UC specimens and range limits for Gloiosiphonia californica

• 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

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Gloiosiphonia Berkeley 1833

Thalli with large gametangial stages alternating with small, crustose, tetrasporangial phases. Gametangial plants gregarious, tufted, branchedin whorls or radially. Branches slender, attenuate, very gelatinous to firm; younger branches internally with 4 loosely compacted laterals; older branches thickened by rhizoidal filaments formed from basal cells of laterals. Tetrasporangia cruciately divided, borne on crustose stage resembling Cruoriopsis (Peyssonelliaceae). Spermatangia in superficial patches. Carpogonial branches short, usually 3-celled; auxiliary-cell branch separated from carpogonial branch. Carpogonium, after fertilization, reorganizing into 2 or 3 connecting filaments, these fusing with 1 or more auxiliary cells intercalary in auxiliary-cell branch. Gonimoblasts small, all cells becoming carposporangia.

Gloiosiphonia capillaris (Huds.) Berk.

Fucus capillaris Hudson 1778: 591. Gloiosiphonia capillaris (Huds.) Berkeley 1833:45; Edelstein 1972: 227. Nemastoma californica Farlow 1877: 243. G. californica (Farl.) J. Agardh 1884-85 (1885): 10; Smith 1944: 209. Calosiphonia californica(Farl.) J. Ag. 1899: 83.

Thalli light rose, 7-15(60) cm tall, repeatedly radially branched; central axis to 5 mm wide, gelatinous to firm, subterete to flattened; branchlets frequently attenuate, the apices filiform; plants monoecious or protandrous.

Locally common spring annual in C. Calif., infrequent elsewhere; saxicolous, low intertidal in deep tidepools, both sides of N. Pacific; in Calif., from Humboldt Co. to Santa Barbara Co. Also N. Atlantic. Type locality: England.

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: The pendulum has swung back and forth on this species. The type came from Santa Cruz. Edelstein (1972), after studying numerous collections of G. californica and comparing her results with published accounts of G. capillaris (Hudson) Berkeley, concluded that the two were conspecific. Abbott & Hollenberg accepted this conclusion. DeCew et al. (1982), however, found ontogenetic differences between the two species.