French corme 'service berry' (updated)

According to the Wikipedia article "List of French words of Gaulish origin", French corme 'service berry'¹ is a loanword from Gaulish curmi 'beer'. However, this is surely a case of homonymy, because 'berry' and 'beer' are semantically unrelated.

As cognates of the French word, I'd mention dialectal Basque (High Navarrese) gurbi 'service tree', gurbe 'wild apple (Malus sylvestris)'² and Greek kómaros 'strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo)', a word found in Dioscorides.

Interestingly enough, the same article quotes Friulian cirmul and Italian cembro 'Swiss pine (Pinus cembra)'³. With palatalization of the initial velar, we've also got Raetho-Romance ǧèmber (Engadin), žember (Bergün/Bravuogn), Romanian zimbru and Tirol zirm, zirbel, the latter corresponding to High German Zirbe, Zirbel(kiefer). 

Another German name (used in Switzerland) for the Swiss pine is Arbe, Arve, which I link to Latin arbutus 'strawberry tree'. Judging from these data, I guess the initial consonant was a postvelar, either giving a velar stop (further palatalized) or lost altogether. Also initial s- in Latin sorbus 'service tree', sorbum 'service berry'⁴, and Romance *serba 'service berry' (Catalan serva, Occitan sèrba, Spanish serba⁵) would be explained by Fournet's Law.

For these words, I propose a Vasco-Caucasian etymology from PSC *xq’wémV 'nut; kernel', which IMHO is the source of Greek kônos 'cone (fruit of a coniferous tree)'. With palatalization of the initial consonant, this root can be found in Altaic *tʃjumu 'seed, cone' and Kartvelian *ts´em- 'grass, reeds', and it was reborrowed into NEC *dʒɦumV 'bush, grass; a k. of fruit', with a derivated form *dʒɦumV-ɫV (metathesized as *dʒɦuɫVmV).
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¹ The collective form is cormier 'service tree (Sorbus domestica)'.

² There is also gurbitz 'strawberry tree', found in Western dialects and cognate to Italian corbezzolo 'strawberry tree', seemingly a fossilized compound with a root meaning 'tree'.

³ There are also the forms cembra, cirmolo. 

⁴ Spanish sorbo, French sorbe 'service berry', sorbier (collective form) 'service tree'.

⁵ The collective form is serbal 'service tree'. There are also the forms serbo, jerbo, product of a contamination with sorbo.

Summer love

Several IE languages (Celtic, Germanic, Tocharian, Iranian, Armenian) have a word *sam-/*sºm-ro- 'summer'¹. IMHO this is a Paleo-European loanword corresponding to native IE *h2e:m-ºr- 'heat (of the day)', found in Greek hēméra, Armenian awr 'day'. The initial sibilant is a consequence of the sound shift I call Fournet's Law, by which a post-velar fricative becames fronted to an alveolar /s/.

This root is cognate to Semitic *ħamm- 'to be hot; warm'. Also Latin amāre 'to love', amor 'love' derive from this root, possibly through an Etruscan intermediate.

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¹ The Ablauting form *sem- usually quoted in dictionaries isn't attested anywhere.

Pedirle peras al olmo

The Spanish saying "pedirle peras al olmo" (lit. 'to ask the elm for pears') means 'to ask for something impossible', as elms don't give edible fruits. However, paradoxically it might enclose a deep wisdom regarding the origin of the word 'elm' found in several IE languages: Latin ulmus, Celtic *limo-, Germanic *elma-/*alma-, Slavic *jьlьmъ, from which Indo-Europeanists reconstruct a PIE root *h1elem-.

As in the case of other plant names, the sparse distribution as well as some phonetic irregularities point to a loanword, I guess from NEC *dʒɦuɫVmV, a metathesized form of *dʒɦumV-ɫV, a derivative of *dʒɦumV 'bush, grass; a k. of fruit', with loss of the initial affricate (apparently regular in loanwords). IMHO this Vasco-Caucasian root would be the origen of Portuguese silva 'bramble (Rubus ulmifolius)'¹ < *silba, too often confused with his homonymous Latin silva 'wood, forest'.   

The bare stem is found in Uralic *δ´e̮me (*δ´ōme) 'birdcherry', Insular Celtic *subi- 'strawberry')'² and Eastern Basque zi (S, Z), zĩ (R) 'oak acorn' < Paleo-Basque *sini with delabialization.

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¹ There is also the collective form silveira.
² A Cantabrian word found as part of the Basque compound marrubi 'strawberry', whose first member is related to IE *mor- 'blackberry'.