in antiquity, the sceptre which the poets put into the hand of Bacchus, and wherewith they furnished the menades in their Bacchanalia.

a mode of flowering resembling the cone of a pine. It is, says Linnaeus, a panicle contracted into an oval or egg-shaped form. The lower footstalks, which are longer, extend horizontally, whilst the upper ones are shorter and mount vertically. Lilac and butter-bur furnish examples.