[L.; = ‘small column,’ dim. of columna column. Cf. prec.]
1. Anat. a. An old name for the uvula. b. The modiolus or axis of the cochlea of the ear (columella cochleæ): cf. 2. c. Sometimes applied to other structures of analogous form.
1585. Lloyd, Treas. Health, H iiij. The lytle flap which couerith the wyndpipe called Uvula, some call it Columella.
1689. Moyle, Sea Chyrurg., II. xx. 75. Sometimes by cold men have … their Collumella relaxed.
2. Conch., The axis of a spiral shell.
1755. Gentl. Mag., XXV. 31/2. Columella, the interior axis of the shell from top to bottom, round which the spirals are twisted.
1842. Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, II. x. 32. The shell … perfectly diaphanous, exhibiting the axis or columella very clearly.
1856. Woodward, Mollusca, 100.
3. Bot. a. ‘The long axis round which the parts of a (dehiscent) fruit are united: in reality, the ripened growing point’ (Treas. Bot.).
1760. Lee, Botany, VI. (1776), 14 (Jod.). The Substance which passes through the Capsule, and connects the several Partitions and Seeds, Columella.
1887. A. W. Bennett, trans. Thomé’s Bot. (ed. 6), 397. The fruit [of Umbellifers] is a bipartite schizocarp … two halves separating from the columella.
b. The firm center or axis of the spore-case of an urn-moss. c. A slender axis over which the spore-cases of such ferns as Trichomanes are arranged. (Treas. Bot.)
1821. S. F. Gray, Arrangem. Brit. Plants, I. 222. Columelle, Columella, Sporangidium. A thread-like pillar in the centre of the urn to which the seeds are attached.
1857. Henfrey, Bot., § 319. A striking peculiarity of the capsule of the Mosses is the existence of this columella, or stalk-like process running up the centre of the cavity of the sporange.
1882. Vines, Sachs’ Bot., 354. The long sporogonium has a longitudinal dehiscence and no columella.
4. Zool. a. A part of the pterygoid bone in the skull of lizards (columella cranii). b. A delicate bone in the middle ear of birds, reptiles and amphibians (columella auris). Cf. 1 b. c. The central axis or pillar of the visceral chamber of many corals.
1848. Dana, Zooph., 529. The cells have no distinct columella.
1873. Mivart, Elem. Anat., 111. In Lizards, a peculiar dismemberment of the pterygoid, called the columella, may ascend and join the parietal.
1872. Dana, Corals, i. 44. The bottom of the calicle, or polyp-cell, in the corallum is sometimes made simply by the meeting of the radiating septa; occasionally, by the same, with the addition of a point or columella at the centre.
