In search of Sargassm (半葉馬尾藻)

Last month, my family spent a day in Clearwater Way Bay. It was a warm, sunny day with gentle breezes. My daughter enjoyed building sand castles and chasing waves. As she kicked the waves, her feet got entangled by something brown and slimy in appearance. She was so curious about this brown stuff and asked me whether it was living or not. I took a look at it and recognized that it was Sargassm, a seaweed commonly found in local water in Winter and Spring. Unlike its close relative Fucus, Sargassm is a free drifter throughout its life and has no holdfast to make a firm grip on the rock surface. I also showed my daughter how Sargassm adapts to this mode of life by equipping its leaf blade with air bladders, which provides buoyancy to keep the plant body at full exposure to sunlight and thus maximizes the photosynthetic efficiency.

My daughter seemed to be bored by my explanation. She was only interested in collecting seaweeds from the beach and throwing them back to the sea. So I stopped explaining and just played with my daughter.

It was a lovely and enjoyable family day.