Eelgrass

BH got me going this morning by telling me about a plant that managed to flower underwater, the Zosteras. Clearly a botanical curiosity.

This mainly as a place to put some references which I dug up - without the help of Gemini - although he did provide a handy summary when I had finished. There are indeed very few plants that manage the whole flowering thing completely underwater - with most underwater plants not bothering with flowers at all.

I think most of those that do, rely on water transmission. But there is animal transmission too. Either way, vegetative regeneration seems to have been a more popular strategy in this context.

The Guardian, where all this started, suggests that eelgrass is an important marine conservation issue. They may have used the 'rewilding' word. But never fear, our government is on the case at reference 7.

[Seagrass in Helford River ©MMO/Francesca Della Valle, ex reference 7]

Very pretty stuff it is too, but I had to resort to the power of Bing and eyeball to find the river in question, between Falmouth (up) and Lizard (down). Something very wrong with the OS search feature, or at the very least, with the way that I use it. Something I seem to stumble across quite often.

[Seagrass with anemones worms - Fal and Helford]

PS 1: some time later, I got a bit further into reference 7 to find another interesting photo: Don't understand the caption - but maybe it will come to me.

Google Images explains that the strange animal, more or less in the middle of the photo is a Snakelocks anemone (Anemonia viridis) attached to a blade of seagrass (eelgrass). Reference 8.

While the curious, flower like thing to the left is a 'Peacock tube worm (Sabella pavonina), a beautiful species of segmented polychaete marine worms widely known for their elegant, flower-like appearance'. Reference 9.

[a zoom into the snap preceeding]

While left and right of the peacock we have 'burrowing sea anemones, most likely belonging to the family Edwardsiidae or a similar genus like Cereus or Peachia'. Plenty of stuff about these animals out there, but, not being a single species or genus, I did not turn up a general purpose article.

[Plate titled 'A variety of marine worms' from M. J. Schleiden's 'Das Meer']

But for polychaete, I did get to reference 10, from which the photo above is lifted. There is also a fair bit about them in Lecointre at reference 11, either in their own right or as prey for others.

A whole new world of strange animals with strange habits. Seemingly fairly fragile, at least in the shallow waters around our islands, so let's hope that the conservation people manage to get the boat people and the diving people on board, as it were.

PS 2: I jumped to giant kelp this morning, to stumble across reference 12, from which I learn of the seagrass in and around Ryde Pier on the Isle of Wight. Maybe I will remember to take a look when we go back next year. I am also reminded that the giant kelp is entirely different, a sort of giant algae and certainly not a flowering plant, a much more advanced form of life altogether.

Wikipedia tells me, inter alia, that '... It can be used in cooking in many of the ways other sea vegetables are used, and particularly serves to add flavor to bean dishes...'. Perhaps the very beans that I was on about yesterday.

PS 3: I was also interested in the blast from the past at reference 13, one feature of which was that all the illustrations were lifted from television programmes or films. Mobile phones not having been invented. But I liked the opening snap, with its large saucepan. I remembered my introduction to the world of dried vegetables in a utensil which was probably of a similar size. Possibly enamel rather than stainless steel.

References

Reference 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zostera_marina.

Reference 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zosteraceae. '... a family of marine perennial flowering plants found in temperate and subtropical coastal waters, with the highest diversity located around Korea and Japan. Most seagrasses complete their entire life cycle under water...'. 

Reference 3: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/underwater-meadows-seagrass-could-be-ideal-carbon-sinks-180970686/. Sea grass and carbon sinks.

Reference 4: https://depts.washington.edu/fhl/mb/Zostera_Jess/Life%20History.html. Tutorial.

Reference 5: Seagrasses: Biology. Ecology and Conservation - edited by Larkum, Orth, Duarte - 2006. For the serious punter. Available at the Internet Archive.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallisneria. Not the real thing, but turned up in the margins of Zomlefer.

Reference 7: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/seagrass-protection-and-recovery. 

Reference 8: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakelocks_anemone.

Reference 9: https://www.marlin.ac.uk/species/detail/1717.

Reference 10: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychaete.  

Reference 11: The tree of life: a phylogenetic classification – Lecointre and Le Guyader – 2006.

Reference 12: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/07/econews.html.

Reference 13: Student digs: the end of an era: High costs mean increasing numbers of those going from school into higher education are opting to live with their parents - Alexandra Goss, Financial Times - 2026.