An Annotated List of Marine Algae from Eniwetok Atoll, 
Marshall Islands 1 
E. Yale Dawson 2 
The following account is based largely 
upon collections made by the writer at Eni- 
wetok during the late summer of 1955 and 
upon collections made on several occasions 
prior to that time by Dr. Ralph F. Palumbo 
of the Applied Fisheries Laboratory, Uni- 
versity of Washington. The object of the work 
has been the preparation of a reference collec- 
tion of algae of the atoll for deposition at the 
Eniwetok Marine Biological Laboratory 
(EMBL), where it may be consulted by future 
biological investigators interested in identi- 
fying algal research materials. 
There exist only three previous accounts of 
Eniwetok marine algae, namely, Taylor’s 
Plants of Bikini . . . (1950) which treats of 67 
species, Palumbo’s (1950) brief listing of a 
few entities, most identified only to genus, 
and Odum and Odum’s (1955) mention of 
four species by name. The most comprehen- 
sive list of Marshall Islands algae to date has 
just been published by the writer (1956) in 
Pacific Science. It treats of 149 species (exclu- 
sive of Myxophyta) for the southern Marshall 
Islands. All but 43 of these are again listed in 
the present account, which includes 228 spe- 
cies and varieties. Of these, 36 are Myxophyta, 
79 Chlorophyta, 20 Phaeophyta, and 91 
Rhodophyta. 
1 Contribution No. 87 from the Hawaii Marine 
Laboratory. Manuscript received January 17, 1956. 
2 Associate Biologist (temporary), University of 
Hawaii; 18328 Plummer Street, Northridge, California. 
Inasmuch as this paper can be of greatest 
service as an aid to the identification of the 
algae occurring at Eniwetok, a key to all of the 
genera is included as well as an illustration for 
each species of Green, Brown, and Red Algae 
for which a figure is not to be found among 
the following accounts of tropical Pacific 
marine algae: Taylor, 1950; Dawson, 1954; 
Dawson, 1956. If these three papers are em- 
ployed in conjunction with the present list, 
one should find it relatively easy to identify 
a great majority of the species encountered. 
It should be noted that the key to the 
genera is intended to apply specifically to 
those algae recorded here from Eniwetok 
Atoll. It does not necessarily apply to species 
of those genera from other regions. 
The short glossary of certain special phy- 
cological terms is intended to aid those of 
other disciplines in the use of the key. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
Nearly all of the algal collections cited here 
other than the writer’s were made by Dr. 
Ralph F. Palumbo, who kindly contributed 
much time in preparing them for study in 
Honolulu. The list is considerably more com- 
prehensive as the result of the availability of 
his specimens, which provide an excellent 
supplement to mine. 
Dr. Francis Drouet provided identifications 
for all of the Blue-green Algae, so that this 
92 
