meadowsweet, formerly used to produce a black dye. Other combinations include the painful girsegaws or hacks between the toes, complained of in Helen Beaton’s At the Back o’ Bennachie (1915): “I hiv girssgaws atween maist o’ ma taes, an’ a corn or twa, an’ they are like tae sen’ me fair daft.”
Girse and gress also mean hay or a blade of grass; the Stonehaven Journal (February 14, 1889) describes a crowd: “Ye wadna hae seen a girse on the Bervie Braes for fowk.”
Other words for grass include bent, for rush-like grasses that grow on sandy soil, and windlestrae, for a tall, thin, withered piece of grass.
It is often used figuratively to suggest fragility.