UC specimens and range limits for Griffithsia pacifica

• 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

Search Sequences in GenBank

Griffithsia C. Agardh 1817

Thalli erect, monosiphonous, with subdichotomously branched filaments; cells usually very large, multinucleate, frequently visible to the unaided eye. Tetrasporangia and spermatangia in dense whorls, or tetrasporangia borne singly, with or without involucral cells. Trichoblasts associated with reproductive structures but soon shed in some species. Procarps 1 or 2, formed on the middle cell of 3-celled fertile axis, each middle cell bearing 4-celled carpogonial branch. Abaxial involucre of 2-celled branches formed from basal cell after fertilization and from large fusion cell; most cells of gonimoblast becoming carposporangia, enveloped in gelatinous matrix.

Griffithsia pacifica Kyl.

Kylin 1925: 58; Smith l944: 324.

Thalli tufted, 3-5 cm tall, orange-pink; branching regularly dichotomous in lower parts, irregular in terminal portions; bases frequently entangled, the rhizoids produced from lower ends of all entangled cells; rhizoids frequently unilateral on each cell from base to midportion of plant, these cells commonly fragmenting and regenerating; upper thallus of turgid, cylindroconical cells (sometimes cylindrical), these (0.3)1-2 mm diam. through middle portions of thallus; terminal cells often spherical; thalli usually sterile, occasionally tetrasporangial; tetrasporangia borne between articulations; plants rarely sexual; spermatangia without involucre; gonimoblasts terminating short laterals, involucrate.

Infrequent, saxicolous, or occasionally on sponges or holdfasts of large brown algae, in isolated tufts, lower intertidal to subtidal (to 20 m), S. Br. Columbia to Baja Calif. into Gulf of Calif. Type locality: Friday Harbor, Wash.

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