Dictyota coriacea
(Holmes) I.K. Hwang, H.S. Kim, & W.J. LeeKey Characteristics
- Medium brown blades, often shining gold, especially at the margins, arising from a fuzzy holdfast
- Dichotomously branched, with mitten-shaped (assymmetrical, rounded) tips
- Occasionally with oval holes in blade and lateral branchlets
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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: This is a southern species, occurring south of Point Conception through Baja California, Mexico, including the California Channel Islands, except San Miguel. A fragmentary specimen from Diablo Rock, San Luis Obispo Co., resembles this species but seems out of its range.
Status: On the basis of rbcL, psaA and psbA sequences from Korean specimens, Hwang et al. (2004) transferred Pachydictyon coriaceum to Dictyota. rbcL and 26s sequences were analyzed from a specimen from Dana Point, Orange Co. (De Clerck et al. 2006) in a revised classification of the Dictyoteae. It fell into the same clade as a sequence from a Japanese specimen (and within Dictyota), but was not identical to it.
Habitat: Low intertidal pools and kelp forest understory
Life History: Alternation of isomorphic generations
Dictyota Lamouroux 1809
Thalli erect, complanate, without midrib, typically dichotomo-flabellately branched, arising from branched stolons. Branches each with single large apical cell. Medulla of a single layer of large colorless cells. Cortex usually of a single layer of much smaller pigmented cells in longitudinal rows; hairs common on sterile thalli. Dioecious; oogamous; reproductive structures exserted. Sporangia unilocular, scattered over both surfaces of blades, each producing 4 aplanospores; oogonia in sori, each oogonium producing a single relatively large egg. Antheridia plurilocular, in sori with sterile margin.
Pachydictyon coriaceum (Holmes) Okam.
Glossophora coriaceum Holmes 1896: 251. Pachydictyon coriaceum (Holmes) Okamura 1899: 39; Dawson 1950d: 268 (incl. synonymy).
Thalli dark brown, 20-30(44) cm tall, arising from thickened mass of dark brown hairs, these closely appressed and extending some distance up main axes; branches mostly 9-13 mm broad, 400-500 µm thick, somewhat coriaceous.
Frequent on rocks, lower intertidal to subtidal (to 13 m), Cape Arago, Ore., and Diablo Canyon (San Luis Obispo Co.) to Channel Is. and San Diego, Calif., and to Baja Calif. and Panama. Type locality: Japan.
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: This species was transferred to Dictyota (Hwang et al. 2004).
CRYPTOGENIC
Vertical Distribution: Low intertidal pools to shallow subtidal
Frequency: Common
Substrate: Rock
Type locality: Japan: Kanagawa Prefecture: Enoura