[f. Gr. θρίξ, τριχ- hair + -ITE1; in Min., a. Ger. trichit (Zirkel, 1867).]
1. Min. A name for very minute dark-colored hair-like bodies occurring in the substance of some vitreous rocks.
1868. Dana, Min. (ed. 5), 805. The name Trichite … is applied by Zirkel … to microscopic capillary forms, often curved, bent, or zigzag,… opaque and black or reddish-brown, of undetermined nature, which he detected in some … glassy … volcanic rocks.
1879. Rutley, Study Rocks, x. 162. Trichites … are minute elongated bodies resembling small hairs or fibres.
2. Zool. A name for extremely fine siliceous fibers found in certain sponge-spicules, or for such spicules themselves: see quot. 1887. Also attrib.
1887. Sollas, in Encycl. Brit., XXII. 418/1. (Sponges) A curious group of flesh spicules are the trichites. In this group silica … forms within the scleroblast a sheaf of immeasurably fine fibrillæ or trichites…. The trichite sheaf may be regarded as a fibrillated spicule.
1890. Cassell’s Nat. Hist., VI. 322. In other forms, the trichites grow radiately outward…, and becoming thickened with age, produce a trichite-stellate, or, if they are very numerous, a trichite-globate or globate spicule.
3. Bot. (See quot.)
1900. B. D. Jackson, Gloss. Bot. Terms, 275. Trichite, a needle-shaped crystal of amylose in starch grains, stated to form the latter by aggregation (A. Meyer).
Hence Trichitic a., pertaining to or of the nature of a trichite, or containing trichites.
1879. Rutley, Stud. Rocks, x. 170. Minute granules and trichitic bodies.
