Branching out, Republican dullard wears a fragrance (11)

I believe the answer is:

arborescent

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'branching out' is the definition.
'arborescent' can be an answer for 'branching' (thesaurus). I'm unsure of the 'out' bit.

'republican dullard wears a fragrance' is the wordplay.
'republican' becomes 'R' (political abbreviation).
'dullard' becomes 'bore' (synonyms).
'wears' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'fragrance' becomes 'scent' (synonyms).
'r'+'bore'='rbore'
'a'+'scent'='ascent'
'rbore' going inside 'ascent' is 'ARBORESCENT'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for arborescent that I've seen before include "Like plane maybe" , "having characteristics of 17 [TREE]" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.

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