The Finnish algae list

Last weeks Thursday and Friday we had the annual autumn meeting of the Finnish algologists. This time in Heureka, the Finnish Science Center in Vantaa, near Helsinki. Most of the time of the 15 or so algologists gathered went on checking the blue-greens on the national algae list: the names, volumes, taxonomy. A couple of totally new taxa was dealed with as well. We also discussed the exact meaning of the word coenobia.

I learned that checking the algae list here in Finland is very much done by the algae counters themselves, on a voluntary basis. This can be a very productive way of working. Let's just hope the taxonomy does not suffer under these circumstances.