- Blue markers: specimen records
- Yellow marker: type locality, if present
- Red markers: endpoints of range from literature
Illustration from DeCew's Guide to the Seaweeds of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Northern California
Neoptilota Kylin 1956
Thalli differing from those of Ptilota principally in having 1 of each pair of laterals remaining determinate and never bearing reproductive structures; in fertile thalli, every alternate branch thus sterile and opposite fertile branch. Tetrasporangia developing from short, indeterminate branchlets, in small clusters without sterile filaments; when mature, branchlet nearly entirely converted to bearing spores. Spermatangia rare, in continuous sori on adaxial side of branchlet. Cystocarps 1 to several, developed simultaneously on indeterminate branchlet.
Neoptilota densa (C. Ag.) Kyl.
Ptilota densa C. Agardh 1822a: 387; Smith 1944: 333. Neoptilota dcnsa (C. Ag.) Kylin 1956: 393.
Thalli coarse, dark red, to 30 cm tall; main axes 1-3 mm wide, with densely fringed branches, irregularly branched; branchlets falcate, smooth and concave on adaxial margin, strongly serrate and convex on abaxial margin; tetrasporangia borne on adaxial side of strongly reflexed, abaxially serrate branchlets; procarps 1 to several on fertile branchlets; usually 2 gonimoblasts developing simultaneously and crowding branches.
Locally abundant, usually on articulated corallines, low intertidal to subtidal (to 15 m), Tomales Bay (Marin Co.), Calif., to Bahia Rosario, Baja Calif. Type locality: Monterey, 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.