1.   Before me lay a deep gulley choked with oleanders and thorny scrub, which descended precipitously down to the private beach.

2.   Before European colonization, West Indian iguanas were the largest terrestrial herbivores on their islands, where they dwelled in dry forests and thorny scrub.

3.   Crews have drilled dozens of new wells amid the mesquite and thorny scrub.

4.   Refugees talk of rivers turning to sand, orchards stripped and hillsides eroded, grain fields and pastures gnawed to thorny scrub.