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Abstract

Vietnam has a great diversity of the seaweed flora, which is manifested in the total number of species. Several seaweed species have economic importance such as food for human, industrial materials, traditional medicine, biofertilizers and biofuels. The Gracilariaceae (Rhodophyta) has emerged as one of the families that possess economic potential as a source of agar and colloid industries. Among the genera belonging to Gracilariaceae family, Gracilaria is an important genus for agar production. In Vietnam, at present, twenty-two species of Gracilaria have been described and reported. The genus Gracilaria is widely distributed along the coasts of Vietnam, on the entire littoral zone from ponds, lagoons to the coastal areas of the islands, from brackish water to seawater areas, from Quang Ninh to Kien Giang province. Among them, G. firma, G. tenuistipitata are important sources of raw materials for the agar industry production and are cultivated at a commercial scale. In this paper, we summarize the taxonomy, distribution and ecology and resource status of the genus Gracilaria in Vietnam.