spicula

noun

1. (form-of, plural)plural of spiculum
2. A little spike; a spikelet or spiculum.

   “He concludes this Diſſertation, by endeavouring to explain the Manner of its [olive oil's] operating, which he attributes to its fat inviſcating Nature, whereby it ſheathes the Spicula of the Poiſon.”

   “And yet Thoreau camps down by Walden Pond and shows us that absolutely nothing in Nature has ever yet been described,--not a bird nor a berry of the woods, nor a drop of water, nor a spicula of ice, nor summer, nor winter, nor sun, nor star.”

   “Introducing the alum-cell, and placing the coating of hoar-frost at the intensely luminous focus of the electric lamp, not a spicula of the dazzling frost is melted.”

3. A pointed fleshy appendage.

   “Nature 'publishes itself in creatures, reaching from particles and spicula, through transformation on transformation to the highest symmetries.”