Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Any of numerous small, green, nonvascular plants of the division Marchantiophyta, growing in moist environments and consisting of either a leafy mosslike structure or a flat thallus that is often lobed.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Any plant of the cryptogamic family Hepaticæ.
  • noun One of several other plants that suggest the liver by their form, or are supposed to be useful in diseases of the liver. Among them are the common agrimony, Agrimonia Eupatoria, and the liverleaf, Anemone Hepatica.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Bot.) A ranunculaceous plant (Anemone Hepatica) with pretty white or bluish flowers and a three-lobed leaf; -- called also squirrel cups.
  • noun A flowerless plant (Marchantia polymorpha), having an irregularly lobed, spreading, and forking frond.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A type of bryophyte (includes mosses, liverworts, and hornworts) with a leafy stem or leafless thallus characterized by a dominant gametophyte stage and a lack of stomata on the sporophyte stage of the life cycle.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any of numerous small green nonvascular plants of the class Hepaticopsida growing in wet places and resembling green seaweeds or leafy mosses

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From its use in treating diseases of the liver.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From liver + Old English wort ("plant"), from the belief that some species looked like livers and were useful for treating the liver medicinally.

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Examples

  • This is modified by the prevailing high humidity, giving peaty soils and a wide distribution of oceanic plants such as liverwort Frullania teneriffae, by the effect of salt spray even hundreds of meters inland, resulting in Plantago-dominated swards on cliff tops, and by the fertilizing effects of vast numbers of nesting seabirds which create a rich turf.

    St Kilda (Hirta) National Nature Reserve, United Kingdom 2008

  • The night lit up as the neutron bomb detonated, wiping away the rare liverwort and its jungle home.

    365 tomorrows » 2009 » October : A New Free Flash Fiction SciFi Story Every Day 2009

  • The liverwort was reported less than ten kilometers from here.

    365 tomorrows » 2009 » October : A New Free Flash Fiction SciFi Story Every Day 2009

  • Mediterranean-Atlantic liverwort Fossombonia angulosa also occurs here, at its northernmost locality.

    St Kilda (Hirta) National Nature Reserve, United Kingdom 2008

  • Cryptogram Ridge on Mount Melbourne, Victoria Land (74°21'S, 164°42'E) has geothermal activity that supports a unique community of bryophytes, algae, and microbiota (including the only known occurrence in the Antarctic of the moss, Campylopus pyriformis) and the very rare continental occurrence of the liverwort, Cephaloziella exiliflora.

    Maudlandia Antarctic desert 2008

  • This vegetation ranges from the 10-m high Dacrydium gibbsiae to dwarf shrubs and includes moss, lichen, liverwort, and ferns.

    Kinabalu montane alpine meadows 2007

  • Milkwort and liverwort starred the green slope, the larks sang, and thrushes in the brake, and now and then a gull flighting inland would wheel very white against the paling sky, where the vague moon was coming up.

    To Let 2004

  • Once he substituted lettuce for liverwort, and I ended up with a ten-foot-tall saber-toothed rabbit.

    The Day of the Dissonance Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 1984

  • Once he substituted lettuce for liverwort, and I ended up with a ten-foot-tall saber-toothed rabbit.

    The Day of the Dissonance Foster, Alan Dean, 1946- 1984

  • Note that large GenBank entries (Lambda, EBV, tobacco and liverwort chloroplasts) may not make it through the thread of mailers.

    What We Didn't Know About Slavery Rose, Willie Lee 1974

Comments

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  • Also known as Hepatic

    August 26, 2008