Comprehensive Description

Turtle Grass (Thalassia testudinum) is an important seagrass found from Bermuda and southern Florida south to the Gulf of Mexico, the West Indies, Central America, and Venezuela. It can form very extensive beds in protected shallow waters that serve as both habitat and a food source for a tremendous diversity of organisms, among them sea turtles, which graze on T. testudinum and are the source of its common name. (Dineen 2001 and references therein)