Description: Thalli large, brown up to 3 m long with thick smooth cylindrical stipe over 2 cms in diameter attached by fiberous haptera. The rubbery stipe expands to form a flat leatherly digitate frond which splitting into several strap-like segments.

Habitat: Very common in the lower littoral into the upper sublittoral.

Distribution: Generally recorded from all shores around the British Isles, Channel Islands to the Shetlands except for sandy and muddy areas. Europe: Atlantic coast of France, Netherlands, Baltic Sea, Norway, Faroes and Iceland. Atlantic coast of North America: Canada, Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut and Long Island. Further afield: Arctic Seas: Jan Mayen, Bjornoya Spitzbergen, the Murman Sea, Novaya Zemlya, Baffin Bay on the west coast of Greenland. South West Africa.

Similar Species: Laminaria hyperborea is similar but has a rough stipe, is somewhat larger and is generally sublittoral.

Key Identification Features:

• Large, brown and leatherly with smooth cylindrical stipe and broad flat digitate blade.

Distribution Map from NBN: Laminaria digitata at National Biodiversity Network mapping facility, data for UK.

iNaturalist: Laminaria digitata at iNaturalist World Species Observations database.

GBIF data for Laminaria digitata

WoRMS: Laminaria digitata at World Register of Marine Species. Accepted name: Laminaria digitata (Hudson) J.V.Lamouroux, 1813. AphiaID: 145724.

Classification: Biota; Chromista; Harosa; Heterokonta; Ochrophyta; Phaeophyceae; Fucophycidae; Laminariales; Laminariaceae; Laminaria