Nereocystis leutkeana, or bull kelp.

25” x 62” fine art print on Hahnemuhle rag paper. Edition of 10.

Nereocystis is the dominant canopy-creating kelp of the north Pacific. It is an annual, growing almost a foot a day during the longer days of springtime, a feat of photosynthetic magnificence. It then creates sori, dark brown spore patches on its blades that migrate towards the end and finally fall away as a packet of millions of spores to the ocean bottom. The bull kelp has a cryptic alternate, sexual life stage where the spores develop into microscopic female and male organisms that generate egg and sperm that come together, under the ocean amidst the rough and cold waters. The fertilized egg then develops into the tiny bull kelp that will grow down into a holdfast adhered to a rocky substrate, and up as the single straight stipe with a single gas-filled bladder stretching towards the surface so the blades can collect as much sunlight and ocean nutrients as possible.