Flora of North America species comparison

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Phyllospadix scouleri

Zosteraceae

Scouler's surf-grass

eel-grass family
Habit Herbs; nodes with 2 rows of 3–5 roots. Herbs, perennial, rarely annual, rhizomatous, caulescent; turions absent.
Leaves

sheath 4–35 cm, margins not overlapping;

blade to 2 m × 1–4 mm, margins entire, apex obtuse to truncate or rarely slightly notched;

veins 3.

alternate, submersed, sessile;

sheath persisting longer than blade or decaying with age into bundles of woolly fibers, not leaving circular scar when shed, not ligulate, auriculate with scarious lobes;

blade linear;

intravaginal squamules scales, more than 2.
Inflorescences

peduncles 11–60 × 1–2 mm; staminate bract 4–5.5 × 2–3 mm; pistillate bract 4–8 × 1.5–3 mm, base not narrowed, apex truncate to acute.

axillary or terminal, spadices, surrounded by spathe, pedunculate;

peduncle following fertilization not elongating, not spiraling.
Flowers

unisexual, staminate and pistillate on same plant or different plants; subtending bracts (retinacula) often present;

perianth absent.
Staminate flowers

stamens 1;

anthers dehiscing longitudinally;

pollen linear.
Pistillate flowers

pistils1, not stipitate;

ovules pendulous, orthotropous.
Fruits

4–5 × 5.5 mm.

achenelike.
Seeds

1;

embryo straight.
Generative

shoots 0.2–11 cm, nodes 1–2, proximal node when present with 1 leaf, sterile, distal node with 1 leaf and 1(–2) spathes.

Phyllospadix scouleri

Zosteraceae
Phenology Flowering and fruiting late spring and summer.
Habitat Intertidal and upper part of sublittoral
Elevation -2 m (-0 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AK; CA; OR; WA; BC; Mexico (in Baja California)
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Widely distributed in temperate oceans worldwide
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Substantial differences occur in the literature concerning the morphology of the Zosteraceae, especially the reproductive structures. For a discussion of those differences, see C. den Hartog (1970). In summary, the flowers are unisexual, embedded in a spadix, and may or may not each be subtended by a bract or retinaculum. The spadix is subtended by a spathe, and it may or may not be retained within that spathe following fruit production. Spathes are produced on specialized branches (generative shoots), rather than occurring over the entire plant. The generative shoots may or may not contain normal vegetative leaves, but they do contain one or more spathes. The term inflorescence is ambiguous for Zosteraceae, and den Hartog used ‘rhipidium’ instead. In this treatment ‘inflorescence’ is used to include the spathe, spadix, and flowers.

Genera 3, species 18 (2 genera, 5 species in the flora).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Staminate and pistillate flowers on same plant; spadix always enclosed within spathe sheath
Zostera
1. Staminate and pistillate flowers on different plants; mature spadix projecting from spathe sheath
Phyllospadix
Source FNA vol. 22. FNA vol. 22, p. 90. Author: Robert R. Haynes.
Parent taxa Zosteraceae > Phyllospadix
Sibling taxa
P. serrulatus, P. torreyi
Subordinate taxa
Phyllospadix, Zostera
Name authority Hooker: Flora Boreali-Americana 2: 171. (1838) Dumortier
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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