conferva

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   an obsolete or historical botanical term for threadlike freshwater algae, formerly grouped in the genus Conferva

   The naturalist collected a floating mat of conferva from the pond.

Borrowed from Latin conferva, the name of a water plant once thought to help wounds knit together. It is associated with Latin confervere 'to grow together or heal,' literally 'to seethe together.' Later naturalists applied the name broadly to simple filamentous algae.

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