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Halosaccion glandiforme (Sea sacs, sea nipples)
Copyright © 2007 Jan Holmes
This hydrodynamically efficient red seaweed looks like the tip of a medicine dropper or the syringe of a pipette. Mature individuals lose some of their pigmentation and are a yellowish-green color, but juveniles show the dark purple pigmentation characteristic of red seaweeds. The sacs, up to 20 cm. (8 in.) tall and 2 cm. (o.8 in.) wide, are anchored by a small discoid holdfast and filled with seawater which enters through pores in the upper half of the sac. The seawater fills out the sac and protects the seaweed against overheating and desiccation during exposed periods. A bubble of oxygen produced from photosynthesis keeps the sac upright in the water column when submerged.
Halosaccion grows in exposed and semi exposed locations in the mid intertidal sometimes carpeting a large area along with other low growing forms such as Mazzaella cornucopiae and the brown seaweed Leathesia.
This
page was created by Jan Holmes on 1/25/07.
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