In 1948, with Tokyo still largely in ruins and the reins of government still in the hands of an occupying army, the nori harvest completely failed. And it kept failing. No one knew why. Years and decades and a world war passed and Kathleen discovered something that no one suspected: Porphyra and another seaweed called Conchocelis rosea weren’t actually 2 different organisms. They were actually 2 different phases of nori’s lifecycle. Conchocelis rosea was a tiny spore-like thing that clung to tiny particles of seashell adrift in the water. The shell fragments were essentially life preservers for the nori-spores, which would otherwise sink to the bottom and be swallowed by the sediments. The nori fishers didn’t know that their harvest was dependent on another harvest, that of the shellfish along the same shores, and the shoals of discarded shells. The nori fishers of Ariake Bay, the producers of over half of Japan’s nori harvest, raised their small shrine to Kathleen. This coming April, they will mark the 51st anniversary of their small festival celebrating a woman that they never met, but whom they call “the mother of the sea.”

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