From New Latin elatēr, from Ancient Greek ἐλατήρ (elatḗr, “driver, that which drives away”).
Meanings
(obsolete) Elasticity; especially the expansibility of a gas.
A long, slender cell produced among spores and having hygroscopic secondary cell wall thickenings.
The closest affinities of the Jubulaceae are with the Lejeuneaceae. The two families share in common: (a) elaters usually 1-spiral, trumpet-shaped and fixed to the capsule valves, distally[…] 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page 4:
Any of the long, slender hygroscopic appendages attached to the spores of horsetails (genus Equisetum).