Pacific Marine Algae
Pressed Specimens by Peter Connors
Bodega Head, California
I have been studying the distribution of the more than 160 species of macroalgae along the Sonoma Coast. Our local algae grow in habitats ranging from sheltered sand and mudflats to the most wave-swept outer coast rocks, and many species only grow attached to other species. In extreme cases, a single alga attached to rocks may have four or five other species growing on it. This lifestyle, called epiphytic, is possible for marine algae because unlike terrestrial, vascular plants, algae do not have roots, and they absorb necessary nutrients directly from seawater through all their tissues.
My pressed scientific specimens are a way of showing the beauty and diversity of marine life along the northern California coast. Documenting marine algae is also valuable to students and researchers as climate change, development, and worldwide pollution induce changes in our environment.
Species: Callophyllis Pinnata
Location: Horseshoe Cove Date: 19 August 2004
Species: Ulva Linza
Location: Campbell Cove Sandflats Date: 7 August 2005
Ulva linza grows on intertidal rocks and sand flats along the Sonoma Coast in areas protected from heavy surf. Its bright green color and slender, ruffled ribbons make it the loveliest of the green algae, Chlorophyta.
Species: Ulva clathrata
location: campbell cove sandflats date: 17 september 2005
The thin, hair-like tendrils of Ulva clathrata bear little resemblance to the rest of the Ulva (sea lettuce) genus. This small, bright-green alga grows in protected bays and estuaries, either attached to rocks or free-floating as a dense mass.
Species: Callophyllis Flabellulata
Location: Drift, Doran Beach Date: 12 August 2000
The beautiful alga Callophyllis flabellulata grows on subtidal rocks or on other algae in the Bodega Head area. It is classified as a red alga, Rhodophyta, named for the characteristic pigments that give most species in this group a reddish tint.
Species: Microcladia coulteri
location: drift, bodega head near jetty date: 26 july 2005
Microcladia coulteri is a common epiphytic alga that grows on other algae in the Bodega Head area. It is classified as a red alga, Rhodophyta, named for the characteristic pigments that give most species in this group a reddish tint.
Species: Desmarestia herbacea
Location: South jetty, bodega head Date: 16 may 2014
Desmarestia herbacea grows on low intertidal and subtidal rocks along the Sonoma Coast. It is classified as a brown alga, Phaeophyta, named for the characteristic pigments that give most species in this group a brown color in life, often tinged greenish when dried.
Contributors
Many talented individuals are featured in the West Marin Review. Please click below for this volume’s contributors.
- Cover
- Marsha Balian Jill
- Prose
- Frances Lefkowitz Two Very Short Stories
- Sabine Hoskinson The Sespe
- Jon Langdon Red Rocker
- Jennifer Kulbeck Farallon Stories
- Michael Taylor Stunts
- Denise Parsons The Rancher Whispered
- Hal Ober From Old Hatch’s Almanac
- G. David Miller I Be Loving My Neighbor’s Wife
- Chris Reding Flying
- Betty Davidson The Complexity of the Sparrow
- Robert Kroninger Japs Not Wanted in Winters
- Susan Starbird Commuting in the Valley of Shadows
- Elisabeth Ptak Charles Dickens and Ferguson
- Poetry
- Tobi Earnheart-Gold Spring and Boredom
- Larry Ruth Light
- Scott Mossman The Olives of Olive Drive
- Roy Mash La-Z-Boy
- Heather Altfeld Indian, Wild (Ishi)
- Erin Rodoni Because There Is Loss
- Jody Farrell After Wendell Berry’s Window Poems
- Jed Myers Close to the Earth
- Barbara Finkelstein Return to Sinkyone
- Jocelyn Mata ¡Mi día en México!
- Catlyn Fendler July 31, A Meditation
- Gary Thorp Franz Kafka Dreams of Yosemite
- Lucas Benjamin Phenology
- Kaitlin Deasy The Letter
- Sierra Sabec The Origin of a Piano
- Elizabeth Herron As Light Escapes
- Jan Dederick Help Me Out, Billy
- Madeleine S. Butcher AWESOME
- Art + Artifact
- Paola Martin Canada Goose
- Leslie Allen Clear Spring Trough Above the Pacific,Valley Ford and Spaletta Ranch Barns, Valley Ford
- Elizabeth Sher Arbres arrencats d’ametles (Uprooted Almond Trees)
- Mary Siedman Highway One Trees and Magnolia
- Eva Bell Calla Lily
- Natalie Chavarria, Izabella Guiterrez, and Viviana Villalobos Gonzalez Sunflowers
- Eytan Schillinger-Hyman Serengeti Solitude
- Peter Connors Pacific Marine Algae
- Thomas Wood Northern Point Reyes Peninsula & Bodega Head
- Charles Hoehn West Bay
- Linda Weyl Old Barn on “101”
- Theodore D. Echeverria Poppies Celebrate the First Rains
- Charles Eckart On the Mesa—Point Reyes
- Bob Kubik Good Morning
- Jacqueline Mallegni Wabi-Sabi Basket
- Adah Pinchuk Hyman October Sunset, Tomales Bay
- Vanessa Waring Everyone’s Invited
- Michelle Chayes Mermaid
- Terry Murphy Cat Nap
- T.C. Moore Hay Nets
- Judy Levit Unanswered Questions
- Anne Faught Journal Entry
- Mary K. Shisler Turnips… and Onions…
- Ward Walkup III summer, fall, winter… SPRING!
- Jenny Long Walk
- Susan Putnam Untitled #226
- Isela Carreras Different
- Ashley Eva Brock Shoe Creature
- Ido Yoshimoto Untitled from the Series Astral Planes
- Micheleen Tolson Cyanotype Leaf
- Sawyer Rose Metamorphosis and Costanoa Coral
- Mark Ropers Kite at Stinson Beach
- Music
- Agnes Wolohan von Burkleo Lullaby for Seamus