Descriptive work carried out in two localities at Port Erin, Isle of Man and three localities at Lough Ine, County Cork has shown that there were marked morpho-logical and anatomical differences between sporophytes of Saccorhiza polyschides (Lightf.) Batt. living in different habitats. The plants developed broad, flimsy, curved, non-digitate blades in areas of weak current; long, tough, flat, very digitate blades in strong current and short, tough, flat blades with few digits in habitats without current, but subject to wave action. By means of culture techniques in the laboratory and transplant experiments in the sea the variations were shown to be phenotypically based. The transferred plants adopted the morphology of the population into which they were moved.
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Trevor A. Norton (1969) studied this question.