A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1039 entries
timberline
The elevation above which trees cannot grow — the boundary between forest and alpine tundra, drawn by cold, wind, desiccation, and the shortness of the growing season. Timberline is not a line but a zone: the forest thins, the trees shrink and twist into krummholz, and then, above a certain altitude, they stop. The line varies by latitude, aspect, and local conditions — roughly 11,500 feet in Colorado, 6,000 in the northern Cascades, at sea level in the Arctic.
Etymology
“Timber” from Old English “timber” (building material, wood), from Proto-Germanic “*temran”; “line” from Old English “line,” from Latin “linea.” Descriptive English compound, in use since the 19th century for the elevational boundary above which trees can’t grow.
Notes
Also called treeline. Timberline emphasizes the resource (timber); treeline emphasizes the organism (tree).