Besides
Laminaria digitata 'kelp, tangle, cairn-tangle' which may be related to
tangleweed (of Norse origin), the OED1 lists two other plants known as
tangles: i.e.,
blue tangle (
Gaylussacia frondosa, aka blue huckleberry, dangleberry, cited from Dunglison's
Medical Lexicon),
red tangle (
Cuscuta epithymum, aka clover dodder, cited from Britten and Holland's
English Plant-names).
The pertinent definition of
tangle in the OED1 is "Applied to plants having long, winding, and often tangled stalks, as the species of
Myriophyllum (Water Milfoil) and
Potamogeton (Pondweed)".
To tangle also means
to snare or
entrap.
