On May 10th, my Marine Ecology class went to Pt. Piños in Pacific Grove to explore the intertidal. (You may have already seen pictures for this field trip.) I brought along my foldscope and some supplies to hopefully view some things microscopically. I do not have a Smart phone, so thankfully one of my classmates helped me by taking pictures with her phone so that I could post them here.

I think that green algae is awesome, so that is what I searched for on this field trip. In this first picture, you see Cladophora columbiana (Green pin-cushion algae) with forceps in the photo for scale. (You can also see Tar-spot algae and likely some Turkish towel algae, which are not green!)

As you can see in the photo green pin-cushion algae is spongy and looks just like a pin cushion. It is a little green clump that is made up of branching filaments.   You can see the filaments in the microscopic photos below.

Sea lettuce ( Ulva sp .) can also be found in our area.  Unlike Cladophora , Ulva is a thin, smooth and flat algae that is only 2 cells thick. It is easily ripped off by waves and it often washes up on the beach.  Below you can see a bed of lettuce (along with mussels and some reds and browns).  This bed of sea lettuce surprised me a little.  I am used to seeing larger blades of Ulva , but these were fairly compact.

Doesn’t that picture just remind you of a great salad??

Below is a piece of Ulva in a foldscope.  You can definitely see how flat it is compared to Cladophora and you can also see that it is relatively thin.

Here are a couple of other things I looked at under the foldscope.  These two are photos of a red algae found in the intertidal.  I loved to see the little spines on these filaments.

Although it is not really in focus, here is a photo of the edge of a Feather Boa Kelp ( Egregia menziesii ).

My trip would not be complete without wearing the Feather Boa Kelp as seen below.

See you soon!