Seaweeds can be found in some fairly strange places: on one’s plate in Japan for example, or growing on a wrecked boat or plane if diving in shallow water in Malaya, but I never expected to come across a seaweed illustrated in a journal devoted to heraldry.

In an amusing note in Vol. 110 of The Heraldry Gazette Dr Gavin Hardy describes his coat of arms, granted by the College of Arms in 2006. He is a marine phycologist and has spent his life studying seaweeds. His attractive shield is gold (Or in heraldry) and green (Vert in heraldry) and the wavy diagonal bands (bends) across the shield represent the sea. Over these is a chevron representing the dichotomously branched thallus of Fucus vesiculosus L. bladder wrack, a brown seaweed, with its paired air bladders.

The crest on top of the helm also shows bladder wrack, in the mouth of his Labrador dog who used to help him collect seaweeds. She did not eat the plants, preferring sea urchins, and the dog is shown on a rock studded with them. My sketch of Dr Hardy’s arms is based on a design by Dr Clive Cheesman, Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, but I do not want to discuss red dragons here. I must stress that the arms are legally those of Dr Hardy and no one else can use them. However, the use of seaweed is not unique. The cormorant in the arms of the City of Liverpool has a piece of seaweed in its beak.