22 Tuesday Oct 2024
Here’s another new-to-me seaweed, which the British beachcombers amongst you have probably seen many many times already, as it’s very common and found all around the coasts of Britain and Ireland.
This is Toothed wrack (Fucus serratus), also known as Serrated wrack, named for the sharp-looking toothed edges of its fronds.
As seen here, it is a brownish-green in colour, grows from a short stalk (shown in the photo at left), and its fronds are flat, with no air bladders.
15 Tuesday Oct 2024
Posted in seaweed
Although I live in a coastal town, it’s not exactly a seaside town, as the waterway immediately offshore is officially part of the Severn Estuary, which becomes the Bristol Channel just a mile or so downstream. However, the Severn Estuary is still home to at least 100 different species of seaweed and, during a recent walk, I found a couple of species I hadn’t noticed before.
This one is, I think, Knotted wrack (Ascophyllum nodosum). It certainly fits the description on the Marine Conservation Society website: ‘Knotted wrack has narrow, strap-like fronds with large single air bladders’, and looks like their photo. (The reason I sound hesitant is because I found a very similar photo on another website which was labelled Channel wrack).
earthstar 
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