Vegetation is all the plant life growing in a particular place. When scientists study the vegetation of a rainforest, they're looking at every tree, vine, fern, and moss living there. When your parents complain about pulling weeds from the garden, they're fighting unwanted vegetation.

Dense vegetation like a thick jungle can be nearly impossible to walk through, while sparse vegetation in a desert might mean just a few scattered cacti and shrubs. Geographers describe different regions by their vegetation: grasslands have mostly grasses and few trees, while tundra has low, hardy vegetation adapted to brutal cold.

You might also hear vegetation used more generally to mean plant growth of any kind. If someone abandons a yard for a year, thick vegetation will take over as nature reclaims the space. The word emphasizes plants as a collective force rather than individual specimens: a botanist might study one particular oak tree, but a geographer maps vegetation patterns across an entire mountain range.