: any of a genus (Spirogyra) of freshwater green algae with spiral chloroplasts
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the WebSpecialists reckon that human run-off contributed to the lake’s latest crisis: the sudden and widespread appearance of a new form of algae, spirogyra.The Economist, 22 Feb. 2018
Word History
Etymology
borrowed from New Latin Spirogyra, genus name, from Latin spīra "coil, twist, whorl" + Greek -o- -o- + gȳrá, feminine of gȳrós "curved, rounded" — more at spire entry 3, gyre entry 1
Note: The genus was introduced by the German botanist Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link (1767-1851) in "Epistola de algis aquaticis in genera disponendis," Horae physicae Berolinensis collectae ex symbolis virorum doctorum, edited by Christian Nees von Esenbeck (Bonn, 1820), p. 5