UC specimens and range limits for Dilsea californica

• 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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Dilsea Stackhouse 1809

Thalli erect, mostly clustered; blades simple, entire, or dissected nearly to base, thick and leathery (almost never adhering to paper after drying), multiaxial, with or without short stipe. Medulla dense, of thick, longitudinally and radially intertwined filaments occupying small portion of blade cross section. Cortex thick, with 2 clear layers, the outer of 6-8 cells containing plastids, the inner of 4-6 cells containing granular substances. Tetrasporangia cruciately divided, modified from vegetative cells of cortex, in chains forming horizontal band in cortex. Spermatangia in short, superficial chains composing a sorus. Carpogonial branch of 10-22 cells, the nutritive cells especially conspicuous for their large size and glistening contents. Auxiliary-cell branches of 10-18 cells, the auxiliary cell intercalary. Development of cystocarp as in Farlowia; cystocarp globose, the carposporangia lying beneath carpostome.

Dilsea californica (J. Ag.) Kuntze

Sarcophyllis californica J. Agardh 1876: 263. Dilsea californica (J. Ag.) Kuntze 1891: 892; Doty 1947b: 165; Abbott 1968: 186. S. californica f. pygmaea Setchell, P.B.-A., 1895-1919 1897: no. 396.

Thalli 9-10(45) cm tall, arising from fleshy holdfasts, with or without short stipes; blades clustered, simple, entire, or deeply dissected into sickle shaped divisions, about 1 mm thick; brownish-purple to deep purple-red, drying to dark brown or black; tetrasporangia formed in intercalary chains, these to 150 µm long, occupying much of cortical layer; spermatangia of this species not observed; development of gonimoblast as in Farlowia, except for direct fusion of carpogonium with nutritive cell.

Locally frequent, saxicolous, low intertidal to subtidal (20 m), Alaska to Bushnell's Beach (San Luis Obispo Co.,), Calif; most common between S. Ore. and N. Marin Co., Calif. Type locality: Ore.

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