Sargassum fusiforme (Harvey) Setchell, 1931

Belleza, Dominic Franco C., Tateishi, Hiroto, Tanimae, Shin-Ichiro, Kobayashi, Taishun, Aota, Tomoyuki, Urasawa, Toshiki & Nishihara, Gregory N., 2025, An annotated list of brown seaweeds (Phaeophyceae) from Nakadori Island (northern Goto Islands, Nagasaki, Japan), Phytotaxa 694 (1), pp. 1-24 : 14

Sargassum fusiforme (Harvey) Setchell, 1931

Japanese name: ヒジキ (hijiki)

Basionym: Cystophyllum fusiforme Harvey, 1860

Type locality: —Shimoda, Shizuoka, Japan

Description and remarks: —Specimens in the collection are fleshy with a 2–2.5 mm diameter main axis. The leaves are modified into cylindrical phylloids of various lengths, 1.5–3.5 mm long. The vesicles are fusiform with mucronate or attenuate tips and are attached to short stalks, 1–1.5 cm in length. Plants were collected from rocky outcrops on the exposed portion of Yokoura. This species was found at Naname, in the shallow subtidal areas but the plant heights are small compared to the ones at Yokoura.

This species is widely consumed as food in China, Japan and Korea and is known for being a potential source of therapeutic compounds that are of pharmaceutical importance ( Liu et al. 2020). However, people are cautioned on eating S. fusiforme as it is also known to contain inorganic arsenic ( Lee et al. 2022).

Materials examined: —18ECS1-49 (1 to 8)