Definition of "desmid" []

• Any of various green unicellular freshwater algae of the family Desmidiaceae, often forming chainlike colonies. (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.

• "She returned to New Zealand in the fifties and wrote the three definitive books on desmid taxonomy."
• "Closterium - Closterium is a desmid, a microscopic green algae that occurs in all types of freshwater habitats."
• "Strikingly symmetrical, each individual desmid is divided into two mirror-image halves, or semicells, which are connected by an isthmus that contains the nucleus."