- Reference
- Proc.Linn.Soc.New South Wales 60:222-223, Fig. 7, Pl. viii: Fig. 2 (1935)
- Conservation Code
- Not threatened
- Naturalised Status
- Native to Western Australia
- Name Status
- Current
Scientific Description
Habit and structure. Thallus to 17 cm tall, erect from a rhizoidal base, usually some shade of green, often with pink or red apical regions. Branches developing from near base of main axes, usually at angles of 45–90°, and tending to grow very long, often reaching the same length as the main axes. Branches mostly terete; main axes 4–10 cm long. Ultimate branchlets 0.2–1.0 mm long, some slightly compressed. Trichoblasts dichotomously branched. Epidermal cells with moderately projecting outer walls, rounded in longitudinal section, becoming elongate towards the apices, each with 1 corps en cerise. Lenticular thickenings absent; medullary cell walls in older material can become thick and swollen. Tetrasporic ultimate branchlets generally compound. Tetraspores developing from pericentral cells, in parallel arrangement, to 90 µm diam.
Reproduction. Tetrasporangia connected to the supporting cell adaxially; no tetrasporic scarring seen on ultimate branchlets after tetraspore release. Trichoblasts dichotomously branched. Spermatangia formed from fertile trichoblasts within a cup-shaped apical pit, developing an apical nucleus, to 10 µm long and 6 µm wide. Cystocarpic ultimate branchlets compound, with 1 or 2 cystocarps forming per branchlet. Cystocarps to 1.2 mm diam.; ostioles only slightly protruding. Carpogonia lachrymiform, to 200 µm long and 68 µm wide.
Distribution. Known from Cape Londonderry, north-western Australia to Adelaide, South Australia; also in Jervis Bay, New South Wales, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island.
[After Y. Metti, J.M. Huisman & A.J.K. Millar in Algae of Australia: Marine Benthic Algae of North-western Australia, 2. Red Algae: 525–526 (2018)]