Unicellular species are not know.

One of the constituents of brown algal cell walls is alginic acid, which is of considerable commercial value. Chlorophycota shared with the land plants the occurrence of both chlorophyll-a and chlorophyll-b as main photosynthetic pigments. The vast majority of green algae inhabit freshwater habitats; only 10 % are marine. The cell wall consists primarily of cellulose, xylan and mannan.Chloroplasts contain pyrenoids, which are apparently involved in starch synthesis and storage. The Class Chrorophyceae contains a variety of unicellular algae as well as colonial, filamentous and parencymatous ones. The Chlorophyceae are mainly a freshwater group, but a few are essentially terrestrial, living on soil, wood, or leaves. Members of the nonmotile unicelluler genus Chlorella are often cultivated as a potential source of health food. Dunaliella species, motile unicelluler algae from salt lakes, are used to produce carotenes on a commercial scale. Ulvophyceae are primarily marine, although freshwater representatives also occur. The thallus of some Ulvophyceae consists of only a few cwlls, while others are filamentous. Some groups from flat sheets while others are coenocytic. Algae in this group ( viz Caulerpa lentilifera) are used as vegetables, sold fresh or dried. Some general have calcified walls, vis. Halimeda. Disintegrated calcified Halimeda segments form a significant portion of the white carbonate sand, so characteristic of tropical coral islands. Charophyceae occur primarily in freshwater habitats. They consist of unicellular, few- celled, filamentous and parenchymatous genera, and are considered more closely related to the land plants that the other classes of green algae.

Seaweeds in Mariculture Trono and Ganzon-Fortes (1988) published a wealth of information on seaweed resources, seaweed production and the seaweed industry. Of the long list of economically important seaweeds, many also occur in Indonesia waters. About 88 of these usable algae occur in the coastal and offshore water off Ujung Padang, South Sulawesi, but only 10 species are used in some from by coastal people. The red algae are the most important seaweeds in Indonesia mariculture, and are mainly cultivated for phycocolloids. Along sheltered coastlines species of the genera Eucheuma (mostly E. Denticulatum, the spinosum of commerce) and Kappaphycus (mostly K. Alvaresi and K. Striatum, both knows as cottoni) are cultivated on floating rafts or in special seaweed farms, using the monoline method. The phycocolloids produced are different form of carrageenans. Gracillaria species growing in brackish fish ponds are among the main source for production of agar, which is another phycocolloid (fig. 21.4). Other seaweeds with economic potential are either produced from wild stocks or are only locally used.