Definition of "conferva" []

• An unbranched slender green freshwater alga. (noun)

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• "Known as far back as 400 B.C.E. Greece, comfrey is an extraordinary plant whose name derives from the Latin conferva, meaning "water plant healer.""
• "The floor of the mortar gallery having been already laid down by Mr. Watt and his men on a former visit, was merely soaked with the sprays; but the joisting-beams which supported it had, in the course of the winter, been covered with a fine downy conferva produced by the range of the sea."
• "At the latter end of last season, as was formerly noticed, the beacon was painted white, and from the bleaching of the weather and the sprays of the sea the upper parts were kept clean; but within the range of the tide the principal beams were observed to be thickly coated with a green stuff, the conferva of botanists."