scrimpy

"And that lair may not be a mountain thicket or rain forest or swamp, but these scrimpy red clay flats.

And Sister Tutor, usually a long-suffering though stern woman, grumbled at her; her notes had been badly written, and by now she should know the bones of the body--and she a Latin scholar, and her case history of a child with whooping cough was far too scrimpy.