Definition of "vorticella" [vor•ti•cel•la]

• Any of various ciliate protozoans of the genus Vorticella, having a bell-shaped body and living underwater on a slender stalk often attached to a plant or other object. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Dr.H. Charlton Bastian has also stated that, in spite of much observation, he has never seen the process in _vorticella_."
• "At the end of each branch is situated an infusorian (vorticella), and the whole colony represents in itself the genealogical family tree."
• "Animal nutrition; vegetable; some organic particles have appetencies to unite, others propensities to be united; buds of trees; sexual reproduction; analogy between generation and nutrition; laws of elasticity not understood; dead animalcules recover life by heat and moisture; chaos redivivum; vorticella; shell snails; eggs and seeds; hydra."