Prompted by a piece in the Guardian a couple of days ago about how the giant kelp forests in the coastal waters off Tasmania are dying off, had a quick look this afternoon. With these forests, growing to perhaps 50m in height, a good reason to go in for underwater swimming - although it seems unlikely that I will ever make it. These forests must be very impressive when one is in among them. How much like being in a mature forest of pines or cypresses?
From reference 1, I learn that these huge plants are, despite appearances, not really (vascular) plants at all, rather a form of brown algae. But part of a family which make up a large chunk of marine biomass - at least they still do just presently.
Reference 1:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macrocystis_pyrifera.
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