192 ALLAN HANCOCK PACIFIC EXPEDITIONS VOL. 3 



at the north end of Turner's Island. A week in mid- July was chosen in 

 which the lowest tides of the summer season were predicted. The impossi- 

 bility of mooring a small boat at high tide made it necessary that all 

 specimens be thrown together in large jars and preserved in formalin, to 

 be segregated, sorted, and spread after the return to the laboratory. A 

 stay of several days would have been valuable, but the difficulties of the 

 trip did not allow it. 



General Nature of the Gulf of California 



Just as the Galapagos Archipelago has long been recognized as a 

 unique land area of the eastern Pacific, so more recently the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia has gained attention as an almost equally unique marine area. On 

 this account, frequent expeditions from learned institutions have made 

 their way into the "Sea of Cortez" to investigate both the extraordinary 

 oceanography of the region and the plant and animal inhabitants of its 

 islands and its waters. The phycologist, however, has been wholly de- 

 pendent upon herbarium specimens brought back from the region. In- 

 deed, until 1939 no part of the living marine flora of the Gulf of Califor- 

 nia had ever been seen by phycologists. 



One would perhaps suppose that so interesting an area, being rela- 

 tively near the large cities of the California coast, might have become well 

 explored by means of overland routes. The Gulf of California, however, 

 is far less accessible than the distance alone might imply. Even today there 

 is no satisfactory road to any point on the Gulf from any point in the 

 United States; indeed, there are few roads of any kind. Even if one 

 reaches the few accessible points, relatively little can be done, for the 

 Gulf is a sea of islands; and without the cruising facilities of an ample 

 ship and adequate dredging equipment the waters are not likely to yield a 

 large part of their inhabitants. 



The Gulf of California is one of those few marine areas in the world 

 so set apart from the ocean at large that its whole nature is at variance 

 with comparable parts of the greater mass. Over 600 miles long, with 

 fully 2,000 miles of coastline and a large number of islands, it constitutes 

 a very considerable part of the Pacific coast of North America and one 

 which is fast fulfilling the expectations stated by Setchell and Gardner 

 nearly twenty years ago: "It seems likely that there will be found to be 

 an exceedingly rich marine flora in the Gulf of California when it shall 

 have been carefully and thoroughly explored." The purpose of this paper, 

 however, is not only to describe the variety and abundance of marine plant 



