Seaweed
Seaweed or macroalgae refers to several species of macroscopic, multicellular, marine algae. The term includes some types of red, brown, and green macroalgae. Marine algae species such as kelps provide essential nursery habitat for fisheries and other marine species and thus protect food sources; ocean algae species from seaweeds to planktons play a vital role in carbon capture, producing up to 90 percent of the planet's oxygen. Understanding these roles provides guiding principles for conservation and sustainable use of seaweeds to take precedence over industrial exploitation. Mechanical dredging of kelp, for instance, destroys the resource and dependent fisheries. Certain species of seaweed are valuable for nutrition, biomedicine, bioremediation, and other uses.
Wakame
In Old Japanese, "me" stood for edible seaweeds in general as opposed to "mo" standing for algae. In kanji, such as 海藻, 軍布 and 和布 were applied to transcribe the word. Among seaweeds, wakame was likely most often eaten, therefore "me" especially meant wakame. It expanded later to other seaweeds like kajime, hirome (kombu), arame, etc. Wakame is derived from "waka" + "me" (若布, lit. young seaweed). If this "waka" is a eulogistic prefix, same as the "tama" of tamagushi, wakame likely stood for seaweeds widely in ancient ages. In Man'yōshū, in addition to 和可米 and 稚海藻 (both are read as "wakame"), "nigime" (和海藻, soft wakame) can be seen. Besides, "tamamo" (玉藻, lit. beautiful algae), which often appeared in Man'yo-shu, may be wakame depending on poems.