User:Chzz/Botuliform

Botuliform refers to a sausage-shaped object that is approximately cylindrical, with rounded ends, a prolate spheroid.

narrow oblong cylinder, hemispherical terminus

Having the shape of a sausage. --Henslow. 1913 Webster

The word is derived from the Latin botuli-; the same prefix is used in the word botulism, which literally translates as "sausage poisoning".

The suffix -form refers to something that resembles the item in form, shape, likeness or characteristics, and is derived from the the old French verb formeur, from the Latin formare meaning "form".

It is used in the field of botany, for example to describe the herb Rumex ochotskius, which has "botuliform tubercles with obtuse apices".

In mammals, the Short-tailed Gymnure mouse (Hylomys suillus) has botuliform secretion cavities for their apocrine glands, in the skin of their withers.

In the context of fungi, it is close in meaning to the word allantoid, and used to describe certain vegetative yeast cells, the shape of which can be used to identify specific species, and can determine their method of reproduction, or to describe ascomata, the fruiting body of fungi such as Coryneliales, which form sausage-shaped under ground, but open into funnel-shaped ostioles.

The term has been used to describe vegetables. , the shape of a person,, and as a nickname for the human penis.

The cellular structure of bacilli in fossil records.

Taxonoic usage

 * Aegyptianella botuliformis  bact.   order Rickettsiales
 * Xylaria botuliformis  fungi  genus Xylaria
 * Eunotia botuliformis  algae   class Bacillariophyceae
 * Freycinetia botuliformis   plant, genus Freycinetia
 * Erica botuliformis     plant (heather), genus Erica
 * Cyatheacidites botuliformis ? fern, 'thought to be' genus Lophosoria
 * Dentalina botuliformis  genus Foraminifera prehistoric prob. protozoa
 * Septoria botuliformis  fungi genus Septoria