In Victorian times, there was a big craze for collecting seaweeds. They would go and collect some of the very very beautiful seaweeds and they've made them into these absolutely exquisite little books. So we know what they collected, and we also know whether those things are still there today. We can also get the DNA out of them, so they're not only beautiful and historically interesting, if you like, for the wholes of history of the subject, but they are of a worth scientifically as well. I think if we begin to see the loss of some of our very key seaweeds, and we really are in trouble in the world. They may be acting as nurseries for fisheries, for example. They're very important in terms of taking up carbon dioxide in the environment. Also, it seems that some of the brown algae for example, which have some unique compounds in that you don't find in flowering plants, do seem to have some anti-cancer properties. Now, of course it's very difficult to work out exactly how this functions, but people are beginning to research into this much more.


维多利亚时代刮起了收集海藻的风潮，人们会去采集那些美丽绝伦的海藻。然后将标本保存在这些精致的小册子中，因此我们知道他们收集到了什么。我们还知道这些物种是否尚存，我们也可以提取出DNA。他们不只是光鲜美丽，具历史韵味，如果你感兴趣，纵观历史。它们也有一定的科学价值，如果重要的海藻种类开始灭绝，就足以说明我们的世界有了麻烦。海藻是鱼类的养殖场所，它们还是吸收环境中二氧化碳的能手。并且，某些褐藻中含有独特的成分，是开花植物中无法找到的。这些成分可能具有抗癌作用，虽然很难弄清其作用机理，但人们已经开始着重研究这一课题。