“…The gel strength of extracted agar was more or less comparable to gel strength of native agar of the same alga (Rao & Bekheet 1976, Lemus et al 1991, higher than that of Cote & Hanisak (1986) and lower than that of Freile-Pelegrin et al (1996). On the other hand, gel strength of P. capillacea was higher than the remarkably low gel strength recorded in Gracilaria corticata (12.0 gcm -2 ) (Kaliaperumal et al 1992) and that of other native agarophytes (Lemus et al 1991, Freile-Pelegrin & Murano 2005, Arvizu-Higuera et al 2008& Villanueva et al 2010 except that of Gracilaria floridanum (1030.0 g cm -2 ) (Lemus et al 1991) and Gracilaria blodgetii (750.0 g cm -2 ) (Freile-Pelegrin & Murano 2005). This result was associated with low sulphate percent and high 3, 6-anhydrogalactose percent, which are considered as the gel regulating factors (Asare 1980).…”