Anotrichium licmophorum (Harv.) Baldock

Scientific Description

Habit and structure. Thallus light red, 5–23 cm high, branching subdichotomous, main axes bearing regular, alternating, spreading lateral tufts (appearing flabellate when pressed) from each axial cell, clothed below with decurrent, anastomosing rhizoids. Attached by rhizoids bearing branched haptera; epiphytic. Structure. Cells of main axes 470–900 µm in diameter and L/D 3–4, basal cells of lateral tufts significantly smaller, 220–320 µm in diameter and L/D 2.5–3.5, filament apices mucronate, cells near the apex 25–50 µm in diameter and L/D 5–8.

Reproduction. Gametophytes dioecious. Female axes 3-celled, subapical, displaced laterally by the continued growth of the vegetative axes, flanked by a pair of synchronic hair-like laterals; procarp systems subapical, each with a sterile lateral cell abaxially and an adaxial supporting cell bearing a sterile cell apically and a curved, 4-celled carpogonial branch laterally; hypogenous cell enlarging, becoming pyriform, 200–370 µm in diameter and L/D 1.3–1.5, producing from its upper shoulder a whorl of 12–13, incurved, 1-celled synchronic involucral branches, 70–90 µm in diameter and L/D 6–7; fusion cell T-shaped to columnar bearing 1–3 gonimolobes terminally, most cells of which become globose-ovoid carposporangia, 35–45 µm in diameter. Carposporophyte 450–700 µm across. Spermatangia solitary, borne in heads 130–225 µm in diameter and L/D 1–1.5, on clavate pedicels 80–120 µm in diameter and L/D 1.4–1.7, adaxial from cells towards the ends of lateral tufts; each spermatangial head initially globose, with 3 axial cells each bearing 4–5 periaxial cells dividing polychotomously several times, terminal cells budding off 1–2 spermatia, heads becoming pyramidal and lobed as the axial cells elongate. Tetrasporangia terminal on cylindrical pedicels 30–35 µm in diameter and L/D about 1, produced adaxially, singly or occasionally in pairs from the shoulders of cells near the apices of lateral branch tufts, occasionally on decurrent rhizoids, globose, 60–90 µm in diameter, tetrahedrally divided.

Distribution. Garden I., W. Aust., to Western Port, Vic.

[After Womersley, Mar. Benthic Fl. Southern Australia IIIC: 347–349 (1998)]