Zool. [f. Gr. κόλλα, ἐν in, κύτος hollow, receptacle.] Sollas’s proposed term for the corpuscles of connective tissue found embedded in the collenchyme in the mesoderm of sponges. Hence Collencytal a.
1887. W. J. Sollas, Sponges, in Encycl. Brit., XXII. 419/2. The mesoderm … in its commonest and simplest form consists of a clear colourless gelatinous matrix in which irregularly branching stellate cells or connective tissue corpuscles are embedded; these may be termed collencytes and the tissue collenchyme.
