Economically important brown seaweed. Laminaria digitata

Laminaria is a genus of multicellular brown seaweed commonly called kelp. They are found through out the world and are the most productive habitats in the marine environment. They grow rapidly, some species can grow 30 cm per day. They have a haplodiplophasic life cycle alternating between a microscopic filamentous gametophyte and a macroscopic sporophyte, which can reach several meters in length depending on the species. The kelp sporophytes are economically important and are cultivated in East Asia. It is used for the production of algin, a gel forming polysaccharide used in a large variety of pharmaceutical, food, and industrial application. Mitochondrial genome of Laminaria digitata has been sequenced by Oudot et al..