Seaweeds and Seagrasses
Text and Photos by Jim Young
Seaweed Basics, Glossary, and Guide
The study of seaweeds and other algae is a branch of botany called phycology.
  Algae include, in addition to seaweeds, microscopic diatoms and dinoflagellates, the phytoplankton that drifts with ocean currents. Seaweeds have been called the "plants of the sea."  Yet, they and other algae belong to the diverse Kingdom Protista, not the Kingdom Plantae that includes vascular land plants. Green algae are most closely related to land plants and may their evolutionary ancestors.  Red algae have a more distant phylogenetic history, and Brown algae may be more at the trunk of the evolutionary tree, more closely related to diatoms than the other algae.
Green Seaweeds
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Brown Seaweeds
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Red Seaweeds
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Sea Grasses
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This guide is not complete. More seaweeds will be added as I photograph and identify additional species. I accept full responsibility for inaccuracies, and I invite any comments on these articles.  (All scientific names have been accepted by the World Register of Marine Species - 2018.)
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