UC specimens and range limits for Scytosiphon dotyi

• 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: Spotty distribution from southern Vancouver Island, northern Washington (see Macroalgal Portal), Oregon. In California, reported from Trinidad, Humboldt Co. and Mendocino Co. through San Diego, with a large disjunction between Monterey and San Luis Obispo.

Status: A specimen of this species from Monterey has been included in several molecular studies of the Scytosiphonaceae (Cho et al. 2001, Cho et al. 2006, Lee et al. 2014).

Habitat: Upper intertidal on walls and sides of boulders in exposed areas

Life History: Apparent lack of sexual phase, with zoospores from plurilocular organs on tubular thalli germinating to produce prostrate filaments that coalesce to form discs, from which tubular thalli bearing plurilocular organs are produced (Wynne 1969a, p. 37; see also Loiseaux 1970a for the life history of a dwarf Scytosiphon from central California)

Search Sequences in GenBank

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

Scytosiphon C. Agardh 1820

Thallus usually tufted, with several to numerous erect fronds arising from discoid base. Erect parts simple, solid or mostly tubular, cylindrical or flattened, commonly with frequent constrictions when tubular. Inner cells of thallus elongate, thick-walled; cortical layer with cells progressively smaller toward surface. Phaeophycean hairs commonly present. Unangia borne on crustose stage resembling Ralfsia. Plurangia forming on extensive surface areas.

Scytosiphon dotyi Wynne

Wynne 1969a: 34 (incl. synonymy).

Thalli tufted, cylindrical to slightly flattened, to 12 cm tall, +/-1 mm diam., mostly not constricted, sometimes twisted, attenuated above and below, greenish to dark brown; hairs in dense tufts in small depressions on surface; plurangia 4-6 cells long, in extensive areas over most of surface; unicellular structures resembling paraphyses absent; unangia unknown.

Occasional to frequent, mostly a winter annual restricted to vertical faces of large boulders and cliffs, upper intertidal, Ore. to Baja Calif. Type locality: Pillar Pt. (San Mateo Co.), 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.

Notes: See Distribution