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1512") I Setchell-Gardner
: Melanophyceae 625
Postelsia palmaeformis Rupr.
Plate 69
Holdfast of stout, blunt, branched hapteres; stipe stout, smooth
and glossy, elastic though rigid, cylindrical, tapering slightly upward,
hollow, 4-6 dm. high, 1.5-3 cm. diam., bearing at its tip numerous
solid, cylindrical, dichotomous branches; blades terminating the small
branches, falcate, 100-150 on a plant, 15-24 cm. long, produced by
longitudinal splitting in the transition region at their bases, with
deep, parallel, longitudinal grooves on either side, in which the sori
are developed ; color a rich olive brown.
Growing only on rocks exposed to the heaA'y action of the waves.
Extending from the southern end of Vancouver Island to Lion Rock,
San Luis Obispo, California.
Ruprecht, Neue Pflanzen, 1852, p. 19 (75), pis. 6 and 8
Kelps of Juan de Fuca, 1902, pp. 213 and 217 ;
; MacMillan,
Setchell and Gardner,
Alg. N.W. Amer, 1903, p. 268 ; Setchell, Kelps of U. S. and Alaska,
1912a, p. 158; Collins, Holden and Setchell, Phyc. Bor.-Amer.
(Exsicc), no. XXXVIII and no. 131; Tilden, Amer. Alg., no. 341;
Parlow, Anderson and Eaton, Alg. Exsicc. Amer.-Bor.. no. 113. Vir-
ginia Palma-Maris Areschoug, Oefvers. Kongl. Vet.-Akad. Forhandl.,
1853, p. 147, Flora, 1855, p. 652. Postelsia ealifornica Guignard, App.
Mucif. Lam., 1892, p. 41.
This plant, in many ways remarkable, was first brought to the
attention of phycologists by Wosnessenski, who found it growing on the
exposed shore of a small island at the entrance to Bodega Bay, Cali-
fornia. It was known to the Indians of that region as Kakgunu-
chale, according to Ruprecht. It is everywhere known today as the
Sea Palm, owing to the close resemblance of more or less extensive
clusters of these singularly beautiful plants to miniature groves of
palms as seen in the distance along ocean shores.
It has accustomed itself to growing only on rocks exposed to the
very heaviest action of the waves. It mainly inhabits the middle of the
littoral belt, but in certain localities in which the waves are accustomed
to beating high, they may grow at or even above the general high-tide
level. They are annual plants.
Postelsia palmaeformis was first published by Ruprecht (lot. cit.).
who gave a very excellent illustration of the three specimens collected
by Wosnessenski. This paper was published separately in 1852 and
afterwards in Memoirs Imp. Acad. St. Petersburg in 1855 (ser. 6,