Definition of "branchwork"

and whose exquisite whiteness was not a little set off by a sprout of black curling hair round the root, through the jetty sprigs of which the fair skin shew'd as in a fine evening you may have remark'd the clear light ether throught the branchwork of distant trees over-topping the summit of a hill.

1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […]

Thus, from what has been stated, we see that neither the white puncta nor the minute white branchwork of lines were ever tubular.

1861, The Annals and Magazine of Natural History: Zoology, Botany, and Geology