Gracilaria webervanbosseae Huisman & G.W.Saunders

Scientific Description

Habit and structure. Thallus red, erect, to 5 cm tall, with flattened simple to irregularly dichotomously divided branches arising from a discoid holdfast and short stipe. Branches somewhat cuneate, with rounded apices, to 7 mm wide and 350–450 μm thick. Structure with a medulla of large hyaline cells to 150 μm broad, grading fairly abruptly to a thin cortex of 2 or 3 cell layers with a thick outer cuticle. Epidermal cells irregularly shaped, often in pairs, 8–15 μm wide in surface view.

Reproduction. Cystocarps protuberant, 1.0–1.5 mm wide, with a thick ostiolate pericarp. Gonimoblast to 700 μm diam., with occasional traversing filaments between the base of the gonimoblast and pericarp. Carposporangia single or in short chains on gonimoblast filaments, spherical to obovoid, 25–35 μm long, 25–30 μm wide. Tetrasporangia formed on tetrasporophytes and occasionally on female gametophytes, on both thallus surfaces in reticulate sori, basilaterally pit-connected to the bearing cell, spherical to ellipsoidal, 20–35 μm long, 20–30 μm diam., cruciately divided.

Distribution. Known only from the type collection.

Habitat. Epilithic in sandy habitat in the subtidal.

[After J.M. Huisman in Algae of Australia: Marine Benthic Algae of North-western Australia, 2. Red Algae: 354–355 (2018)]