Sentence:  Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, with...on one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks <WSD>thrust</WSD> themselves up like withered elfin limbs. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To push out or extend rapidly or powerfully.