A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
975 entries
browse line
The sharp horizontal boundary on trees and shrubs where everything within reach of browsing animals has been eaten, leaving a clean line with bare stems below and foliage above. A pronounced browse line is one of the most visible signs of deer or other herbivore overpopulation in a forest — the woods pruned flat at mouth height.
Etymology
Browse, from Old French broust (“sprout, young shoot”) + line, from Latin linea (“thread, line”). The line marks the upper limit of what browsing animals can reach.