The Beauty of Algae on the Paper

They smell bad, they are gummy and sticky, and they may even hide dangerous animals. However most of them are completely harmless and beautiful.

In my opinion, we don’t know much about algae. Even if most of the world population live in a city not far from the sea, people don’t show any interests in algae. For these people, algae are just floating plants in the ocean.

Nonetheless, algae have a huge potential! We can transform them into bioplastics, medicines and food. You can even go on the beach, collect and directly cook them.

Last time, I went to my hometown in Bretagne in France, I did an herbarium of algae. I put a piece of paper in the water below an alga. Then I slowly took the paper out of the water with the alga on it. The alga kept its “natural” shape like if it were still in the water. I finally dried it in newspapers under a pile of heavy dictionaries. It became flat and sticked to the piece of paper.

To identify the different algae I had to look at other herbarium and books during hours… There are 3 main groups: the green, the brown and the red. The color depends on their position on the foreshore and their time of exposition to the sun. Colors are pigments which protect the algae against too much sun, like carotenoids in terrestrial plants. The shape, the colour and the texture are the main characters you can use to identify the species. It’s not an easy task…But at the end, it worth it.

To light up your interest, I selected and scanned my most beautiful specimen. You can look at them now and admire the art of Nature.