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.".    From Wordnik.com.  [Mother Earth News Latest 10 Articles] Reference

Dr. Priestley, and called by him conferva fontinalis.    From Wordnik.com.  [Note I] Reference

Vt Eccl6fiam tuam fan - ftam r6gere & conferva - re digneris, tc rogamus.    From Wordnik.com.  [Diurnale Noviomense. ad usum regalis ecclesiæ S. Quintini accommodatum. Pars hiemalis (æstiva).] Reference

A conferva grows in the hot water, and the garnets are worn out of the gneiss rock exposed to its action.    From Wordnik.com.  [Himalayan Journals — Complete] Reference

Riiinus y oT&m fine ilio terfsnam rednere paniamo nobis conferva - none 9 fi» & extraordinariis Irifct affogviis.    From Wordnik.com.  [Lux in tenebris, hoc est prophetiæ donum quô Deus Ecclesiam Evangelicam, in regno Bohemiæ ...] Reference

A clammy conferva covers everything except the mosaics upon tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the course of age.    From Wordnik.com.  [Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series] Reference

A conferva grew in the waters of the lake, and short, hard tufts of sedge on the banks, but no other plants were to be seen.    From Wordnik.com.  [Himalayan Journals — Complete] Reference

But if the conferva or parasitic fungus exceeds its allies in the above respects, it will then be dominant within its own class.    From Wordnik.com.  [II. Variation under Nature. Wide-Ranging, Much Diffused, and Common Species Vary Most] Reference

At Maypures a conferva is burnt, which is left by the Orinoco on the neighbouring rocks, when, after high swellings, it again enters its bed.    From Wordnik.com.  [Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Year 1799-1804 — Volume 2] Reference

Dr. Priestley for believing that the seeds of this conferva, and the parents of microscopic animals, exist universally in the atmosphere, and penetrate the sides of glass jars.    From Wordnik.com.  [Note I] Reference

Microscopic animals produced from all vegetable and animal infusions; generate others like themselves by solitary reproduction; not produced from eggs; conferva fontinalis; mucor.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society A Poem, with Philosophical Notes] Reference

A plant of this kind is not the less dominant because some conferva inhabiting the water or some parasitic fungus is infinitely more numerous in individuals and more widely diffused.    From Wordnik.com.  [II. Variation under Nature. Wide-Ranging, Much Diffused, and Common Species Vary Most] Reference

I know it is not new; but how wonderful his account of the spermatozoa of some dioecious alga or conferva, swimming and finding the minute micropyle in a distinct plant, and forcing its way in!.    From Wordnik.com.  [More Letters of Charles Darwin — Volume 2] Reference

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.    From Wordnik.com.  [Records of a Family of Engineers] Reference

The difference between the minute, rapidly-formed, and self-moving spore of a conferva, and the slowly-developed seed of a tree, with its multiplied envelopes and large stock of nutriment laid by to nourish the germ during its first stages of growth, illustrates this law in its application to the vegetal world.    From Wordnik.com.  [Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects Everyman's Library] Reference

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.    From Wordnik.com.  [Records of a Family of Engineers] Reference

Let a wine glass filled with water be inverted over the conferva, the air will collect in the upper part of the glass, and when the glass is filled with air, it may be closed by the hand, placed in its usual position, and an in - flamed taper introduced into it; the taper will bum with more bril - liancy than in the atmosphere.    From Wordnik.com.  [Elements of Chemical Philosophy: Part 1, Vol.1] Reference

His method of collecting this air is by placing over the green substance, which he believes to be a vegetable of the genus conferva, an inverted bell-glass previously filled with water, which subsides as the air arises; it has since been found that all vegetables give up pure air from their leaves, when the sun shines upon them, but not in the night, which may be owing to the sleep of the plant.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Botanic Garden A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: the Economy of Vegetation] Reference

M. Girtanner asserts, that this green vegetable matter is not produced by water and heat alone, but requires the sun's light for this purpose, as he observed by many experiments, and thinks it arises from decomposing water deprived of a part of its oxygen, and laughs at Dr. Priestley for believing that the seeds of this conferva, and the parents of microscopic animals, exist universally in the atmosphere, and penetrate the sides of glass jars; Philos.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society A Poem, with Philosophical Notes] Reference

The back covered with conferva.    From Wordnik.com.  [Journals of Two Expeditions of Discovery in North-West and Western Australia, Volume 2] Reference

Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum.    From Wordnik.com.  [Autocrat of the Breakfast Table] Reference

Che H JVIondo accorda, e lo conferva infieme.    From Wordnik.com.  [Essai Sur L'homme: Poëme Philosophique] Reference

Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Book of Humorous Verse] Reference

Nobis eos, quemadmodum fcribis, conferva.    From Wordnik.com.  [Opera, cum indicibus et variis lectionibus] Reference

Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum.    From Wordnik.com.  [The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes — Volume 06: Poems from the Breakfast Table Series] Reference