devil's club

noun

1. a spiny shrub, Oplopanax horridus, of northwestern North America, having broad palmate leaves, greenish flowers, and clusters of bright red berries.

Word History and Origins

Origin of devil's club¹

An Americanism dating back to 1880–85

Example Sentences

Hiking through the Wishbone area last summer, advocates noted cedar, hemlock, maple, cottonwood and alder trees, as well as huckleberries, gooseberries and devil’s club plants.

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It’s mostly fir trees, but Oliver also pointed out cedar, hemlock, maple, cottonwood and alder trees of varying heights as he bushwhacked through Wednesday, plus huckleberries, gooseberries and devil’s club plants.

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Over the summer of 2020, he attempted the entirety of the roughly 150-mile historic Iditarod trail’s southern trek, which includes miles of bushwhacking through dense alder and head-high devil’s club, a plant he describes as what grows if “a porcupine had a child with celery and grew as fast as zucchini and as tall as trees.”

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Devil’s club, huckleberry and ferns crowd into sunlit open patches and wet seeps.

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The devil’s club she dries for tea, and for medicine.

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