UC specimens and range limits for Bossiella schmittii

• 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

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Illustration from DeCew's Guide to the Seaweeds of British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Northern California

Bossiella Silva 1957b

Thalli of crustose bases and articulated fronds. Fronds pinnately or dichotomously branched. Intergenicula flat, winged to varying degrees in Calif. species. Intergenicular medulla with arching tiers of straight cells

of same length. Genicula with a single tier of long, thick-walled cells. Conceptacles cortical in origin, usually originating in intergenicula somewhat below branch apices, the pores central or excentric; 2-8+ tetrasporangial or bisporangial conceptacles on surface of fertile intergeniculum, the sexual plants generally having more conceptacles per intergeniculum; more than 10 sporangia produced in tetrasporangial or bisporangial conceptacle at any one time. Spermatangial conceptacles beaked, the conceptacular canal 100+ µm long. Procarpic conceptacles containing 100+ supporting cells. Fusion cell thin and broad, with carposporangial filaments arising anywhere on surface.

Bossiella californica (Dec.) Silva

Amphiroa californica Decaisne 1842: 124. Bossiella californica (Dec.) Silva 1957b: 46.

Plants forming fanlike tufts, erect or dorsiventrally arranged, the branching dichotomous, pinnate, or irregular (often a combination of these patterns); branches often showing midrib if wings are thin, or without midrib if wings are thick; wings close-set; intergenicula in upper parts more than 2.5 mm long. Tetrasporangial conceptacles more common than bisporangial conceptacles, 4+ of either on each fertile intergeniculum.

Bossiella californica ssp. schmittii (Manza) Johans.

Calliarthron schmittii Manza 1937b: 566. Bossiella schmittii (Manza) Johansen 1969: 61. B. californica ssp. schmittii (Manza) Johans. 1971b: 389.

Plants like subsp. californica with following differences: fronds usually growing approximately horizontally from ridges of rock; dorsal surfaces dark violet, ventral surfaces lighter shades; intergenicula 3-12 mm long, to 10(15) mm broad, the wings thin, flat, usually bending down, the midrib prominent on ventral surface; ventral surface frequently harboring bryozoans and tube worms; conceptacles usually restricted to dorsal surface, to 50+ on each fertile intergeniculum; tetrasporangial, bisporangial, male, and female plants known.

On rocks, characteristically subtidal, sometimes common in Macrocystis pyrifera beds, Br. Columbia to San Diego Co., Calif. Type locality: off Pt. Loma (San Diego Co.), Calif., in 40-46 m.

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