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- Reference
- Sp.Alg. 415 (1849)
- Conservation Code
- Not threatened
- Naturalised Status
- Native to Western Australia
- Name Status
- Not Current
Scientific Description
Habit and structure. Thallus medium to dark green, forming delicate soft tufts of slender short-celled filaments, one to several cm high, attached by rhizoids in the basal region; or forming 1–4 cm long, loose, dark green, entangled, irregular aggregates in protected bays; composed of distinct main axes which mostly bear several strongly developed main laterals with which they form pseudodichotomies; the axis and main laterals may be lined with mostly unilateral rows of tapering branchlets, or be bare over long stretches. Growth almost exclusively intercalary, with branchlets many cells apart on upper filaments; some old plants may be densely branched; parent cells usually with a single lateral, occasionally two, in some densely branched plants up to 4 arising at broad angles (45° or more); basal cross walls of laterals steeply inclined to oblique, in older laterals becoming almost horizontal. Apical cells usually tapering to obtuse apices, 20–30 µm in diameter and L/B 1.5–4; ultimate branch cells 22–56 µm in diameter and L/B 1.2–2.5; lower thallus cells 45–70(–90) µm in diameter, L/B 1–2.5; ratio of basal cell to apical cell diameters 2–4; cell walls 1–3 µm thick above, up to 10 µm thick and lamellate below.
Reproduction. By long moniliform rows of zooidangia.
Distribution. Widely distributed along tropical to warm temperate Atlantic coasts of America and Africa. In southern Australia, known from Falcon Bay, Peel Inlet, W. Aust., and Outer Harbour, S. Aust.
[After van den Hoek & Womersley in Womersley, Mar. Benthic Fl. Southern Australia I: 204–206 (1984)]