Chinese name: Kirin Vegetable

Chinese alias: Chicken Feet Vegetable, Pearl Vegetable

Latin name: E. muricatum

Family: Animalia

Portal: Rhodopyta (Rhodophyta)

Organism: Truly Red Algae (Florideae)

Order: Gigartinales

Family: Solieriaceae

Genus: Kirinula

Species: There are more than 30 species in the world, and in China, there are Kirinula (E.muricatum), Qiongzhi (E.gelatinae), and Pearl Kirinula (E.okamurai), E. serra), etc.

Geographic distribution: In tropical and subtropical sea areas, centered on the equator and extending to the north and south. The most productive country is the Philippines, followed by China, in Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan and so on also have a certain amount of distribution. China mainly produces in Hainan and Taiwan.

Morphological features: Kirinophyta is perennial, and its life history consists of two generations of sporophytes and gametophytes that are similar in appearance. When the sporophyte matures, some of the cortical cells form a tetrasporangium, in which the tetraspores are arranged in a zigzag pattern, and are released after maturity, attaching to coral reefs, and germinating into two gametophytes, male and female. When the male gametophyte matures, a cluster of spermatophores is formed on both sides of the branchlet; when the female gametophyte matures, a fruiting cell is formed from the inside of the cortical cells, and fertilization filaments are born on it, protruding from the surface of the algal body. When the spermatozoa of the male gametophyte are released from the water, the fruiting cell is fertilized and develops into a cystic fruit containing fruiting spores, which protrude on the side of the alga, singly or in groups. After the fruit spores are released, they are attached to the coral branches and grow into a new algal body---sporangium after germination. Kirin vegetables grow in the low tide line below 1 ~ 5 meters on the coral reef, in the outer edge of the coral reef and seawater exchange in a good place to grow better. Generally shallow water algae body thick, color, more green-brown, deep water algae body branching more stretch, some were crimson.