In searching in vain for some photos of coppiced trees, I encountered the word "pollard".
It is a severe pruning of tree, but means only cutting branches near tips high in tree.
In the area where I live now, there are many trees that cannot expand their root
system enough to properly serve a tree over thirty feet high. Untended the trees
become susceptible to disease. So the tree surgeons cut off all of the limbs that
are over three or four inches in diameter. When I first saw one, I thought the
tree would die, but a year later there is a very healthy compact tree, again
able to give ample shade and reasonably attractive in appearance.
The word pollard in dictionary has first meaning a deer that has lost its horns.
What is done to the tree is comparable. The branches that are removed bear
similar proportion to horns on a deer.