When I was little, I thought that there was such a thing as the lye berry. I had heard of lye soap, and I knew that lots of modern soaps were scented with flowers and berries, so it was perfectly natural to me that lye soap was made using lye berries.
If you aren't familiar with lye, it's a caustic chemical that, as far as I can gather, is somehow leached from ashes. It's really harsh on skin. Undiluted, it can cause some really nasty burns. Lye is not a plant, and has no berries.
So where had I heard of lye berries? People who can't properly pronounce "libraries."
Bonus note: Don't become a librarian (or anything related to libraries) if that mispronunciation irks you. Trust me.
