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- Reference
- Linnaea 694-695 (1853)
- Conservation Code
- Not threatened
- Naturalised Status
- Native to Western Australia
- Name Status
- Not Current
Scientific Description
Habit and structure. Thallus medium to dark red, 3–15 cm high, with a main axis irregularly radially branched, young branches soft and older branches drying cartilaginous, upper branches of elongate-clavate segments (1–)1.5–2 mm in diameter and 1–1.5(–3) cm long, di- to polychotomous for 3–4 orders, segments basally with a narrow pedicel; older thalli with terete axes 2–3 mm in diameter, often denuded below or with subverticillate clusters of branches. Holdfast discoid, 2–6 mm across, bearing one to several axes; epilithic. Structure. Epidermal cells rounded to polygonal near apices, 20–50 µm across, scarcely elongating in older branches, with longitudinal secondary pit-connections; in transverse section epidermal cells isodiametric, intercellular spaces present between cortical cells, lenticular thickenings absent; corps en cerise present in epidermal cells. Cells with discoid rhodoplasts, chained in larger cells.
Reproduction. Gametophytes dioecious. Procarps not observed. Carposporophytes with a basal fusion cell and short, branched gonimoblast bearing clavate carposporangia 30–60 µm in diameter. Cystocarps sessile, broad-based and not constricted, conical to hemispherical, (0.5–)0.7–1.5 mm in basal diameter; pericarp ostiolate, 6–8 cells thick. Spermatangial thalli with short, clavate to pyriform, receptacles 1–2 mm across, spermatangia borne on trichoblasts. Tetrasporangia borne in simple clavate branchlets, in parallel arrangement, cut off abaxially from outer cells, 80–110 µm in diameter.
Distribution. Port Denison, W. Aust., to Walkerville, Vic., and around Tas. Doubtfully elsewhere.
[After Womersley, Mar. Benthic Fl. Southern Australia IIID: 462–464 (2003)]