- Reference
- Alg.Florid.Encrout. 187, 309 (1968)
- Conservation Code
- Not threatened
- Naturalised Status
- Native to Western Australia
- Name Status
- Current
Scientific Description
Habit and structure. Thallus deep red, forming a tightly adherent irregularly lumpy non-calcified amorphous crust attached across its entire undersurface by branched multicellular rhizoids. Mesothallus distinctly uniaxial, composed of a monostromatic layer of large-celled primary axes and smaller-celled filaments derived from the primary axes, each giving rise to both dorsal and ventral perithallial filaments. Cells of the primary axes lacking visible floridean starch deposits, 60–100 µm long and 60–120 µm diam. Dorsal perithallus well developed, at least 6 cells thick throughout, but becoming much thicker in parts. Dorsal perithallial filaments of large rounded starch-filled cells below, tapering above and forming a small-celled deeply pigmented upper dorsal cortex. Small non-emergent hairs produced at the thallus surface, and large linear to acuminate-ovoid vesicular cells embedded in the middle to upper dorsal perithallus. Ventral perithallus weakly developed, composed of short 2- or 3-celled branched filaments of small (10–16 µm long and 10–20 µm diam.) isodiametric or squat cells that frequently give rise apically to branched multicellular rhizoids, without a clearly defined ventral cortex.
Reproduction. Reproduction unknown.
Distribution. Recorded in Western Australia and on Easter Island in the south-eastern Pacific Ocean.
[After K.R. Dixon & J.M. Huisman in Algae of Australia: Marine Benthic Algae of North-western Australia, 2. Red Algae: 193 –196 (2018)]