Cladophora albida (Nees) Kütz.

Scientific Description

Habit and structure. Thallus light to medium green, forming densely branched pompons or dense tufts 0.5–5(–7) cm high, usually in the lower eulittoral on medium to rough-water coasts, with numerous gently tapering axes from a tightly clumped base, irregularly to often unilaterally branched with older and newer laterals inter-mixed; normally epilithic, attached by rhizoids from basal and often sub-basal cells. Growth weakly or distinctly acropetal (with straight or refract or falcate, mostly unilateral, branchlets) but with frequent intercalary divisions, new cells usually producing a lateral but with occasional rows of several unbranched cells; parent cells with 1–2(–3) laterals at acute to broad angles; basal cross walls of laterals steeply inclined to oblique, becoming almost horizontal in older main branches. Apical cells cylindrical, 16–32 µm in diameter and L/B 2–6.5; ultimate branch cells 18–32 µm in diameter and L/B 2–4; lower thallus cells 40–80 µm in maximum diameter and L/B 2–8; ratio of lower cell to apical cell diameters 2–3; cell walls 0.5–1 µm thick above, 6–8 µm thick and lamellate below.

Reproduction. By terminal rows of cells forming swollen zooidangia.

Distribution. Widely distributed in temperate waters. In southern Australia, from North Beach (Perth), W. Aust., to Port Jackson, N.S.W.

[After van den Hoek & Womersley in Womersley, Mar. Benthic Fl. Southern Australia I: 206 (1984)]