Bryopsis corticulans
SetchellKey Characteristics
- Clusters of dark to olive-green feathers (pinnate branching without crosswalls), up to 10+ cm tall
- Lateral branchlets abundant, in one plane, constricted at the base
- Descending rhizoids on main axes visible with microscope
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Database links
- 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: Northern record: Roller Bay, Hope Island, British Columbia, Canada, UBC A48789. Southern records in California: Eel Point, San Clemente Island; La Jolla, San Diego Co., NCU-A-0002381.
Status: Confirmed by DNA sequence: Bodega Bay, Sonoma Co. (Lam & Zechman 2006).
Habitat: Low intertidal - subtidal, or in pools, on floats or other algae, often in exposed environments
Life History: Diplontic life history with diploid unisexual gametophytes developing directly from zygotes resulting from the fusion of anisogametes; gametic meiosis (Smith 1938).
Illustration from DeCew's Guide to the Seaweeds of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Northern California
Bryopsis Lamouroux 1809b
Thalli erect, usually densely branched but with few orders of branches. Branches mostly with percurrent axes, pinnately or radially branched. Chloroplasts numerous, discoid, with conspicuous pyrenoid. Thalli monoecious or dioecious, the gametes liberated through several pores in wall of gametangium. Zygote developing directly, without sporangial phase in life history.
Bryopsis corticulans Setch.
Setchell, P.B.-A., 1895-1919 [1903]: no. 626; Smith 1944: 73 (incl. synonymy).
Thalli mostly tufted, 5-10(16) cm tall, blackish-green; main erect axes to 1 mm diam., naked below, abundantly pinnately branched above; older branches with coarse, descending rhizoidal branches from their bases; ultimate branches 150-300 µm diam., cylindrical, abruptly constricted at base.
Frequent, on vertical sides of rocks exposed to strong surf, very abundant locally in fall as epiphytes on denuded branches of Egregia menziesii, midtidal to lower intertidal, S. Br. Columbia to Is. San Benito, Baja Calif. Type locality: Pacific Grove, Calif.
Excerpt from Abbott, I. A., & Hollenberg, G. J. (1976). Marine algae of California. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. xii [xiii] + 827 pp., 701 figs.
NATIVE
Vertical Distribution: Low intertidal - subtidal
Frequency: Infrequent
Substrate: Rock, floats, other algae
Type locality: Pacific Grove, Monterey Co., California