Gnarled enamel is a description of enamel seen in histologic sections of a tooth underneath a cusp. The appearance of enamel appears different and very complex under the cusp, but this is not due to a different arrangement of dental tissues. Instead, the enamel still has the same arrangement of enamel rods. The strange appearance results from the lines of enamel rods directed vertically under a cusp and from their orientation in a small circumference.
Famous quotes containing the word gnarled:
“The life of a good man will hardly improve us more than the life of a freebooter, for the inevitable laws appear as plainly in the infringement as in the observance, and our lives are sustained by a nearly equal expense of virtue of some kind. The decaying tree, while yet it lives, demands sun, wind, and rain no less than the green one. It secretes sap and performs the functions of health. If we choose, we may study the alburnum only. The gnarled stump has as tender a bud as the sapling.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)