Definition of "vallisneria" [vallisneria]

• A genus of monocotyledonous plants, of the order Hydrocharideæ, type of the tribe Vallisnerieæ. (noun)
• [lowercase] A plant of this genus. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "The decaying leaves of the vallisneria produced a slime which began to affect the fish injuriously: this it was necessary to get quit of."
• "So luxuriant was the growth of the vallisneria under these circumstances, that by the autumn the one solitary plant originally introduced had thrown out very numerous offshoots and suckers, thus multiplying to the extent of upwards of thirty-five strong plants, and these threw up their long spiral flower-stems in all directions, so that at one time more than forty blossoms were counted lying on the surface of the water."
• "A naturalist, who had studied this subject, thought it not impossible that the first insects were the anthers and stigmas of flowers, which had by some means loosened themselves from their parent plant, like the male flowers of vallisneria, and that other insects in process of time had been formed from these, some acquiring wings,"