Saccorhiza polyschides (Lightfoot) Batters
Names: formerly known as Saccorhiza bulbosa. Furbelows or Furbellows (English), Claíomh (Irish). The base is often known as "Sea Hedgehog".
Description: Thallus laminate, yellowish to dark brown, generally to 3 m long; holdfast large, hollow and covered in smooth warts (below, bottom; thus "Sea Hedgehog") when mature, giving rise to a flattened oar-like stipe with beautifully symmetrical frilly "wings" (below, left and right) with a single twist at the base. Stipe forming a single digitate fronds with irregularly lacinate "digits", these are dotted with groups of hairs.
Habitat: lower intertidal and shallow subtidal. Generally filling in "holes" in shallow-water Laminaria digitata forests. This is an annual kelp, essentially an opportunist that colonises any vacant space in the forest, but cannot compete with the dominant species.
Distribution: widely distributed in Britain, Ireland, France, Spain and Portugal. South to the Canary Islands, Morocco, Ghana and Mauritania.
Key characteristics: Hedgehog-like base (absent in very young plants), flattened oar-like stipe with frilly edges at base. A flattened stipe of this kind is not found in any other kelp.
ADVERTISING
Wild Irish Seaweed. Certified Organic Seaweeds hand harvested sustainably by the Talty Family off the coast of Co. Clare on the west coast of Ireland.
Connemara Organic Seaweed Company provide hand harvested, sustainable, kelp and seaweed products for human consumption through health supplements and edible products.
This is Seaweed. The finest organic seaweeds lovingly hand-harvested from the nutrient-rich Atlantic Irish shores.
Emerald Isle Organic Irish Seaweed. A family business producing seaweed as supplements, cooking, gardening and bath products.
Irish Seaweeds Ltd. Suppliers of 100% natural hand-harvested seaweeds and edible sea vegetable products from Ireland.
Seaweed courses, cookery courses, and much more in Co. Waterford.