Kōrero: Seaweed

It was standard practice for early European explorers to make natural history observations and collect specimens from the new lands they visited. These brown seaweeds were collected during the French explorer Dumont d'Urville’s third visit to New Zealand in 1840, and one is named in his honour. This engraving, from a painting by Alfred Riocreux, shows fronds of Marginariella urvilleana and reproductive structures of Marginariella boryana. Both species are found only in New Zealand waters.