UC specimens and range limits for Pelvetiopsis limitata

• Blue markers: specimen records
• Yellow marker: type locality, if present
• Red markers: endpoints of range from literature

View map from the Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Notes: From Hope Island, British Columbia, Canada to Purisima Point, Santa Barbara Co. Neiva et al. (in prep.) have conducted a thorough genetic investigation of this species using specimens throughout its range.

Status: Cánovas et al. (2011) used a multigene phylogeny to elucidate the family Fucaceae, including a specimen of Pelvetiopsis from Davenport Landing, Santa Cruz Co. Pelvetiopsis is sister to Hesperophycus californicus, both of which show high intraspecific diversity. The two species and Pelvetiopsis arborescens are interfertile, forming allopolypoid hybrids (Neiva et al., in prep.).

Habitat: Perched on upper intertidal rocks in wave-exposed environments

Life History: Diplontic, with gametic meiosis; monoecious

Search Sequences in GenBank

Illustration from DeCew's Guide to the Seaweeds of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Northern California

Pelvetiopsis Gardner 1910

Thalli perennial. Holdfast producing 1 to many erect, dichotomous branches. Branches cylindrical at base, flattened or cylindrical in upper portion, lacking midrib and with inconspicuous cryptostomata. Gametangia unilocular and developed within conceptacles at apices of ultimate dichotomies. Thalli monoecious. Oogonium producing 1 large, uninucleate egg and 1 small, 7-nucleate, nonfunctional cell. Antheridia with 128 small, biflagellate sperms.

Pelvetiopsis limitata Gardn.

Gardner 1910: 127; 1913: 321; Smith 1944: 155.

Thalli 4-8 cm tall, light tan; erect flat branches usually arcuate, 3-5 times dichotomous, the dichotomies 2-4 mm broad, 5-15 mm apart; receptacles 5-10 mm long, inflated, simple or bifurcate, with acute apices.

Infrequent, saxicolous, usually atop rocks, more rarely on sides; upper intertidal, exposed to surf; Vancouver I., Br. Columbia, to Cambria (San Luis Obispo Co.), Calif. Type locality: San Francisco, Calif.

The form lata (Gardner 1910: 127; 1913: 321), collected at Asilomar Pt., Calif., and illustrated by Smith (1944: pl. 33, fig. 1), is longer (to 15 cm) than f. limitata, has broader branches (to 3 mm broad), and larger receptacles; the branches, moreover, are not arcuately curved, as in typical P. limitata.

In general, P. arborescens resembles a dwarf Pelvetia, P. limitata a dwarf Fucus.

Excerpt from Abbott, I. A., & Hollenberg, G. J. (1976). Marine algae of California. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. xii [xiii] + 827 pp., 701 figs.