Aphanizomenon Flos Aquae

By Christian Drapeau

We often receive the question: Why is AFA at times referred
to as blue-green algae while at other times it is called a
cyanobacteria or a cyanophyta? Why the different names?

A large field of science is the field of nomenclature or
how to name living things. This science, called taxonomy,
was developed by Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), and is based on
the classification of living organisms on the basis of
physical characteristics, for the most part.

This system of nomenclature comprises seven levels of \
classification: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family,
genus, and species. With this naming system, the entire
description of an organism is contained in its name,
whether it is a bacterium, a fungus, a flower or an animal.
In common practice, however, most living organisms are
named using only their genus and species.

For example, the monarch butterfly is called Danaus
plexippus, a dog is Canis familiaris, a wolf Canis lupus, a
man Homo sapiens, and the blue-green algae we know is
Aphanizomenon flosaquae. Since this system of taxonomy is
largely based on physical characteristics, plants or
animals with similar characteristics have similar names.

For example, insects that have eight legs and a two-segment
body are Arachnidae or spiders. A scorpion is called
Scorpionida arachnida and a common spider is Araneae
arachnida. A fruit having one large pit is called Prunus. A
peach is Prunus persica and an apricot is Prunus armeniaca.
Likewise, a beautiful plant growing in water was originally
called Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, or "invisible flower of
water."

Aphanizomenon is a genus of water plants characterized by
their filamentous colony-forming organization with
heterocysts that can fix atmospheric nitrogen. To the first
observers, Aphanizomenon was a plant like algae, since it
carried the distinct green color of chlorophyll.

As it contained the unique blue pigment phycocyanin, it was
commonly called a blue-green algae, or -- more technically
-- cyanophyta, which means "blue plant." But when the
microscope was developed and AFA was first viewed under
magnification, scientists observed that it did not contain
a nucleus, a characteristic shared by all bacteria. Since
it did contain phycocyanin, it was referred to as
cyanobacteria.

On the basis of these observations, AFA was defined at the
time as both a plant (because of its chlorophyll content)
and a bacterium (because of its cytoplasmic DNA). But
later, with advances in biochemistry, another development
made the story yet a little more complex.

Scientists observed that AFA contained in its membrane a
molecule similar to glycogen, a polysaccharide made by
animal cells. Upon this characteristic, one could classify
AFA as partly an animal. So AFA is a bacterium or a plant
-- and to some extent an animal -- and the name one decides
to give it depends on the angle from which one wants to
look at it.

It is in our human nature to classify and name things.
Giving names to things allows us to talk about them; it is
an important part of relating among ourselves. But there is
a caveat to classifying things: As we classify objects, we
then relate more to the classification than to the objects
themselves.

At times people have expressed a concern because AFA is a
bacterium. As we all know, there are a number of bacteria
that can carry very serious diseases. But to think of AFA
as a pathogen because it is a bacterium would be a little
like thinking that a house cat is dangerous because both
fearsome tigers and domestic cats are felines, or that a
penguin has to be able to fly because it is a bird.

You can see that too much generalization within any
taxonomy can lead to serious misunderstandings!

Many bacteria are beneficial to health, and a number of
bacteria are essential to health. In the same way, AFA is a
beneficial microorganism. Whether AFA is called a plant or
a bacterium is truly just a matter of classification.
Therefore, we are all accurate when we call AFA a
cyanobacterium (blue bacterium) OR a cyanophyta (blue
plant) OR cyanophycea (blue seaweed). The best way to refer
to AFA, however, is this:

It is a beautiful aquatic plant which, when concentrated in
our unique and patented product, StemEnhance, enhances stem
cell physiology.

Go to StemEnhance