Feldmannia indica (Sond.) Womersley & A.Bailey

Scientific Description

Habit and structure. Thalli consisting of clustered erect filaments 5–10 mm long radiating from a system of interwoven branched prostrate filaments from which 2-celled primordia of erect axes arise; erect filaments 25–50 µm in diameter, maximum cell lengths 70–120 µm. Meristems intercalary, distal to lateral branches and plurangia, proximal to extended pseudohairs. Plastids forming parietal reticula or arrays of discrete discs. Lateral branches uncommon, often short and tapering to acute apices.

Reproduction. Plurangia solitary, sessile, radially arranged, subcylindrical to elongate-ovoid, 50–65 µmlong, 25–30 µmwide, 10–12-tiered and 2–5 locules wide; apices broadly lined with locules. Although most plurangia are quite uniform in size and shape, in one anomalous structure the central part did not divide into locules whereas those on either side of it divided into cuboidal chambers.

Distribution. Widely reported in temperate and tropical waters from North Carolina, Florida and the Caribbean region, West and East Africa and the Red Sea, Mauritius, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, New Zealand, many Pacific islands and the west coast of South America. Also in W. Aust., Qld., and Lord Howe I.

[After Kraft, Algae of Australia: Marine Benthic Algae of Lord Howe Island and the Southern Great Barrier Reef, 2: Brown Algae:30 (2009)]