rare. [f. as prec. + -SHIP.] The condition of being a tree; existence as a tree.
1792. Cowper, Yardley Oak, 61. Through all the stages … Of treeship—first a seedling,… Then twig; then sapling [etc.].
1849. H. Miller, Footpr. Creat., xiv. (1873), 246. As some of our larger English oaks have been known to increase in bulk of trunk and extent of bough for five centures together, no man can possibly have seen the same huge oak pass, according to Cowper, through its various stages of ‘treeship.’
1853. Weekly Placer Herald, 9 July, 2/5. Mr. [J. M.] Freeman brought away also a piece of the wood split from the side of the tree, which shows the average number of zones to be thirty to the inch, which, if a correct manner of calculating the age of his treeship, would show him to be upwards of four thousand years old—a fact calculated to upset certain geological theories of the savans in regard to this State [California].
1922. Bulletin (Pomona, CA), 24 March, 1/5. The truck did not seem satisfied with a small ‘crack,’ so it attacked a large pepper tree nearby with a veng[e]ance, but not much damage to his treeship.
