This region, which resembles one of the immeasurable steppes of Asia, has not inaptly been termed "the great American desert." It spreads forth into undulating and
treeless plains, and desolate sandy wastes wearisome to the eye from their extent and monotony, and which are supposed by geologists to have formed the ancient floor of the ocean, countless ages since, when its primeval waves beat against the granite bases of the Rocky Mountains.
And the next day he roasted in the hot sun, for again their way led much across wide and
treeless plains.
"Like unto the shadow of a great rock in a weary land." Nothing in the Bible is more beautiful than that, and surely there is no place we have wandered to that is able to give it such touching expression as this blistering, naked,
treeless land.
Guided by the noise of these habitually angry beasts, he stole forward through the trees until at last he came upon a level,
treeless plain, in the centre of which a mighty city reared its burnished domes and vividly coloured towers.
An occasional outcrop of rock, an occasional wood, an occasional "forest,"
treeless and brown, all hinted at wildness to follow, but the main colour was an agricultural green.
That rich undulating district of Loamshire to which Hayslope belonged lies close to a grim outskirt of Stonyshire, overlooked by its barren hills as a pretty blooming sister may sometimes be seen linked in the arm of a rugged, tall, swarthy brother; and in two or three hours' ride the traveller might exchange a bleak
treeless region, intersected by lines of cold grey stone, for one where his road wound under the shelter of woods, or up swelling hills, muffled with hedgerows and long meadow-grass and thick corn; and where at every turn he came upon some fine old country-seat nestled in the valley or crowning the slope, some homestead with its long length of barn and its cluster of golden ricks, some grey steeple looking out from a pretty confusion of trees and thatch and dark-red tiles.
No inhabitant of Brussels need wander far to search for solitude; let him but move half a league from his own city and he will find her brooding still and blank over the wide fields, so drear though so fertile, spread out
treeless and trackless round the capital of Brabant.
The corners of the expiring sunset which seemed to cling about the corners of the house gave glimpses here and there of the colours of remoter flowerbeds; and in a
treeless space on one side of the house opening upon the river stood a tall brass tripod on which was tilted a big brass telescope.
The end result of this alien grass invasion is the conversion of the Hawaiian dry forest - the home of many birds and pharmaceutical-bearing plants found nowhere else on Earth - into
treeless, grassy savannas swept periodically by wildfires, D'Antonio concludes.
The swirling results make for excellent kite and model sailplane flying, and its
treeless slope offers few obstacles.
Pointing out that his forest is laced with roadways and skidder leads (
treeless paths where logs are hauled out), he argues that the soil in these well-worn pathways won't grow trees anyway, and he is careful not to disturb the soil tha will.