branche

la branche (FR N-F) lateral offshoot from the trunk of a tree, usually reserved for the thicker examples, others being called boughs or shoots; in other objects, divisions that depart from a central axis; division of a work or complex system (»branches« of a family tree). First appears in French in 1080, from Latin branca (part). (Bourget, Eluard, Fombeure, Mendès, Renard, van Lerberghe, Verlaine)