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Herposiphonia nuda Hollenb.

Reference
Pacific Sci. 22:548-549, Figs 2B, 2F, 2I, 8 (1968)
Conservation Code
Not threatened
Naturalised Status
Native to Western Australia
Name Status
Current

Scientific Description

Habit and structure. Thallus red, probably epiphytic (substratum not recorded) prostrate axes to (at least) 10 mm long, attached by elongate unicellular (occasionally multicellular) rhizoids with digitate tips, arising from distal ends of ventral pericentral cells. Indeterminate axes with circinate apices, with a regular sequence of 3 determinate and 1 indeterminate lateral branches, the determinate axes arising dorsally or dorso-laterally, but erect, the indeterminate axes ventrolateral and prostrate. Prostrate axes 80–100 µm diam. [segment L:B 1.5–2], with 7 or 8 pericentral cells. Determinate axes unbranched, to 900 µm and up to 40 segments long, 35–50 µm diam., with 4 or 5 pericentral cells [segment L:B 1.5–2] for most of the branch, becoming shorter near the apices. Trichoblasts absent. Cells with plastids not pectinate.

Reproduction. Reproductive structures not observed.

Distribution. Occurs in the tropical waters of the Indian and western Pacific Oceans, extending east to the Hawaiian Islands.

Habitat. Epiphytic in the subtidal.

[After J.M. Huisman in Algae of Australia: Marine Benthic Algae of North-western Australia, 2. Red Algae: 515 (2018)]