An examination of the metabolic products of certain fucoids

Abstract

FOR some time past the attention of the authors has been drawn to the sea weeds, and the fact that at Blakeney in Norfolk there exists an extensive formation of the free growing fucoid Pelvetia canaliculataforma libera [Baker, 1912; Baker and Blandford, 1915] growing in association with Salicornia herbacea and Suaeda maritima, suggested a comparison of the metabolic products of this plant with that of Pelvetia canaliculata in order to see whether such an essentially sub-aerial plant has a metabolism divergent from that of its parent species living in its normal habitat, the sea. For it will be remembered that the sea weeds show many peculiarities which are not shared with terrestrial plants: the presence of ethereal sulphates in the cell-wall constituents, the lesser amount of cellulose, the presence of alginic acid, the common occurrence of mannitol, the presence of obscure carbohydrates such as laminarin, together with other peculiarities, indicate a type of metabolism different from that of the normal terrestrial plant.