arboreous

Adjective

arboreous

1. Having the characteristics of a tree. (of a plant)
   • For the Parable may not […] imply any or every grain of Mustard, but point at such a grain as from its fertile spirit, and other concurrent advantages, hath the success to become arboreous, shoot into such a magnitude, and acquire the like tallness.1684, Thomas Browne, “Observations upon Several Plants Mention’d in Scripture” in Certain Miscellany Tracts, London: Charles Mearne, pp. 28-29
   • […] the continental climate, that is, having a colder winter and warmer summer, capable of producing considerable vigour of arboreous vegetation, and not so favourable to the generating of […] peat-moss […]1831, Patrick Matthew, On Naval Timber and Arboriculture, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Part 4, Chapter 6, p. 288

   Synonyms:

   ligneous, woody

   Antonyms:

   herbaceous

2. Covered or filled with trees.
   • But among Authours, we meet with nothing more frequent, and indeed more celebrated, than those Arboreous amenities and Plantations of Woods, which they call’d Luci;1670, John Evelyn, chapter 35, in Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber, 2nd edition, London, page 226
   • The country was no longer plain-land, but an arboreous wilderness interspersed with small fields and fruit orchards.1974, Richard Adams, Shardik, New York: Simon and Schuster, Book 4, Chapter 35, p. 329

   Synonyms:

   wooded

3. (obsolete) Growing on trees.
   • And those fruites whiche Galene calleth arboreous, are those growing vppon trees.1575, John Banister, A Needefull, New, and Necessarie Treatise of Chyrurgerie, London: Thomas Marshe, page 88
   • Mushromes are either terrestrial, which grow out of the earth, or arboreous, which adhere to the stocks of trees;1657, Jean de Renou, translated by Richard Tomlinson, A Medical Dispensatory, London, Book 1, Section 2, Chapter 8, p. 258
4. (obsolete) Having a tree-like, branching structure.
   • The arboreous ramification of the Meditallium of the Cerebellum appearing, being cut right downwards.1695, Humphrey Ridley, The Anatomy of the Brain Containing its Mechanism and Physiology, London: S. Smith and B. Walford, Chapter 17, figure 7
   • […] [the] Internal Concave Surface [of the Placenta Uterina] next the Amnios, Appears Cover’d with the Chorion; under which the Arboreous Disposition of its Blood-Vessels are elegantly Exprest.1698, William Cowper, The Anatomy of Humane Bodies, Oxford: S. Smith and B. Walford, Table 56

   Synonyms:

   dendritic