Palmette Palmette, also called anthemion (from the Greek ανθέμιον, a flower), is an artistic motif resembling the fan-shaped leaves of a palm tree. It was a common decorative motif employed in the Greek/Roman era to decorate the fronts of ante-fixae, the upper portion of the stele or vertical tombstones, the necking of the Ionic columns of the Erechtheum and its continuation as a decorative frieze on the walls of the same, and the cymatium of a cornice.