Shrub

[2] Many trees do not reach this mature height because of hostile, less than ideal growing conditions, and resemble shrub-sized plants.

[citation needed] Apart from the several berry-bearing species (using the culinary rather than botanical definition), few are eaten directly, and they are generally too small for much timber use unlike trees.

Tea and coffee are on the tree-shrub boundary;[4] they are normally harvested from shrub-sized plants, but these would be large enough to become small trees if left to grow instead.

[2] Ancient Greek philosopher Theophrastus divided the plant world into trees, shrubs and herbs.

There are exceptions to this, with some shrubs having main trunks, but these tend to be very short and divide into multiple stems close to ground level without a reasonable length beforehand.

[8] When clipped as topiary, suitable species or varieties of shrubs develop dense foliage and many small leafy branches growing close together.

[9] Many shrubs respond well to renewal pruning, in which hard cutting back to a "stool", removes everything but vital parts of the plant, resulting in long new stems known as "canes".

[10] Other shrubs respond better to selective pruning to dead or unhealthy, or otherwise unattractive parts to reveal their structure and character.