calamus vs gemmule

calamus

noun
  • A quill; the hard, horny, hollow, and more or less transparent part of the stem or scape of a feather. 

  • Synonym of fistula (“tube for sucking Eucharist wine”) 

  • A palm in genus Calamus, of rattan palms. 

  • The sweet flag, Acorus calamus. 

  • A fish of genus Calamus in family Sparidae; certain porgies. 

gemmule

noun
  • Synonym of plumule (“the first bud, or growing point, of a plant embryo, situated above the cotyledons”) 

  • In the obsolete theory of pangenesis propounded by the English scientist Charles Darwin (1809–1882): a hypothetical particle once thought to be the basis of heredity. 

  • Synonym of dendritic spine (“a small membranous protrusion from the dendrite of a neuron that typically receives input from a single axon at the synapse”) 

How often have the words calamus and gemmule occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )