UC specimens and range limits for Pterocladiella capillacea

• 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

Pterocladia J. Agardh 1851

Thalli similar to those of Gelidium species, uniaxial with prominent apical cell, the axial row producing lateral branches, these rebranching and forming pigmented cortex of several cell layers. Lower cells of laterals producing colorless rhizoids, these filling medulla; rhizoids often packed with hyaline storage material. Thalli usually less rigid, more compressed than in Gelidium, with distichous branches tending to be constricted at their bases. Development of tetrasporangia and spermatangia as in Gelidium. Cystocarps with 1 locule, opening on 1 side of thallus.

The three presently known species of Pterocladia from Calif. are quite distinct among themselves, but each is quite similar to Gelidium species of corresponding morphology.

Pterocladia capillacea (Gmel.) Born. & Thur.

Fucus capillaceus Gmelin 1768: 146. Pterocladia capillacea (Gmel.) Bornet & Thuret 1876: 57; Stewart 1968: 76. Gelidium pyramidale Gardner 1927b: 273. P. pyramidale (Gardn.) Dawson 1953a: 79.

Thalli to 30 cm tall; branching distichous, often with very regular and pinnate appearance, sparse to dense throughout, or different in proximal and distal parts, with 1-5 orders of branching, this yielding plants of various shapes; axes compressed to flat basally and flattened above, to 2 mm broad, 0.9 mm thick below; ultimate branchlets to 1.3 mm broad, 0.3-0.7 mm thick, usually with constriction at junction of laterals and main axes.

Common, saxicolous, throughout intertidal and to 20 m subtidally, Santa Barbara, Calif., to I. Magdalena, Baja Calif., and Is. Revillagigedo. Common also in Atlantic and Pacific. Type locality: Mediterranean.

Very small P. capillacea plants can be distinguished from Gelidium pusillum plants of comparable size by their flatter branches and/or more regular branching.

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