brier

英美['braɪə]

3. Eurasian rose with prickly stems and fragrant leaves and bright pink flowers followed by scarlet hips

4. a very prickly woody vine of the eastern United States growing in tangled masses having tough round stems with shiny leathery leaves and small greenish flowers followed by clusters of inedible shiny black berries

5. evergreen treelike Mediterranean shrub having fragrant white flowers in large terminal panicles and hard woody roots used to make tobacco pipes

brier (n.1): "thorny shrub, heath," 1540s, variant of Middle English brere, from Old English brer (Anglian), brær (West Saxon) "brier, bramble, prickly bush," which is of unknown origin. Briar is the most recent variant (c. 1600). Originally used of prickly, thorny bushes in general, now mostly restricted to wild rose bushes. Used figuratively (in plural) for "troubles" from c. 1500.
brier (n.2): type of tobacco pipe introduced to England c. 1859 and made from the root of a certain shrub, 1868, from French bruyère "heath plant," from Old French bruiere "heather, briar, heathland, moor" (12c.), from Gallo-Roman *brucaria, from *brucus "heather," from Gaulish (compare Breton brug "heath," Old Irish froech). Form altered in English by influence of brier (n.1).