Sarconema scinaioides Børgesen

Scientific Description

Habit and structure. Thallus pale pink to purple-red, to 10 cm tall, regularly dichotomously branched, attached by a sprawling holdfast. Axes terete, 0.4–1 mm diam., mostly of similar width throughout but tapering at apices to a point, cartilaginous. Structure multiaxial, with a central generally clearly demarcated medullary core of longitudinally aligned filaments. Inner cortex of large hyaline cells, grading to the outer cortex of smaller pigmented cells, the outer layer forming a palisade.

Reproduction. Cystocarps causing a prominent hemispherical swelling of the bearing branch, to 900 µm diam. Tetrasporangia scattered in the outer cortex, ellipsoidal, 40–50 µm long, 22–27 µm diam., zonately divided.

Distribution. Widespread in the Indian Ocean, introduced in the Mediterranean.

Habitat. Epilithic in the shallow subtidal.

[After J.M. Huisman in Algae of Australia: Marine Benthic Algae of North-western Australia, 2. Red Algae: 205 (2018)]