thorn tree

plural thorn trees · alternative thorn-tree

1. Any tree with thorn-like leaves, especially the acacia.

   Thirty feet below her, where the Persians were crashing through the brush, the streambed kinked to the left side of the ravine and ran under an enormous thorn tree with a thick base.

   2007 April 1, Thomas Harlan, The Shadow of Ararat: Book One of 'The Oath of Empire', page 294

   2 more examples

   They then came together to hear the preaching of the Gospel; but I postponed it till the evening, because I was then exceedingly wearied. The captain shewed me a large old thorn tree for a lodging.

   1811, “Visit to the Great Namaquas”, in The Missionary Herald at Home and Abroad, volume 6, page 466

   I WOULD HAVE been nine or ten when my mother chased me up a thorn tree with a ceremonial hippo-hide whip. What my crime was, I forget. My mother was, and remains, a woman of exceptional forbearance. I must have done something so obnoxious as to beggar belief.

   2010 August 3, David Bennun, Tick Bite Fever, Random House, page 109