The brown algae or Phaeophyta (phaeo=dusky) are gooey suckers filled with tons of mucilage. The mucilage can get on your hands and cause emulsifitis desease (just kidding), so you must be careful when handling these seaweeds. Contrary to popular belief, some of the brown seaweeds are black in color and are often easily mistaken for red algae (i.e. Take a gander at Odonthalia). A rule of thumb is, if it looks brown, then it probably is a brown. If your eyes often deceive you, one way to distiguish a brown seaweed from a red in the field is to conduct a quick and rather inexpensive test. Take the alga and rub it on your face. If your face is full of mucilage after 10 seconds of this, its probably a brown. Brown algae constitute approximately 20% of the total number of species along the California toast. In southern and northern California they form extensive bands (rock) in the intertidal and the subtidal (kelp forests). They are beautiful.

Analipus Analipus japonicus
Cystoseira Cystoseira osmundacea
Desmarestia Desmarestia ligulata
Egregia Egregia menziesii
Fucus Fucus gardneri Nereocystis Nereocystis luetkeana Pelvetiopsis Pelvetiopsis limitata Postelsia Postelsia palmaeformis