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Like thread or filaments; slender; as, the thready roots of a shrub.

A bush; a thick shrub; a bushy clump. [R.] "An ivy todde." Spenser. The ivy tod is heavy with snow. Coleridge.

canum) having a very pungent taste. -- Toothache tree. (Bot.) (a) The prickly ash. (b) A shrub of the genus Aralia (A. spinosa).

namental gardening; produced by cutting, trimming, etc.; topiarian. Topiary work, arbors, shrubbery, hedges, or the like, cut and trimmed into fanciful forms, as of animals, building, etc.

A kind of gum procured from a spiny leguminous shrub (Astragalus gummifer) of Western Asia, and other species of Astragalus. It comes in hard whitish or yellowish flakes or filaments, and is nearly insoluble in water, but slowly swells into a mucilaginous mass, which is used as a substitute for gum arabic in medicine a…

etle (Zoöl.) any one of numerous species of beetles which feed on the leaves of trees and shrubs, as the May beetles, the rose beetle, the rose chafer, and the goldsmith beetle. -- Tree bug (Zoöl.), any one of numerous species of hemipterous insects which live upon, and suck the sap of, trees and shrubs. They belong t…

An alley; a narrow path or walk cut through woods, shrubbery, or the like. [Obs.] In a trench, forth in the park, goeth she. Chaucer.

Twig borer (Zoöl.), any one of several species of small beetles which bore into twigs of shrubs and trees, as the apple-tree twig borer (Amphicerus bicaudatus). -- Twig girdler. (Zoöl.) See Girdler, 3. -- Twig rush (Bot.), any rushlike plant of the genus Cladium having hard, and sometimes prickly-edged, leaves or st…

Shrubs, small trees, and the like, in a wood or forest, growing beneath large trees; undergrowth.

A grove of shrubs or low trees under taller ones. Wordsworth.

That which grows under trees; specifically, shrubs or small trees growing among large trees. Milton.

A low shrub; a woody plant of low stature.

bushes that grow among large trees; coppice; underbrush; -- formerly used in the plural. Shrubs and underwoods look well enough while they grow within the shade of oaks and cedars. Addison.

prairie snipe, papabote, quaily, and uplander. -- Upland sumach (Bot.), a North American shrub of the genus Rhus (Rhus glabra), used in tanning and dyeing.

A genus of ericaceous shrubs including the various kinds of blueberries and the true cranberries.

a double varnish on the fame The Frenchman gave you. Shak. Varnish tree (Bot.), a tree or shrub from the juice or resin of which varnish is made, as some species of the genus Rhus, especially R. vernicifera of Japan. The black varnish of Burmah is obtained from the Melanorrhoea usitatissima, a tall East Indian tree of…

A genus of shrubs having opposite, petiolate leaves and cymose flowers, several species of which are cultivated as ornamental, as the laurestine and the guelder-rose.

A genus of parasitic shrubs, including the mistletoe of Europe.

A certain shrub (Evonymus atropurpureus) having purple capsules which in dehiscence expose the scarlet-ariled seeds; -- called also burning bush.

A small white-flowered shrub; brookweed.