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Gracilaria is a genus of red seaweeds (algae), not a flowering plant, grown commercially for agar and eaten as food. Warm-water species are cultivated in ponds and coastal sites, and they need warm seawater above 10 °C.
Gracilaria, also known as Irish moss or ogonori, is a genus of red algae in the family Gracilariaceae. It is notable for its economic importance as an agarophyte meaning that it is used to make agar, as well as its use as a food for humans and various species of shellfish. Various species in the genus are cultivated among Asia, South America, Africa and Oceania. They produce over 90% of the world's agar.
Gracilaria are found in warm waters throughout the world, though they also occur seasonally in temperate waters. It can not tolerate temperatures below 10 °C (50 °F). Gracilaria are found in all oceans except the Arctic. Their center of diversity is the Western Pacific, where they have been traditionally cultivated as a source of agar.
Gracilaria is used as a food in Filipino, Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean and Sri Lankan cuisines. In Japanese cuisine, it is called ogonori or ogo, and used to make tokoroten. In the Philippines, it is called gulaman and used to make a gelatin substitute. In Jamaica, it is known as Irish moss. In Korea, it is known as kkosiraegi.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Gracilaria by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
