''Silvetia'' is a genus of

brown algae Brown algae (: alga) are a large group of multicellular algae comprising the class (biology), class Phaeophyceae. They include many seaweeds located in colder waters of the Northern Hemisphere. Brown algae are the major seaweeds of the temperate ...

, commonly known as rockweed, found in the

intertidal zone The intertidal zone or foreshore is the area above water level at low tide and underwater at high tide; in other words, it is the part of the littoral zone within the tidal range. This area can include several types of habitats with various ...

of rocky seashores of the

Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...

. These were originally classified as members of the genus ''

Pelvetia ''Pelvetia canaliculata'', the channelled wrack, is a very common brown alga (Phaeophyceae) found on the rocks of the upper shores of Europe. It is the only species remaining in the monotypic genus ''Pelvetia''. In 1999, the other members of this ...

''. In 1999, ''Silvetia sp.'' was created as a separate species from ''Pelvetia canaliculata'' due to differences of

oogonium An oogonium (: oogonia) is a small diploid cell which, upon maturation, forms a primordial follicle in a female fetus or the female (haploid or diploid) gametangium of certain thallophytes. In the mammalian fetus Oogonia are formed in large ...

structure and of nucleic acid sequences of the rDNA. It was renamed in honor of Paul Silva, Curator of Algae at the Herbarium of the University of California, Berkeley. There are three species and one subspecies.

Taxonomy

This list of species of ''Silvetia'' contains those considered to belong to this genus as of 2013: *'' Silvetia babingtonii'' (Harvey, 1860) (E.Serrão, T.O.Cho, S.M.Boo & Brawley, 1999) *'' Silvetia compressa'' (J.Agardh, 1848)(E.Serrão, T.O.Cho, S.M.Boo & Brawley, 1999) **''Silvetia compressa deliquescens'' (Abbott and Hollenberg, 1976) *'' Silvetia siliquosa'' (Tseng & C. F. Chang, 1953) (E.Serrão, T.O.Cho, S.M.Boo & Brawley, 1999)

Taxonomy

References

Further reading