Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- proper noun A taxonomic
genus within thefamily Zosteraceae — theseagrasses .
Etymologies
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Examples
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The minute fragments broken off from seaweeds and from the sea-grass (a flowering plant called Zostera) form a sort of nutritive sea-dust which is swept slowly down the slope from the shore, to form a very useful deposit in the quietness of deepish water.
The Outline of Science, Vol. 1 (of 4) A Plain Story Simply Told J. Arthur Thomson 1897
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I detected some years ago, in the Trilobite-bearing schists of Girvan, associated with graptolites of the Lower Silurian type, a vegetable organism somewhat resembling the leaf of one of the pond weeds, -- an order of plants, some of whose species, such as Zostera, find their proper habitats in salt water.
The Testimony of the Rocks or, Geology in Its Bearings on the Two Theologies, Natural and Revealed Hugh Miller 1829
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Mangrove forest, which is at its northern limit in the North Pacific, comprises Rhizophora mangle, Zostera marina and Salicornia bigelowii (IK).
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The vegetation of 600-800 square kilometers (km2) of shallow water is vast expanses of seagrass, especially the eelgrass Zostera noltii in the intertidal zone and Cymodocea nodosa with Halodule wrightii in the subtidal zone.
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Beds of eelgrass (both native Zostera marina, and the introduced Zostera japonica) cover an estimated 100 acres of the Coos estuary bottom.
South Slough National Estuarine Research Reserve, Oregon 2008
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Similarly, when wasting disease decimated eelgrass (Zostera marina) throughout the North Atlantic in the 1930s, the Maryland and Virginia fisheries for bay scallops, which depend on eelgrass, crashed and never rebounded.
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Important marine species comprise Portland rock sea lavendar Limonium recurvum portlandicum, extensive populations of two species of eelgrass, Zostera spp. and three species of tasselweed, Ruppia spp. including the rare spiral tasselweed R. cirrhosa.
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There are two species of seagrass in Padilla Bay: Zostera marina or eelgrass (native to Padilla Bay) and Zostera japonica (a nonnative species).
Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Washington 2008
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The Japanese eelgrass (Zostera japonica) for example, converts tidal flats, important foraging grounds for shorebirds, to eelgrass beds and alters nutrient fluxes in its invasive range in the Pacific Northwest.
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Several extensive Zostera beds occur within Great Bay.
Great Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, New Hampshire 2008
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