- Reference
- Mar.Benth.Fl.S.Australia 263 (2003)
- Conservation Code
- Not threatened
- Naturalised Status
- Native to Western Australia
- Name Status
- Current
Scientific Description
Habit and structure. Thallus dark red-brown, 10–40 cm high, with robust, branched, corticated, cartilaginous axes 0.5–2 mm in diameter, bearing lateral, branched tufts 1–3(–7) cm long with lightly corticated branches, covered with rhodoplastic trichoblasts, probably proliferous. Holdfast discoid, soon becoming divided, 5–15 mm across, branches 400–800 µm thick; epilithic. Structure monopodial, apical cells hemispherical, subapical cells 10–20 µm in diameter, bearing trichoblasts from axial cells 3–8. Pericentral cells 7, cut off from segments just below the apical cell. Trichoblasts rigid, 700–1250 µm long, basally once (occasionally twice) furcate with adherent basal walls at the dichotomy, branches straight or slightly curved, 60–100 µm in diameter with cells L/D 0.8–1.2 below, tapering slightly until near their tips, subterminal cells 25–30 µm in diameter, terminal cell acute; adventitious filaments absent. Cortication commencing 8–10 segments from apices, remaining slight except on main branches and axes; pericentral cells remaining clear in transverse section, with small outer cortical cells. Cells probably uninucleate; rhodoplasts discoid.
Reproduction. Gametophytes dioecious. Procarps borne on a basal cell of a trichoblast or the cell just above a furcation. Carposporophyte with a basal fusion cell producing relatively slender gonimoblast filaments with shortly clavate to ovoid terminal carposporangia 90–140 µm in diameter. Cystocarps ovoid, 0.7–1.2 mm in diameter, sessile, with no neck; pericarp ostiolate, 4 cells thick, lightly corticated. Spermatangial organs on branches of trichoblasts, with sterile basal and apical cells, 100–300 µm long and 60–80 µm in diameter, with initials cutting off an outer layer of spermatangia. Tetrasporangia occur on corticated branches bearing normal trichoblasts, fertile parts 2–5 mm long and 400–600 µm in diameter (including the torulose tetrasporangia), strongly torulose with the large sporangia, one per segment and spirally arranged, 180–230 µm in diameter, lightly corticated.
Distribution.Eyre, W. Aust., to Port Elliot, S. Aust.
Habitat. E. strobilifera is apparently a deep-water species on rough water coasts.
[After Womersley, Mar. Benthic Fl. Southern Australia IIID: 263–264 (2003)]