UC specimens and range limits for Mazzaella splendens

• 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

Iridaea cordata (Turn.) Bory

Fucus cordatus Turner 1809: 118. Iridaea cordata (Turn.) Bory 1826a: 16.

Thalli in loose groups forming bands 1-2 m deep, with conspicuous blades 20-40+ cm tall, 12-24+ cm wide, borne on short or long stipes, with or without apophyses; blades cordate to broadly lanceolate, purple to blackish, some with brown overtones, often with bluish sheen; margins of blades entire, occasionally proliferous, often cleft or lobed, plane or broadly ruffled; blades mostly smooth, sometimes rubbery, bumpy when fertile; tetrasporangial sori numerous, small, closely grouped, extending to margins; spermatangial blades pale in color with spermatangia continuous; cystocarpic blades usually thick, mostly dark purple and drying to black.

A common, extremely variable species, better judged on a population basis than on a few specimens. The varieties recognized below may be ecological variants only; continuing field studies are necessary.

Iridaea cordata var. cordata

Abbott 1971b: 54 (incl. synonymy); 1972a: 253.

Blades 20-40 cm (to 2 m) tall, 12-24(40) cm wide, liver-brown, purple, or violet, with blue iridescent sheen lost on drying; blades typically cordate but frequently noncordate to broadly lanceolate as well, sometimes lobed, cleft or split; margins frequently with pinnules; holdfasts fleshy, perennial; stipe typically present but usually short, less than 3 cm long.

Common to abundant northward, saxicolous, mostly lower intertidal to subtidal (5 m), Pribilof Is., Alaska, to Ventura, Calif.; occasional south of Monterey Peninsula. Also Japan and Kurile Is. Type locality: Banks I., Br. Columbia.

Iridaea cordata var. splendens (S. & G.) Abb.

Iridophycus splendens Setchell & Gardner 1937b: 170. Iridaea cordata var. splendens (S. & G.) Abbott 1971b: 55 (incl. synonymy). Rhodoglossum coriaceum Dawson 1945b: 75.

Thalli with blades 40-120+ cm tall, dark purple to blackish; cystocarpic blades drying to brown, others drying to dark purple or black; stipes 4-6 cm long, with short, cuneate apophyses, these sometimes lacking; blades thick, lanceolate to broadly ovate, entire, with tapering apex or terminally cleft or divided; stipes typically longer than in var. cordata, the blades broad-lanceolate and thick.

Abundant on exposed coasts, saxicolous, low intertidal to subtidal (7 m), Queen Charlotte Is., Br. Columbia, to N. Baja Calif. Type locality: Carmel, 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.