As the growing season wears on, stars send out long, trailing, brittle branches of buds.
She bent over, clinging to the thin, brittle branches, and tried to sweep the snow aside.
Something cracked like a brittle branch, and the wolf screamed as it floundered about on the ground.
The brittle branches gave way easily; he sank deep into it, buried in the detritus.
The brittle branches can break in strong winds.
Then he picked up a broken branch, dry and brittle, and added it to the flames.
The dead, brittle branches and dumps of rotting leaves had taken the shape of a man.
The sounds of his cleaving the brittle branches would be heard a kilometer away.
"We really should do something about the trees," my mother said, as we both stared at the brown, brittle branches.
The tree was long dead, its branches bare and brittle after decades in the dark.