Neurymenia fraxinifolia (Turner) J.Agardh

Scientific Description

Habit and structure. Thallus erect, deep red to purple, drying almost black, to 9 cm tall, irregularly branched; laterals arising from the midrib or from the margins of subtending branches. Branches 8–15 mm wide, linear to somewhat leaf-like, older portions typically with a dense cover of epiphytic coralline red algae and hydroids.

Reproduction. Fertile adventitious branchlets arising from veins and margins. Procarps 4–7 per adventitious branchlet; cystocarps appearing terminal, spherical. Tetrasporangial stichidia arising on thallus surface, spathulate, compressed, to 1.1 mm long and 250–300 µm wide, bearing up to 12 fertile rows, although only the distal 1–3 generally with paired opposite tetrasporangia that are spherical, 90–120 µm diam. when mature, tetrahedrally divided. Other reproductive structures not observed.

Distribution. Known from the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific.

Habitat. epilithic in the subtidal.

[After J.M. Huisman in Algae of Australia: Marine Benthic Algae of North-western Australia, 2. Red Algae: 550–552 (2018)]