From WW's site:
VIRGA
Streaks or wisps of precipitation, such as water or ice particles, that fall from clouds but evaporate before reaching the ground. From a distance, the event sometimes may be mistaken for a funnel cloud or tornado. Typically, it may fall from altocumulus, altostratus, or high based cumuonimbus.

I was wondering where "branch" came in, but I guess if you can see streaks, they can look like branches. This def. made me look up altocumulus and altostratus, and sure enough, they're both in the "middle". No listing for tenor clouds, though.