Seaweed bouquet

I went to Brown's Bay to see what was growing under the marina this spring. This apparent impressionist painting is a community of seaweeds has settled on an underwater pipe, swaying in the current.

Red algae, green sea lettuce, mussel "teeth", and white anemones.

Did you find the mussel "teeth"? Look near the top. They're actually the scalloped edge of the fleshy mantle.

More underwater photos tomorrow.

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Fui a Brown's Bay para ver que está creciendo debajo de los flotadores de la marina esta primavera. Esta foto, que se parece a una pintura impressionista,  en realidad muestra una comunidad de algas marinas que se han adherido a un tubo bajo el agua en movimiento. Se ven aquí algas rojas, algas verdes "lechuga marina", "dientes" de un mejillón, y algunas anémonas blancas.

¿Encontraste los "dientes" del mejillón? Busca cerca del borde superior de la foto. Son los bordes ondulados del manto del animal.

Anémonas y más, mañana.

Pacific rose

Delicate blades of red algae:

Pacific rose seaweed, Rhodymenia pacifica

This seaweed, common enough among the scraps tossed up on the shore by the tides, but usually out-competed in the intertidal zone by the sea lettuces and rockweed, is the only one that loves its home in my tank. Other seaweeds float around, sometimes for a couple of weeks, until the hermits and crabs have worn them to shreds. Eelgrass holds out a bit longer, but eventually turns black and disintegrates, leaving only the roots.

Rose seaweed grows and grows and grows. I rip out handfuls every time I clean the tank. But it's a popular hangout; the handfuls always come with a crowd of amphipods, a couple of hermit crabs, and maybe a snail or two. I have to wash them out carefully and return them to the tank.

So I always leave a small clump, usually attached to a rock. And a few days later, it's grown and taken over half the tank. I think it likes it here.

Red silk

I'm back. With the holey seaweed I mentioned.

A thin red algae found floating in the sea foam. Red eyelet silk, Sparlingia pertusa,I think.

The blade was about a foot long, tapering to a short stipe attached to a small holdfast.

A miniscule snail (4 - 5 mm. long) somehow stayed attached in spite of my struggles to hold the seaweed flat in a howling wind.

This is one of the largest red algae in our area. It grows on rocky shores at the lower intertidal level and below, from Alaska to Oregon. This one was on the outer side of Oyster Bay.

Fragments of lace

Occasionally, bits of red lace turn up on the beach, torn from the parent plant. I floated one in a shallow bowl.

Sea braid, aka sea comb, Plocamium pacificum. About 4 cm. The whole plant may be up to 25 cm. long.

Zooming in. The tiny branchlets each have three tinier branchlets off to one side.

And looking at those tiniest branches under the microscope, at 40x, I can see that they also wear mini-branchlets.

This seaweed grows on rocks in the lower intertidal zone, which is why, when I find it close to the shore, it is always a fragment.

Luscious red

Looks good enough to eat.

Sea noodles, aka Succulent seaweed, Sarcodiotheca gaudichaudii.

When fresh the red string seaweed may be used in salads.  In the Philippines it is made into a sweet desert. (from Puget Sound Sea Life)

I found a generous helping of this last October, but it looked shop-worn, and I didn't taste it. And this time, there was so little of it, I didn't want to deprive the shore critters, so I still haven't tried it. Next time. I wonder if there's a recipe for the dessert.

Red, green, brown. All green shore crabs, Hemigrapsus oregonensis.

I like the red eyes of the centre crab. I feel a sort of kinship with her: she's an insomniac, like me, maybe?