Bifurcaria galapagensis
Bifurcaria galapagensis, the Galapagos stringweed, is a species of brown algae seaweed endemic to the Galapagos Islands. The IUCN Red List categorized the algae as Critically Endangered, after a March 2007 assessment noted that the plant hadn't been since 1983.
William Randolph Taylor documented Galapagos stringweed alongside myriad other Pacific marine algae during a three-month expedition to Baja California, Central and South America, and the Galapagos Islands. In the intertidal zones of Isla Santa Maria, Taylor notes that "he dominant algal species appeared to be Blossevillea galapagensis, a notable fucoid endemic known from the time of the Vettor Pisani Expedition. This grew high on the littoral rocks in great abundance." Taylor notes seven separate expeditions from 1872 to 1934 that found this species.
Before its disappearance, there was some evidence to suggest that Galapagos stringweed had both antimicrobial and antimitotic properties.
Description
Taylor described Bifurcaria galapagensis:Plants gregarious, olivaceous, firm in texture, black and brittle when dried, exceeding 4 dm in height, the basal holdfasts small, irregularly lobed; branching close to the base into several main axes which are about 1.0-1.5 mm diam., and which branch irregularly into smaller divisions, especially above bearing scattered lateral determinate aculeate to filiform branchlets 1-3 cm long; above irregularly dichotomously branched, the sterile divisions slender, near the top somewhat fastigiate; fertile branches dichotomously or sometimes laterally branched, the divisions nodulose, to 2.5 mm diam., tapering, the conceptacles hermaphrodite, the oval sporangia 133-200 μ long, 46-80 μ diam., each producing one egg.