Biodiversity & Conservation

A red seaweed - Gracilaria multipartita

A red seaweed

Do you have an image for this species? upload it here

Distribution map

Gracilaria multipartita recorded (dark blue bullet) and expected (light blue bullet) distribution in Britain and Ireland (see below)

Why do the maps differ?

Sightings Have you seen Gracilaria multipartita?
If so please submit your record.

Gracilaria multipartita is not listed under any importance categories.

Taxonomy icon Taxonomy Taxon English term
Phylum Rhodophyta Red seaweeds
Class Florideophyceae
Authority (Clemente y Rubio) Harvey, 1846
Recent synonyms Gracilaria foliifera
Map icon Recorded Distribution in Britain and Ireland Distribution in the British Isles is restricted to Cornwall, south Devon and Dorset.
Habitat information icon Habitat information Grows on rocks or other hard substrata, tolerating a wide degree of wave exposure. Recorded from the upper sublittoral to a depth of 15 m. Gracilaria multipartita is also tolerant of sand and mud cover.
Text page icon Description Gracilaria multipartita is a translucent, dull purple or reddish-brown algae which has fronds that measure up to 25 cm long. It is cartilaginous, very brittle, and has a compressed stipe.
Identifying features
  • Translucent algae, dull purple or reddish brown in colour (sometimes bleached).
  • Stipe compressed, expanding gradually into a blade which is up to 1 mm thick and up to 1 cm broad between dichotomies.
  • Stipe eventually branches up to 6 times in the plane of the blade.
  • The margin of the blade is frequently proliferous.
Additional information icon Additional information Globally there is some variation in frond-width and the degree of branching, although the appearance is quite uniform in the British Isles. Gracilaria multipartita is commercially used as an agar or agaroid raw material in the U.S.A.

This review can be cited as follows:

Edward Mayhew 2002. Gracilaria multipartita. A red seaweed. Marine Life Information Network: Biology and Sensitivity Key Information Sub-programme [on-line]. Plymouth: Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. [cited 09/02/2010]. Available from: <http://www.marlin.ac.uk/speciesinformation.php?speciesID=3417>