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1
capitalized
: a genus (the type of the family Characeae) of plants common in freshwater lakes of limestone districts and usually having the central internodal cells of the stem, often encrusted with calcareous deposits, sheathed by smaller cells â see nitella
2
plural -s
: any plant of the genus Chara
History and Etymology for chara
borrowed from New Latin, altered, probably after Latin chara, plant of unknown identity, from French or Franco-Provençal charapot, charrapot or charagne, charaigne, names for Chara vulgaris or a similar alga, of unknown origin
Note:
Chara is a genus initiated by Linnaeus (Species plantarum, 1753, p. 1156) on the basis of a pre-Linnaean name introduced by the French botanist SĂ©bastien Vaillant (âCaracteres de quatorze genres de plantes,â in MĂ©moires de lâAcadĂ©mie Royale des Sciences for 1719, p. 17-20). Vaillant in turn took the name from the Historia generalis plantarum (Lyon, 1586) of the French botanist and classicist Jacques DalĂ©champs (âChara, selon lâAutheur de lâHistoire des Plantes de Lion, est le nom que les Lionnois donnent Ă la premiere espece de ce genreâ â âChara, according to the author of the Histoire des Plantes of Lyon, is the name given by the Lyonnais to the first species of this genusâ). DalĂ©champs brings up the plant in a discussion of horsetails (p. 1070): âEst & quintum genus, minimum, aquis cĆnosis innatans, vel sub iis occultum semper, breuissimis & asperis foliis, ac caulibus, lutosum virus olentibus. Lugdunenses vocant chara quasi Cheredranon, quo nomine Equisetum vocari insupposititiis nomenclaturis Dioscoridis legimus, ea quĂŠ lances escarias, & reliquam eiusmodi supellectilem abstergunt ⊠â (âThere is a fifth kind, very small, floating on dirty water, or rather always hidden in it, with very short and rough leaves and stems, giving off a muddy smell. The Lyonnais call it chara, that is to say Cheredranonâa name for the horsetail that we find in Dioscoridesâ made-up nomenclatureâwith which they scour dishes and other utensils of that sort ⊠â). DalĂ©champs appears to have had in mind any of several words recorded in late 18th- and 19th-century French botanical references as char(r)apot, charapat, charagne, charaigne, etc. (as, for example, âcharaigne ou charapot,â Nicolas Jolyclerc, Phytologie universelle, ou histoire naturelle et mĂ©thodique des plantes, tome 2, Paris, An VII [1799], p. 164). Localization of these words within France is unclear, as they seem to have fallen through French lexicographical nets. DalĂ©champs may have arbitrarily shortened the word, or may have chanced upon chara, a kind of root found in Epirus but not otherwise identified (a word occurring only once in the Classical Latin corpus, in Julius Caesarâs De bello civili 3.48), and used this as the basis for his name.
