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Aspergillus fumigatus is a grayish-green mold that gets its weird name from the shape of its spore-producing structures, which resemble an aspergillum, a Christian liturgical tool used to sprinkle holy water.

After Communion, the parishioners, many carrying bunches of willow branches wrapped in twine, congregated before the altar as Lebed picked up the aspergillum, a brush he used to sprinkle holy water.

They came one at a time, raising their branches above their head while Lebed dipped the aspergillum into a nearby basin and swung it in a powerful arc toward each supplicant, inundating their branch and face with the water.

At the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, cylindrical clusters of the glass sponge Euplectella aspergillum jut upward like skyscrapers in the deep sea.

Harvard University researchers hoping to build stronger and lighter structures looked for inspiration in the deep-water sponge Euplectella aspergillum, whose tubelike skeleton forms a square grid with diagonal reinforcements.