slick
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slick noun A dense thicket of laurel or rhododendron, as one used to hide moonshining operations, known more formally as a heath bald. [so called because of its smooth appearance from above; DARE labels this usage “western NC, East TN”]
1913 Kephart Our Sthn High 301 A “hell” or “slick” or “woolly-head” or “yaller patch” is a thicket of laurel or rhododendron, impassable save where the bears have bored out trails. 1915 Bohannon Bear Hunt 462 They range in extent from a few acres to more than a thousand, and are laurel growths to the height of about twelve feet, without other trees or shrubs whatever, the tops being so even that at a distance they resemble smooth lawns of rich green grass, hence the name “slicks.” 1943 Peattie Indian Days 40 Botanists speak of heath balds, meaning an area crowned with an intricate shrub tangle of the heath family, but mountain people called them slicks, and distinguish between laurel, rhododendron, and ivy (Kalmia or mountain laurel) slicks. 1956 Fink That’s Why 4 A slick is never a smooth rock ledge or a cliff. While from a distance it might appear to be a grassy slope, in reality it is a tangle of low rhododendron or kalmia, through which a bear can scarcely push. 1992 Toops Great Smoky Mts 41 Although most of the trail traversed boreal forest, one section dropped into a heath bald or laurel “slick.” Whoever coined the latter term was obviously looking from a distance! These areas contain head-high mountain laurels and nightmarish tangles of contorted rhododendron shrubs.