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 <WSD>stalks</WSD> thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  The stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts.