PINNACLE

The pinnacle had two purposes:

Ornamental – adding to the loftiness and verticity of the structure. They sometimes ended with statues, such as in Milan Cathedral.

Structural – the pinnacles were very heavy and often rectified with lead, in order to enable the flying buttresses to contain the stress of the structure vaults and roof. This was done by adding compressive stress (a result of the pinnacle weight) to the thrust vector and thus shifting it downwards rather than sideway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinnacle

A crocket is a hook-shaped decorative element common in Gothic architecture. It is in the form of a stylised carving of curled leaves, buds or flowers which is used at regular intervals to decorate the sloping edges of spires, finials, pinnacles, and wimpergs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crocket

Oliver Webb carving ball-flowers for Hereford Cathedral tower.

http://www.finestoneminiatures.com/who_are_we.htm

BALLFLOWER

In architecture a ball-flower is an ornament resembling a ball placed in a circular flower, the three petals of which form a cup round it. They are usually inserted in a hollow moulding. Ball-flower ornaments occur chiefly in the Decorated style of 14th century Gothic architecture, but it sometimes occurs, though rarely, in buildings of the 13th century, or Early English style, as in the west front of Salisbury cathedral, where it is mixed with the tooth ornament: it is however rarely found in that style, and is an indication that the work is late. A flower resembling this, except that it has four petals, is occasionally found in very late Norman work, but it is used with other flowers and ornaments, and not represented in long suits, as in the Decorated style.

Title: Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism
Last Updated: November 17, 2012

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38485/38485-h/38485-h.htm

With two exceptions, Figs. 4 and 9,—exhibits Christian emblems of the trinity or linga, and the unity or yoni, alone or combined; the whole being copied from Pugin's Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament (London, 1869). 

Fig. 1 is copied from Pugin, plate xvii., and indicates a doable anion of the trinity with the unity, here represented as a ring, Vanneau.

     * There is an able essay on this subject in No. 267 of the
     Edinburgh Review—which almost exhausts the subject—but is
     too long for quotation here.

...

It has been said by some critics that the figures above referred to are mere architectural fancies, which never had pretensions to embody a mystery; and that any designer would pitch upon such a style of ornamentation although profoundly ignorant of the doctrine of the trinity and unity. But this assumption is not borne out by fact; the ornaments on Buddhist topes have nothing in common with those of Christian churches; whilst in the ruined temple of the sun at Marttand, India, the trefoil emblem of the trinity is common. Grecian temples were profusely ornamented therewith, and so are innumerable Etruscan sculptures, but they do not represent the trinity and unity. It has been reserved for Christian art to crowd our churches with the emblems of Bel and Astarte, Baalim and Ashtoreth, linga and yoni, and to elevate the phallus to the position of the supreme deity, and assign to him a virgin as a companion, who can cajole him by her blandishment, weary him by wailing, or induce him to change his mind by her intercessions. Christianity certainly requires to be purged of its heathenisms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doric_order

 In their original Greek version, Doric columns stood directly on the flat pavement (the stylobate) of a temple without a base; their vertical shafts were fluted with 20 parallel concave grooves...
The triglyphs are decoratively grooved with three vertical grooves ("tri-glyph") and represent the original wooden end-beams...

http://www.ask-aladdin.com/Temples-of-Egypt/luxortemple.html 

The 1st open court has double rows of 32 papyrus bud columns. 

 ... the Colonnade... consists of two pairs of large open papyrus columns, which are arranged to make a long processional avenue.

 http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/columns.htm

Most of the time, the column shafts were copied in stone of supports made from plants, resembling either a trunk or a bundle of stems of smaller diameter.

The Doric corner conflict:

Spiral fluted columns in the Great Colonnade at Apamea in Syria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluting_%28architecture%29

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v137/n3457/abs/137180b0.html

http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/architecture/fluted.htm

The Greeks probably started this idea because their earliest columns were made out of wooden tree trunks, and when the builders shaved the bark off the trunks it left these vertical gouges. When they began to build stone temples, they copied the gouges from the wood...

Doric columns usually had 20 flutes, while Ionic columns usually had 24 flutes.