wolf tree

plural wolf trees

1. A large forest tree whose size and spreading branches suggest that the environment around it was formerly a clearing without other trees.

   That wolf tree looks much older than the trees around it. I'd bet this was an empty field when it was young.

   2 more examples

   WOLF TREE A "wolf" tree is a tree within a woods, its size and form, large trunk and horizontal branches, anomalous to the environs of slim-trunked trees with upright branches. It is a clue to the open field in which it once grew alone. — Anne Whiston Spirn, The Language of Landscape / The wolf tree's arms reach out […]

   2007, Alison Calder, Wolf Tree, Coteau Books, →ISBN, page 34

   Watch for a huge white oak, a "wolf tree," standing massive among younger trees. […] "wolf trees." These trees, obviously much larger than trees of the surrounding forest, were once "lone wolves"; for example, a white oak that once shaded a home, or a tree in a grazing pasture.

   2020 October 1, Johnny Molloy, Best Hikes Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill: The Greatest Views, Wildlife, and Forest Trails, Rowman & Littlefield, →ISBN, page 46