bough

Dozens of animals rely on them to survive, from ladder-backed woodpeckers who nest in their trunks to desert night lizards who sleep and forage beneath their fallen boughs.

Desert night lizards sleep and forage beneath their fallen boughs.

In a pleasant place, open yet sheltered by overhanging boughs, the hollow bole of a dead tree lay on the ground.

Sometimes seven-year-old Bayas would stand on a slender bough and lean out until it bent under his bulk, then ride it to a neighboring trunk.

That impulse is part of what led education technology company Outschool to explore options besides the typical dinner-and-drinks routine at a bar decked with boughs of holly.