Scytosiphon canaliculatus
(Setchell & N.L. Gardner) K. KogameKey Characteristics
- Golden brown crust, composed of cartilaginous interwoven fingers of tissue forming mat
- Easily removed from rock
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Database links
- 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
Notes: Japan, Aleutian Islands, Alaska, Prince of Wales Island, British Columbia, Canada (A8451, 6464). In southern California, Orange, Los Angeles Co., including Santa Catalina and San Clemente islands; Baja California, Mexico.
Status: Kogame (1996) considered this species, described as Hapterophycus canaliculatus Setchell & N.L. Gardner to be part of the life history of a species of Japanese Scytosiphon, having found sporophytes of S. canaliculatus to be identical with Hapterophycus canaliculatus. Lee et al. (2014) sequenced cox3 from a specimen collected at San Clemente Island and included in their tree, where it appeared in a clade with S. gracilis.
Habitat: Upper to mid intertidal pools
Life History: According to Kogame (1996), an alternation between erect gametophytes and crustose prostrate sporophytes bearing unilocular sporangia. In northern Japan, gametophytes with plurilocular gametangia appeared in spring and disappeared in summer. Sporophytes with unilocular sporangia were appeared late autumn and winter. Unilocular sporangia were produced at 15°C in short-day culture conditions and unispores developed into erect gametophytes at 5-15°C. According to Kogame (1996), gametophytes are yellowish to dark brown, simple, tubular, up to 7 mm wide, up to 40 cm long, rarely constricted, gregarious, arising from a small basal holdfast.
Hapterophycus Setchell & Gardner 1912
Thalli saxicolous, loosely crustose, deeply divided into linear branched divisions, these with middle layer of horizontally extended cells and with downwardly directed filaments and assurgent filaments terminating in firmly adjoined erect filaments. Chloroplast parietal, 1 per cell. Hair pits frequent. Unangia in sori nearly as broad as thallus divisions, the sporangia sessile at base of multicellular paraphyses; plurangia unknown for macroscopic phase of life history.
Hapterophycus canaliculatus S. & G.
Setchell & Gardner 1912a: 233; Hollenberg 1941: 676; Wynne 1969a: 6.
Thalli medium brown, somewhat cartilaginous, to 5+ cm or more broad; divisions hapteroid, 2.5-3 mm broad, 1-1.5 mm thick, concave on lower side, convex on upper side, with slightly crenate margins and blunt apices; unangia 65-75 µm long, 18-25 µm diam., briefly pedicellate; paraphyses of mostly 5-9 cylindrical cells 6-9 µm diam., 1-2 times as long above, longer and narrower below.
Frequent to common in shallow upper intertidal rock depressions, Redondo Beach, Calif., to Is. San Benito, Baja Calif. Also Japan. Type locality: San Pedro, 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.
Notes: The crust described in Marine Algae of California is the sporophyte in an alternation of heteromorphic generations. The gametophytes are yellowish to dark brown, simple, tubular, up to 7 mm wide, up to 40 cm long, rarely constricted, gregarious, arising from a small basal holdfast (Kogame 1996). See UC1966629 in specimen gallery.
CRYPTOGENIC
Vertical Distribution: Upper to mid intertidal
Frequency: Uncommon
Substrate: Rock
Type locality: San Pedro, Los Angeles Co., California
