Sentence:  True corms, composed of united personae ... usually arise by gemmation, ... yet in sponges and corals occasionally by fusion of several originally distinct <WSD>persons</WSD>. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A shoot or bud of a plant; a polyp or zooid of the compound Hydrozoa, Anthozoa, etc.; also, an individual, in the narrowest sense, among the higher animals.