Thyrsus
in classical antiquities, one of the most common attributes or emblems of Bacchus and his followers.
It consisted often of a spear or staff wrapped with ivy and vine branches or of a lance having the iron part thrust into a pine cone. In botany, a kind of inflorescence consisting of a panicle, the principal diameter of which is in the middle between the base and the apex; a compact panicle, the lower branches of which are shorter than those in the middle. It is at first centripetal and afterward centrifugal; example, the lilac. TIARA