Zostera marina
| Zostera marina | |
|---|---|
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Monocots |
| Order: | Alismatales |
| Family: | Zosteraceae |
| Genus: | Zostera |
| Species: | Z. marina |
| Binomial name | |
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Zostera marina L. |
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Zostera marina is a species of seagrass known by the common names common eelgrass and seawrack. It is an aquatic plant native to marine environments on the coastlines of mostly northern sections of North America and Eurasia.
This species is the most wide-ranging marine flowering plant in the Northern Hemisphere. It lives in cooler ocean waters in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, and in the warmer southern parts of its range it dies off during warmer seasons. It grows in the Arctic region and endures several months of ice cover per year. It is the only seagrass known from Iceland. It can be found in bays, lagoons, estuaries, on beaches, and in other coastal habitat. The several ecotypes each have specific habitat requirements. It occurs in calmer waters in the sublittoral zone, where it is rarely exposed to air. It anchors via rhizomes in sandy or muddy substrates and its leaves catch particulate debris in the water which then collects around the bases of the plants, building up the top layer of the seabed.
This flowering plant is a rhizomatous herb which produces a long stem with hairlike green leaves that measure up to 1.2 cm wide and may reach over 1.0 m long. It is a perennial plant, but it may grow as an annual. The rhizome grows horizontally through the substrate, anchoring via clusters of roots at nodes. The plant is monoecious, with an individual bearing both male and female flowers in separate alternating clusters. The inflorescence is about 10 cm long. The fruit is a nutlet with a transparent coat containing the seed. The plant can also undergo vegetative reproduction, sprouting repeatedly from its rhizome and spreading into a meadow-like colony on the seabed known as a genet. One meadow of cloned eelgrass was determined to be 3000 years old, genetically. When undergoing sexual reproduction, the plant produces large quantities of seeds, at times numbering several thousand seeds per square meter of plants. The plant disperses large distances when its stems break away and carry the fertile seeds to new areas, eventually dropping to the seabed. The seagrass is a favorite food of several species of waterfowl, which may also distribute the seeds.
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Wikipedia