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Rhipilia crassa A.Millar & Kraft

Reference
Phycologia 40:32-33, Figs 37-40, 53-58 (2001)
Conservation Code
Not threatened
Naturalised Status
Native to Western Australia
Name Status
Current

Scientific Description

Habit and structure. Thallus spongy, medium green, attached by a narrow basal region that broadens to a peltate or irregular blade to 30 mm wide, often growing in clusters and anastomosing marginally with adjacent plants. Blades a coarse meshwork of several layers of siphons, these 60–100 μm diam., dichotomously to laterally branched, often with equal constrictions above branching points and rare shallow intercalary constrictions. Primary siphons bearing short lateral siphons, mostly unconstricted, straight or often curved, with terminal tenaculae, these 4–7-pronged, the prongs occasionally further divided and forming attachments to adjacent siphons. Apices of siphons rounded at the thallus margins and elsewhere when not involved with lateral attachment.

Distribution. Northern W.A., also in the southern Great Barrier Reef and the Philippines.

Habitat. Epilithic in the subtidal.

[After Huisman & Verbruggen, Algae of Australia: Mar. Benthic Algae of North-western Australia, 1. Green and Brown Algae 140 (2015)]