KELP

any of numerous large seaweeds found in colder seas and belonging to the order Laminariales (about 30 genera) of brown algae. The term applies also to the ash produced by the incineration of various seaweeds. Until early in the 19th century this ash was an important source of potash (derived from the plant's stemlike stipe) and iodine (extracted from its leaflike blades). Giant kelp, of the genus Macrocystis, is rich in minerals and produces algin, a complex carbohydrate (polysaccharide) that is useful in various industrial processes, including tire manufacture. Algin is added to ice cream before freezing to prevent crystallization and is also used as a suspending and emulsifying agent. Several genera of brown algae are known as kelp. Laminaria, a large brown seaweed (1 to 3 m [3.3 to 9.8 feet] long) abundant along the Pacific coasts and the British Isles, is a source of commercial iodine and produces acetic acid when allowed to ferment. It has a stipe that superficially resembles the stem of land plants and lives several years, but the blade dies each year. Growth occurs, as in all kelp, at the meristematic region between the stipe and the blade. Macrocystis, the largest known kelp, up to 65 m (215 feet) long, is limited in distribution because it reproduces only at temperatures below 1820 C. The complicated plant body, similar in appearance to that of higher plants, has a large rootlike holdfast for attachment to the ocean floor, a hollow stemlike stipe for the internal transport of organic material, and a long branching stalk with blades that stay afloat by means of hollow gas bladders. Nereocystis, or sea otter's cabbage, an annual kelp that grows primarily in deep waters and rapid tideways, can attain lengths up to 40 m (130 feet). Internally the plant structure is similar to Macrocystis; externally the stalk is tough and whiplike, terminating in a large bladder. The long leafy outgrowths from the stalk carry out photosynthesis and reproduction.