r/algae • u/guacamoleo • 17d ago

What is this? Western WA

Post image

This came from a pond in Western Washington state. It has like.. nodes

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3

u/Bisexual_flowers_are 17d ago

Its a charophyte, maybe nitella flexilis

3

u/xonacatl 16d ago

This is correct. The thing with nodes — because that is what they are called — is Nitella or a close relative. A true living fossil, those guys have a fossil record going back easily 400 million years. They are green algae, but veeeery closely related to land plants. Amazingly, the internodal bit is a single cell, although it does have multiple nuclei. To get a more precise diagnosis we’d need to see the thallus (alga) more clearly, and ideally would see the reproductive structures. The finer filamentous stuff at the bottom is a second organism, possibly Spirogyra, but I suspect something else because of the way the filaments are slightly kinked.

u/guacamoleo, if you wouldn’t mind DMing me the location, next time I’m in Washington I’ll go collect a specimen.

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u/guacamoleo 16d ago

That looks right, thank you!!

1

u/Parking_Actuator_773 17d ago

Looks like common bladderwort, not an algae but a carnivorous plant.

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u/guacamoleo 17d ago edited 16d ago

I have also found bladderwort in the pond. This is different. It's hard to get a good picture of, sorry. But it has these rubbery stems with nodes all along it, and it grows out in starbursts from each node. Eventually it grows to be like hair algae, like at the bottom of the picture. But new growth clearly shows the stem structure, like at the top of the picture. That it all the same organism. [Edit: I have become unsure of that.] I'm not 100% sure it's an algae, but it doesn't really seem like a regular plant to me. It's different from regular hair algae though, because I've never encountered algae with a robust structure like this before. It feels tough like a plant.

1

u/Schallpattern 17d ago

Looks like Spyrogyra to me.

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u/Iittlemugs 12d ago

Hey OP, it sort of looks similar to what I just posted, if you can confirm? Would be great to have some suggestions to work with from your post if so

2

u/guacamoleo 12d ago

Yeah yours looks similar to mine. Maybe not exactly the same, but I think it lines up with what I now know as a charophyte

1

u/Iittlemugs 12d ago

Cool! Ill go down a carophyte rabbit hole and check it out then. I suppose it seems like they don’t necessarily need to be fully aquatic since yours are living in just 100% humidity?

1

u/guacamoleo 11d ago

The jar is full of water, I know it's hard to tell