632 University of California Publications in Botany [Vol. 8 



Lessoniopsis littoralis (Farlow and Setchell) Reinke 



Plates 67 and 68 



Frond up to 2 m. high ; stipe up to 2 dm. thick at the base, very 

 dense and cartilaginous; blade 7-12 mm. wide, up to 8 dm. long, with 

 percurrent midrib 1-2 mm. wide, up to 800 in number on a single 

 plant, splitting longitudinally at the transition region ; sporophylls 

 always wider than the blade, but generally considerably shorter, 

 broadly ovate below, somewhat narrowed and rounded at the apex, 

 arising in pairs on the edges of the flattened transition region ; sori on 

 both sides covering most of the sporophyll; fruiting in summer and 

 then eroding from the apex ; color dark olive green ; mucilage ducts 

 absent from both stipe and blade. 



Growing on large boulders and rock ledges exposed to the action 

 of the heaviest surf. Ranging from Sitka, Alaska, to Point Carmel, 

 California. 



Reinke, Studien zur Entwick. Lam., 1903, pp. 25-28, fig. 8 ; Griggs, 

 Sporophylls of Lessoniopsis, Ohio Nat., 1909a., vol. 9, no. 4, p. 437, 

 Juvenile kelps, 1909, p. 9 ; MacMillan, Observations on Lessonia, Bot. 

 Gaz., vol. 30, 1900, p. 318; Setchell and Gardner, Alg. N.W. Amer., 

 1903, pp. 267, 268. Lessonia littoralis Farlow and Setchell, in Tilden, 

 Amer. Alg. (Exsicc), no. 342; Collins, Holden and Setchell, Phyc. 

 Bor.-Amer. (Exsicc), no. XXXVII. Lessonia fuscescens(l) Farlow, 

 Mar. Alg. U. S., 1875, p. 355 (not of Bory). Lessonia nigrescens 

 Farlow, Mar. Alg. U. S., 1876, p. 707 (?) ; Setchell, Class, and Geog. 

 Dist. Lam., 1893, p. 357 (neither L. nigrescens Bory). 



This species was first brought to the attention of phycologists by 

 Mr. E. Hall who sent specimens of it which he found on the coast of 

 Oregon to Farlow, who (1875, p. 355) doubtfully referred it to Les- 

 sonia fuscescens. Still later, Farlow collected living material near 

 Monterey, California, and recognizing it as a new species of Lessonia 

 he gave it the manuscript name, L. littoralis. Tilden distributed the 

 species from Vancouver Island, in 1900, as no. 342 in American Algae 

 and gave the first diagnosis, accrediting the name to Farlow and 

 Setchell. A complete account of the plant was given in the same year 

 by MacMillan. Reinke (loc. cit.) was the first to recognize the funda- 

 mental distinction between this species and those of the genus Lessonia 

 proper, viz., that all of the terminal blades with midribs are sterile 

 and that the other blades which are free from midribs are in reality 

 the sporophylls. The sporophylls are lateral in origin, and in this 

 respect are like those of the genu* Pterygophora, and continue to 





