Lepa (Lepp)

Alder (also, when genitive leppa, fish or seal blood; or a dialect term for a reddish-brown color). Lepp is thought to be (derived from?) a primitive word designating red. The term today is Punane or puna in compound words, cf. punni in Livonian, but verrev in Võro, and vörös in Hungarian, where veri in Estonian, Finnish and Livonian means blood. On the other hand, red in Veps is rus(ked) or čak, indicating a Lappish relation, cf. ruoksat or similar in various Sami dialects, while blood in Skolt Saami is, again, võrr. Lepa appears in, e.g., Lepatriinu; lepalind, the redstart; and lepariisikas, Lactarius lilacinus, a toadstool producing the red pigment lilacinone. Research suggests it may also be a very early loan-word from an Indo-European language meaning ‘paint’, with vague interconnections with Lithuanian, Latvian and Prussian liepa for lime tree (whose botanical name, Tilia, is cognate with Greek πτελέᾱ (ptelea), elm, which seems to be derived from PIE *el- for red and/or brown (but why?), as is both the elk and the alder (cf. Old Norse ölr, Dutch els, German Erle and Lithuanian alksnis), the outer bark of which produces a reddish-brown dye (aldine red), and what better combination of colors to describe blood. Two main species in Estonia: hall lepp aka valge lepp, grey or speckled alder, Alnus incana and Sanglepa. Previously known as Ellern Straße, Erlenstraße, Лепа ул and Ольховая ул. Native Americans mixed part of the tree (leaves? flowers?) with powdered bumblebees as an aid for difficult labor. Where on earth did they learn that?