In Reply to: What kind of seaweed is this? posted by Chris on April 16, 2006 at 13:33:18:

I remember working on my algal collection for a marine phycology class as part of my Ph.D. studies. I collected all the algae from Catalina and brought the 30 or so specimens to my major advisor, Dr. Mike Neushul. Mike was a world-renowned phycologist. Three others joined us, two phycologists and an ichthyologist. Between the four, there were often 2-3 different ID's of individual species in the collection.

From that I learned there is tremendous plasticity in the marine algae, often making it very difficult to identify them without looking at the cellular and other levels.