A meadow. See quotation 1775.
1705. Large spots of Meadows and Savanna’s, wherein are Hundreds of Acres without any tree at all.—Beverly, ‘Virginia,’ ii. 8.
1775. The savannah’s are in this country of two very different kinds…. [The first] are a kind of sinks or drains for those higher lands…. The other savannahs … are chiefly to be found in West Florida, they consist of a high ground often with small gentle risings in them, some are of a vast extent…. There is generally a rivulet at one or other, or at each end of the savannahs.—B. Romans, ‘Florida,’ p. 22, 23.
1803. We are approaching those vast savannas through which flow “the Western waters.”—Thaddeus M. Harris, ‘Journal of a Tour,’ April 14, p. 26 (Boston).
1812. The prairies or savannas, and alluvia, scarcely constitute the other two-fifths of the state.—H. M. Brackenridge, ‘Views of Louisiana,’ p. 158 (1814).
1821. In a far region, beyond the savannahs in the South-West he breathed his last, and loaded the earth with his flinty form.—T. Dwight, ‘Travels,’ iv. 194.
1823. These savannas or prairies, (but among the people of New-England, called swamps,) resemble large flat plains—here the traveller is struck with wonder and amazement.—Geo. W. Ogden, ‘Letters from the West,’ p. 47 (New-Bedford).
1837. The country west of Graham, Turnbull and McDougal swamps, is, for about twenty miles, a piny glade, diversified with cypress swamps, grass savannas and ponds.—John L. Williams, ‘The Territory of Florida,’ p. 140 (N.Y.).
1838. See WHIP.
1854. The savanna is perfectly level, clothed in perpetual verdure,—except in winter, when it is covered with water,—and abounds in a great variety of flowers.—W. Flagg, The Magazine of Horticulture, xx. 408 (Sept.) (Bartlett).
