- 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
Callophyllis Kützing 1843
Thalli with circular to fan-shaped, much-divided blades arising from discoid holdfasts. Blades without midrib or veins, divided dichotomously, palmately, or pinnately, occasionally to many fine, narrow divisions. Margins of divisions smooth, crisped, dentate, or laciniate. Medulla of large, pseudoparenchymatous cells mingled with branched, pigmented filaments. Cortex 4 or 5 cells thick, the cells progressively smaller toward surface. Tetrasporangia embedded just below surface, cruciately divided, frequently germinating in place. Spermatangia in superficial patches, formed from outermost cortical cells. Plants procarpic. Plants either polycarpogonial or monocarpogonial with supporting cell becoming auxiliary cell. Cystocarp developing inward, surrounded by sterile tissue; carposporangial masses separated from each other by sterile filaments. Gonimoblasts unilaterally protuberant, each with 1 or more ostioles.
Callophyllis violacea J. Ag.
J. Agardh 1885: 34; Abbott & Norris 1965: 74.
Thalli 5-27 cm tall (average 15), dark red to purplish-red, with 1 to several branches arising from discoid holdfast, fleshy to cartilaginous, sometimes furrowed; plants if epiphytic with only 1 or 2 fan-shaped branches, if saxicolous growing in tufts; main axis 1-4 cm wide at base, branching near base and expanding upward before branching again; branches usually alternate to 5 or 6 orders, the upper blades shorter and more crowded than lower, the apices toothed or much dissected; tetrasporangia scattered, the gonimoblasts to 3 mm diam., scattered, projecting prominently, especially when old.
Locally abundant, saxicolous, low intertidal to subtidal (20 m), Br. Columbia to Baja Calif. Type locality: Santa Barbara, Calif.
This is one of the three most commonly occurring species of Callophyllis on the Pacific Coast, the other two being C. flabellulata and C. pinnata. C. violacea is more common and more variable south of Pt. Conception than north of it. The commonest form in central Calif. is that represented by what has been known as C. megalocarpa; this, though recognizable as an isolate, cannot retain its integrity when compared with a suite of specimens.
Excerpt from Abbott, I. A., & Hollenberg, G. J. (1976). Marine algae of California. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. xii [xiii] + 827 pp., 701 figs.
