Catalog of the Benthic Marine Algae of the ... - SeaweedAfrica

History of Philippine Phycology
Detailed accounts of the history of Philippine phycology
have been provided by Velasquez (1962b; 1985) and Cordero
(1972; 1977a), but it seems useful to review its most
salient features, especially with regard to marine algae.
Unlike many areas that were explored biologically by colonial
powers in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries, the Philippines were not so favored by Spain, and
the earliest information on its plants and their uses came
from resident Augustinian monks (M. Blanco, 1837). Unfortunately,
there are no extant specimens to document this
work. In October 1836, Hugh Cuming, an English naturalist
especially interested in conchology, arrived at Manila to
begin three years of exploration that would take him to
nearly every large island in the archipelago (Merrill, 1926).
He made a small but important collection of marine algae,
which was reported on by Montagne (1844a) and also served
as the basis of Galaxaura fastigiata and Liagora caenomyce,
both described by Decaisne (1842).
During the last half of the nineteenth century, four
expeditions returned to Europe with varying amounts of
Philippine algae. The Preussische Expedition nach Ost-Asien
contributed collections made at Manila and Zamboanga in
1861 by its zoologist, Eduard von Martens; these collections
were the subject of a publication by Eduard's father, Georg
von Martens (1868). In 1874-1875, H.N. Moseley, the
naturalist of the Challenger Expedition, collected algae at
the Gigantes Islands (Iloilo), Mactan I. (Cebu), and Zamboanga,
which were recorded by Dickie (1874a, 1876a,
1876b, 1877). Cesare Marcacci, lieutenant on board the
Vettor Pisani, collected algae at Ticao Island (Masbate) and
Cavite during the circumnavigation of that ship in 1884.
They were published on by Piccone (1886, 1889). The most
important expedition, by far, was the Siboga Expedition to
the Indonesian region, which made extensive collections in
1899 in the Sulu Archipelago. These collections contributed
significantly to monographs of Halimeda (Barton,
1901), the Codiaceae (Gepp and Gepp, 1911), and the
Corallinaceae (Foslie, 1904; Weber-van Bosse, 1904b). The
entire phycological harvest of the expedition was treated by
Weber-van Bosse (1913a, 1921, 1923, 1928).
In the Commonwealth period, Elmer Drew Merrill was
impartial in his messianic pursuit of Philippine botany during
20 years of service to the Bureau of Agriculture, the
Bureau of Forestry, the Bureau of Science, and the University
of the Philippines (Quisumbing, 1957). Although primarily
interested in vascular plants, he caused the Bureau
of Science to assemble a large collection of algae. These
were sent for study in 1911-1913 to M.A. Howe at the
New York Botanical Garden and to W.A. Setchell at the
University of California at Berkeley. No systematic study
was made of these specimens at that time, but in 1951 the
Chlorophyceae and Phaeophyceae at Berkeley were loaned
SMITHSONIAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE MARINE SCIENCES
to W.R. Taylor of the University of Michigan, who ultimately
published on them (Taylor, 1966b). The all-important
University of Michigan connection was established in
1935-1936, when H.H. Bartlett, Chairman of its Department
of Botany, was an exchange professor at the University
of the Philippines (Voss, 1961). A man of wide interests and
great energy, he made massive collections of plants, including
many algae, throughout the archipelago. These were
sent to Ann Arbor, where the algae were studied by Taylor
and his students. Bartlett returned to the Philippines under
the auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture
in 1940-1941, making further collections of algae in Mindanao.
His collections have been cited in numerous papers,
including Chou (1945, 1947) on Galaxaura, Gilbert (1942,
1943, 1947) on Chlorophyceae, Taylor (1964, 1966b) on
Chlorophyceae and Phaeophyceae, and Tseng and Gilbert
(1942) on Codium.
In the period of the Republic, Philippine phycology has
come to share the dramatic surge of interest and activity in
the science that initially was centered in the industrial
nations. The leader and catalyst has been Gregorio T.
Velasquez, Professor Emeritus of Botany, University of the
Philippines, who received his doctorate at the University of
Michigan in 1939, working on the viability of algae obtained
from the digestive tract of a fresh-water fish. Although
primarily interested in Cyanophyceae, Velasquez has had a
profound influence on all aspects of Philippine phycology.
The productivity of his academic offspring has created an
urgent need for this catalog.
Awareness of benthic marine algae in the Philippines has
been greatly heightened by the successful efforts to grow
certain of them commercially (Eucheuma, Gracilaria, and
Caulerpa). Not only has the welfare of many coastal communities
been improved, but the nation as a whole has
benefited from increased exports. Most phycological publications
in the past two decades have been floristic, and
critical taxonomic studies must now be given high priority.
It is essential that the rapidly accumulating information on
algal ecology, physiology, and biochemistry, much of which
is of potential economic importance, be attached to correct
names.
Scope of Catalog
To avoid the difficulty of having to assess each paper for
its worthiness of inclusion, we have been comprehensive
rather than selective, citing every reference to Philippine
benthic marine algae that we could find, regardless of
information content. Publications dealing with biochemical,
physiological, ecological, and economic features supplement
the basic core of taxonomic and morphological literature.
Previous compilations were included. Twenty species that
were erroneously cited by Velasquez, Trono, and Doty
(1975) have been omitted from this catalog. Most of these
erroneous records were taken from various reports of the