1. A name for various birds which creep on the trunks and branches of trees; esp. the common European Certhia familiaris, or other species of the family Certhiidæ; also, a bird of the South American family Dendrocolaptide. Cf. CREEPER 3.
1814. Sporting Mag., XLIV. 184. A tree-creeper, one of our smallest birds.
1815. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., ix. (1818), I. 290. In America, the tree-creeper is furnished with a box at the end of a long pole to entice it to build in gardens, which it is … particularly useful in clearing from noxious insects.
1869. G. Rooper, Flood, Field & Forest (1874), 208–9. Watch the pretty, lady-like tree-creeper as it ran like a mouse up the tree against which I leaned.
1871. Darwin, Desc. Man, II. xvi. 206. An Australian tree-creeper (Climacteris erythrops).
2. A plant that creeps or climbs upon trees (cf. CREEPER 4); spec. the African rubber-plant, Landolphia florida.
1887. Moloney, Forestry W. Afr., 94. The plant that produces it [india-rubber] is the giant tree-creeper (Landolphia florida ?), covering the highest trees and growing principally on those near rivers or streams.
