The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gemmule \Gem"mule\, n. [L. gemmula, dim. of gemma: cf. F. gemmule. See Gem.]
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(Bot.)
A little leaf bud, as the plumule between the cotyledons.
One of the buds of mosses.
One of the reproductive spores of alg[ae].
An ovule.
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(Biol.)
A bud produced in generation by gemmation.
One of the imaginary granules or atoms which, according to Darwin's hypothesis of pangenesis, are continually being thrown off from every cell or unit, and circulate freely throughout the system, and when supplied with proper nutriment multiply by self-division and ultimately develop into cells like those from which they were derived. They are supposed to be transmitted from the parent to the offspring, but are often transmitted in a dormant state during many generations and are then developed. See Pangenesis.
Wiktionary
n. 1 (context biology English) A small gemma or bud of dormant embryonic cells produced by some freshwater sponges 2 (context obsolete English) A hypothetical particle once thought to be the basis of heredity
Wikipedia
Gemmules were imagined particles of inheritance proposed by Charles Darwin as part of his Pangenesis theory. This appeared in his book The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, published in 1868, nine years after the publication of his famous book On the Origin of Species.
Gemmules, also called plastitudes or pangenes, were assumed to be shed by the organs of the body and carried in the bloodstream to the reproductive organs where they accumulated in the germ cells or gametes. They thus provided a possible mechanism for the inheritance of acquired characteristics, as proposed by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, which Darwin believed to be a cause of the observed variation in living organisms.
This was prior to the 1900 rediscovery among biologists of Gregor Mendel's theory of the particulate nature of inheritance.
Gemmules are internal buds found in sponges and are involved in asexual reproduction. It is an asexually reproduced mass of cells, that is capable of developing into a new organism i.e., an adult sponge.
Usage examples of "gemmule".
What puts infinite order into those gemmules, instead of infinite anarchy?
If, then, food be considered as a direct agent in causing the structures and instinct, and not an indirect agent, merely indicating to the larva itself that it is to make itself after the fashion of neuter bees, then we should bear in mind that, at any rate, it has been leavened and prepared in the stomachs of those neuter bees into which the larva is now expected to develop itself, and may thus have in it more true germinative matter - gemmules, in fact - than is commonly supposed.
The essential organs of generation, the testicles in the male and the ovaries in the female, perform the task of collecting these gemmules and forming them into sets, each of which constitutes a reproductive element, and contains, in rudimentary form, a representative of every part of the individual, including the most minute peculiarities.
The gemmules must be very small indeed, but it may be suggested that the molecules of matter are smaller still, so this fact is no objection to the theory.
It is supposed that fecundation is chiefly necessary to give to the gemmules the requisite amount of nourishment to insure development.