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Park in this sense goes back at least to the early 19th century in the US. There are two enormous intramontane plateaux in the Central Rockies, known as the North Park and the South Park. The town of South Park of TV fame is on the plateau. Sagebrush, grasses, aspens, which are related to birch. OED first example 1808. -----Original Message----- >From: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> >Sent: Oct 15, 2014 2:42 PM >To: [log in to unmask] >Subject: Re: etymological fallacy > >Thanks Amy, this was really interesting: > >>P.s., on the mention of Prynne, Sperling has also written usefully on the O.E.D. and 'The Glacial Question, Unsolved': http://centaur.reading.ac.uk/30729/1/g2-roebuck-and-sperling.pdf > >Roebuck and Sperling's commentary on "parkland" (line 40) regards Butzer's use of "birch parkland" as puzzling: > >"But his word-choice is enigmatic, given that every historical sense >recorded for ‘park’ specifies it as an enclosed, humanly managed >land-feature (‘A park was distinguished from a forest or chase by being >enclosed’ [OED, s.v. ‘park, n.’])." > >This meaning of "parkland" may be modern - may even be Butzer's own - but it's fairly well established in studies of the arctic and glaciation. >Though it arises from analogy with the artificial landscape of parks (typified by a mixture of standard trees and open spaces), it refers to a natural vegetation type : It means open terrain with widely scattered trees (most commonly birch), sort of a half-way stage between tundra and wood, a fairly common sight in the reindeer-herding parts of the world.