Biol. Pl. -æ. [mod.L. dim. (with change of gender) of TORUS (sense 3): cf. F. torule masc.] lit. A small rounded swelling or bulge. a. Each of the minute rounded cells of various fungi or microbes, as the yeast-plant and certain endoparasitic organisms; also, a chain of such cells. b. (With capital.) A genus of fungi, chiefly fermentative. (Introd. by Persoon, 1796.)
1833. Hooker, Brit. Flora, II. II. 359. (Genus) Tórula. Pers. Sporidia chained together into moniliform erect flocci.
1860. Berkeley, Brit. Fungology, 326. Torula, P. Spores tomiparous, simple.
1861. H. Macmillan, Footn. Page of Nat., 243. In all saccharine fluids undergoing the alcoholic and even the acetous fermentation these minute torulæ or yeast-cells make their appearance.
1875. Huxley & Martin, Elem. Biol., i. 2. Each granule [of yeast] (which is termed a Torula) is … a round, or oval, transparent body…. The Torulæ are either single, or associated in heaps or strings. Ibid., iv. 26. Bacteria, like Torulæ and Protococci, are not killed by drying up, and from their excessive minuteness they must be carried about still more easily than Torulæ are.
Hence Torulaceous a., consisting of torulæ; belonging to the order Torulacei of fungi; Toruliform a. (erron. torulaform: see -FORM), having the form of a torula or chain of rounded cells, moniliform; Toruloid a., resembling a torula; belonging or allied to the genus Torula.
1876. trans. Schützenberger’s Ferment., 205. The *torulaceous growth is developed with difficulty, and the transformation is very slow.
1876. trans. Wagner’s Gen. Pathol. (ed. 6), 92. The filaments are not constricted at the joints, like the moniliform chains (*torulaform) of the globular bacteria.
1874. Cooke, Fungi, 120. Formation of networks of mycelium, or masses of *toruloid cells.
