arbuscles

Noun

arbuscle (plural arbuscles)

1. A plant midway in height between a shrub and a tree; a dwarf tree.
   • Gumme is an Arabick word, and when it is put abſolutely; it muſt be underſtood of Gum-Arabick, which Galen calls Thebane, ſome Babylonian, and others Acanthine Gumme. It flowes from a certain arbuſcle, which [Pedanius] Dioſcorides calls Acacia, whereof he conſtitutes two ſorts […]1657, "Renodæus" [Jean de Renou], translated by Richard Tomlinson, A Medicinal Dispensatory, containing the VVhole Body of Physick: Discovering the Natures, Properties, and Vertues of Vegetables...
2. A branched hypha in some fungi.
   • The hyphae of the arbuscle, which are finely ramified and form a floccose mass, soon lose their individuality and make a structureless granular and gummy conglomeration […]1956, Phytomorphology, Delhi: International Society of Plant Morphologists, →OCLC, page 71
3. The site at which a symbiotic fungus attaches to the roots of a plant and exchanges nutrients, etc., with it.
   • Detailed view of a typical fine endophyte arbuscle in the inner cortex. Note the well preserved structural integrity of the endophyte and the characteristic bifurcate hyphae […]. Infection was with the fine endophyte Glomus tenuis […].1979, New Zealand Journal of Botany, Wellington: Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, →OCLC, page 57
4. A clump of feather-like cilia (hairlike structures).