Seagrass is a wonder plant that lives in shallow, salty waters around the world and can form vast underwater meadows. Seagrass beds are crucial to the health of our ocean and provide food and shelter for animals such as sea turtles, manatees, and a variety of fish.

Seagrasses provide humans with countless goods and services — everything from food security to shoreline protection to clean water. They are found in almost every sea around the world, with more than 1 billion people living within 100 kilometers of seagrass meadows.

SeagrassNet is a diverse global community that shares a singular passion for seagrasses. We value all perspectives, backgrounds, and levels of training and recognize the unique contributions that each participant can bring to strengthen the network and its mission.

Seagrasses are the only flowering plants which grow in marine environments. There are about 60 species of fully marine seagrasses which belong to four families (Posidoniaceae, Zosteraceae, Hydrocharitaceae and Cymodoceaceae), all in the order Alismatales (in the clade of monocotyledons). [1] .

Seagrasses are underwater plants that evolved from land plants. They are like terrestrial plants in that they have leaves, flowers, seeds, roots, and connective tissues, and they make their food through photosynthesis.

Seagrasses are marine flowering plants, not seaweeds, that inhabit shallow coastal waters globally. These underwater meadows are more closely related to terrestrial flowering plants than to algae, possessing true roots, stems, and leaves, and producing flowers and seeds.