a railing with supporting balusters (dictionary.com),
which brings us to baluster:
2. balusters, a balustrade.
3. any of various symmetrical supports, as furniture legs or spindles, tending to swell toward the bottom or top.
< French, Middle French balustre < Italian balaustro pillar shaped like the calyx of the pomegranate flower, ultimately < Latin balaustium < Greek balaústion pomegranate flower (dictionary.com)
"I sent him letters every day begging him to keep his distance - for his own safety as well as mine - although I secretly hoped, even expected, to find him hanging from my balustrade when I returned from my Serbo-Croat lessons with my consonants in distress....
"The rupture of relations between Torquil and Jonquil was far from amicable. Torquil stalked her on the boulevards, burned Eastern crosses on her balustrade, bombed her mailbox with incendiary marzipan, invaded her E-mail with insinuations and pseudonyms, and crashed her farewell party in an asbestos cat-suit sporting a battery-operated lashing tail with which he thrashed Jonquil before a roomful of incredulous guests."
- Karen Elizabeth Gordon, Out of the Loud Hound of Darkness: A Dictionarrative
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