- Reference
- Acta Univ.Lund. 33:51-52 (1897)
- Conservation Code
- Not threatened
- Naturalised Status
- Native to Western Australia
- Name Status
- Current
Scientific Description
Habit and structure. Thallus dark red-brown, 4–6 cm high, with subdichotomous, terete to slightly compressed axes 1–2(–3) mm broad, more-or-less densely covered throughout with simple, acute, spinous ramuli. Holdfast crustose, 2–4 mm across; epiphytic on Amphibolis. Structure uniaxial, with a prominent apical cell and axial filament in upper parts, obscured below, with each axial cell producing two periaxial filaments and numerous cross-connector cells; inner medulla of slender filaments, outer medulla of large cells (with few filaments) and a cortex of anticlinal filaments, outer cells ovoid, 2–4 µm in diameter. Rhodoplasts discoid to elongate.
Reproduction. Sexual thalli monoecious; procarpic; polycarpogonial. Carpogonial branches 3-celled, borne on enlarged inner cortical cells in the swollen bases of spinous ramuli, with the auxiliary cell producing several gonimoblast initials towards the centre of the axis; cystocarps unknown. Spermatangial clusters scattered, sunken in the cortex of ramuli and main axes, with initials producing 2–3 ovoid spermatangia 2–3 µm in diameter. Tetrasporangia scattered in the outer cortex, laterally attached, ovoid, 40–48 µm long and 28–32 µm in diameter, zonately divided.
Distribution.Eucla, W. Aust., to Fowlers Bay, S. Aust.
Habitat. Only know on Amphibolis.
[After Womersley, Mar. Benthic Fl. Southern Australia IIIA: 460–462 (1994)]