UC specimens and range limits for Pelvetiopsis californicus

• 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: From Santa Cruz to Punta Eugenia, Baja California, Mexico.

Status: Cánovas et al. (2011) used a multigene phylogeny to elucidate the family Fucaceae, including a specimen of Hesperophycus from Mill Creek, Monterey Co. Neiva et al. 2017 transferred Hesperophycus to the genus Pelvetiopsis. Pelvetiopsis californica and Pelvetiopsis arborescensare interfertile, forming the allopolypoid hybrid species P. hybrida.

Habitat: Upper intertidal, above Silvetia compressa and S. compressa subsp. deliquescens

Life History: Diplontic life history with gametic meiosis; monoecious

Search Sequences in GenBank

Hesperophycus Setchell & Gardner 1910

Thalli perennial. Holdfast disk-shaped. Erect thallus dichotomously branched, markedly flattened. Branches with distinct percurrent midrib, the cryptostomata lying in 2 parallel rows on either side of midrib. Base of thallus becoming stipelike through abrasion of tissue lateral to midrib. Gametangia unilocular, developed in conceptacles embedded at apices of final dichotomies. Plants monoecious. Oogonium producing 1 large, nonflagellate egg and 1 small nonfunctional, 7-nucleate cell. Antheridium producing 128 biflagellate sperm.

Hesperophycus harveyanus (Decne.) S. & G.

Fucus harveyanus Decaisne 1864: 9. Hesperophycus harveyanus (Decne.) Setchell & Gardner 1910: 127; Gardn. 1913: 317; Smith 1944: 152.

Thalli 10-40(60) cm tall, at times densely clumped, greenish-olive to yellowish-brown; erect axes regularly dichotomous; thallus between dichotomies 3-12 mm broad, linear, sometimes undulate; sterile apices of ultimate segments rounded; cryptostomata with conspicuous, protruding white hairs; receptacles swollen, simple or bifurcate, to 1.5 cm broad, 0.5-3 cm long.

Locally abundant to infrequent in upper intertidal, usually at higher level but sometimes mixed with Fucus on rocks in C. Calif., replacing Fucus south of Pt. Conception; Santa Cruz, Calif., to Is. San Benito, Baja Calif.; at present more common in Channel Is. than on facing mainland. 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.

Notes: Because the type specimen of Hesperophycus harveyanus represents a European Fucus (possibly F. ceranoides), Silva (1990) gave the California species a new name and designated a type specimen from San Pedro, California.