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There's definitely a single word that is used to describe, when seen from a distance, a single row of trees on a hilltop. I searched quite a bit but am unable to find the word.

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    As a landscape Architect, I’ve been racking my brains for any relevant jargon, but can’t come up with term. I wonder if there is a chance you have heard a description, perhaps metaphorical, and mis-recall it as a definitive term? In the field of Landscape Design the closest I can come is ‘Eye-catcher’, which would usually refer to a built feature (rather than trees) on a hill at some distance from the main garden, designed to make the viewer change their gaze from close to distant.
    – Spagirl
    Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 10:22
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    I can only come up with "windbreak" - a hedge/row of trees or tall bushes whose purpose is to block the wind.
    – miltonaut
    Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 10:24
  • It's either a windbreak or a row of trees. Of course you can always wax poetic with "a crown of trees" or some such.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 12:16
  • I can't offer a single word for exactly what you describe, but if the hilltop is curved, you could say 'arc of trees'.
    – David Garner
    Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 13:19
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    A line one deep is a rank, and a line one wide is a file. So I could easily imagine someone talking about, say, "a starkly silhouetted rank of winter trees", and it would be both comprehensible and evocative, but it's using a general description. It may be that, as Spagirl suggests, you heard such a general-purpose description and mistook it for a single-use word.
    – Joffan
    Commented Jun 24, 2016 at 13:50

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Perhaps you encountered

colonnade:

a row of trees or other tall objects.

Or perhaps you encountered one of the following and confused it for "a single row of trees on a hilltop".

stand:

a group or growth of tall plants or trees: a stand of pine

copse:

a small group of trees

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Try copse.

Patch is also a close synonym.

...dense 'copse' of trees.
...thin copses of trees that scattered sporadically along the distant hills.

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  • I think not. Neither copse nor patch suggests anything to do with "single" or "line". To the contrary, both suggests clumps, which are almost as far as you could get from lines.
    – Robbie Goodwin
    Commented Nov 18, 2018 at 23:42

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