bladderwrack
Jan. 19th, 2018 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordbladderwrack (BLAD-uhr-rak) - n., a common cold-water rocky-shoreline seaweed (Fucus vesiculosus) with branched brown fronds with air bladders.
Also called rockweed, rockwrack, sea-oak, cutweed, bladder fucus, dyers fucus, and red fucus. Formerly important in coastal farming regions as a fertilizer, but even more importantly, iodine was first isolated from it, and dried bladderwrack (in that form, sometimes called kelp) was used to treat iodine deficiency (goitre). Name comes from the little bladders and how it can be commonly found washed onto shore, i.e., as wrack.
---L.
Also called rockweed, rockwrack, sea-oak, cutweed, bladder fucus, dyers fucus, and red fucus. Formerly important in coastal farming regions as a fertilizer, but even more importantly, iodine was first isolated from it, and dried bladderwrack (in that form, sometimes called kelp) was used to treat iodine deficiency (goitre). Name comes from the little bladders and how it can be commonly found washed onto shore, i.e., as wrack.
---L.
