in Antiquity, the carrying of boughs or branches of trees; a religious ceremony, so called because certain priests, thence called dendrophori or tree-bearers, marched in procession, carrying the branches of trees in their hands in honour of some god, as Bacchus, Cybele, and Sylvanus. The college of the dendrophori is often mentioned on the ancient marbles; and we frequently see in basso-relievos the bacchanals represented as men carrying little shrubs or branches of trees.