It's a peppermint plant, they're more like a line drawn on paper rather than a tree's branches.

Think of it like ---- and ====.

They're mainly what used to be the plant when I got it, although there's a few stems here and there, the center of the pot is a bunch of dead 'branches'. Most of the new growth occurs at the side, and I want to know that if I take the dead 'branches' out, they'll be new growth in their place.