Codium

Codium is a genus of seaweed in the Chlorophyta of the order Bryopsidales. There are about 50 species worldwide.[1]

Codium
Dead man's fingers (Codium fragile) off the Massachusetts coast
Scientific classification
Phylum: Chlorophyta
Class: Ulvophyceae
Order: Bryopsidales
Family: Codiaceae
Genus: Codium
Stackhouse, 1797
Type species
Codium tomentosum
Species

See text

Codium cylindricum Holmes, type definition herbarium specimen.

Description

The genus has thalli of two forms, either erect or prostrate. The erect plants are dichotomously branched to 40 centimetres (16 in) long with branches forming a compact spongy structure, not calcareous. The final branches form a surface layer of close palisade cortex of utricles. The non-erect species form either a prostrate or globular thallus with a velvet-like surface, the final branches forming a close cortex of utricles.[2]

Distribution

Ireland

Two of these species are very rare in Ireland. Codium adhaerens has been recorded from a few sites on the west coast and from Tory Island on the north coast in County Donegal. In 1837 it was found in Church Bay in County Antrim,[3] but has not been found there since.

There are other species of "doubtful validity":- Codium amphibium is included in William Henry Harvey's Phycologia Britannica Pl.xxxv. and noted as: "spreading in patches of great extent along the edge of the sea, over the surface of a turf-bog which meets the shore at Roundstone Bay" (Ireland).

Worldwide

References
  1. C. van den Hoek; D. G. Mann; M. H. Jahns (1995). Algae: An Introduction to Phycology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-30419-1.
  2. E. M. Burrows (1991). Seaweeds of the British Isles. Volume 2. Chlorophyta. London: Natural History Museum. ISBN 978-0-565-00981-6.
  3. Morton,O. 1994. Marine Algae of Northern Ireland. Ulster Museum. ISBN 0 900761 28 8
  4. Abbott, Isabella A (1989). Lembi, Carole A.; Waaland, J. Robert (eds.). Algae and human affairs. Cambridge University Press, Phycological Society of America. p. 141. ISBN 978-0-521-32115-0. Food and food products from seaweeds

General references
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