What is "witches' besoms"

Witch \Witch\, n. [OE. wicche, AS. wicce, fem., wicca, masc.; perhaps the same word as AS. w[=i]tiga, w[=i]tga, a soothsayer (cf. Wiseacre); cf. Fries. wikke, a witch, LG. wikken to predict, Icel. vitki a wizard, vitka to bewitch.]

1. One who practices the black art, or magic; one regarded as possessing supernatural or magical power by compact with an evil spirit, esp. with the Devil; a sorcerer or sorceress; -- now applied chiefly or only to women, but formerly used of men as well.

   There was a man in that city whose name was Simon, a witch.
   --Wyclif (Acts viii. 9).

   He can not abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she's a witch.
   --Shak.

2. An ugly old woman; a hag.
   --Shak.

3. One who exercises more than common power of attraction; a charming or bewitching person; also, one given to mischief; -- said especially of a woman or child.

4. (Geom.) A certain curve of the third order, described by Maria Agnesi under the name versiera.

5. (Zo["o]l.) The stormy petrel.

6. A Wiccan; an adherent or practitioner of Wicca, a religion which in different forms may be paganistic and nature-oriented, or ditheistic. The term witch applies to both male and female adherents in this sense.

   Witch balls, a name applied to the interwoven rolling masses of the stems of herbs, which are driven by the winds over the steppes of Tartary. Cf. Tumbleweed.
   --Maunder (Treas. of Bot.)

   Witches' besoms (Bot.), tufted and distorted branches of the silver fir, caused by the attack of some fungus.
   --Maunder (Treas. of Bot.)

   Witches' butter (Bot.), a name of several gelatinous cryptogamous plants, as Nostoc commune, and Exidia glandulosa. See Nostoc.

   Witch grass (Bot.), a kind of grass ( Panicum capillare) with minute spikelets on long, slender pedicels forming a light, open panicle.

   Witch meal (Bot.), vegetable sulphur. See under Vegetable.