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Electronic Flora of South Australia Family Fact Sheet
Phylum Rhodophyta – Class Florideophyceae – Order Gigartinales
Thallus erect, foliose to much branched, soft and mucilaginous to firm and cartilaginous, with or without a distinct stipe. Structure multiaxial with a medulla of slender to robust, sparse to dense, filaments and a cortex of ovoid cells in anticlinal filaments or pseudoparenchymatous, medulla with or without stellate or refractive ganglioid cells (which have darkly staining and refractive contents). Rhodoplasts discoid to elongate, few to many per cortical cell.
Reproduction: Sexual thalli monoecious or dioecious, non-procarpic. Carpogonial branches 2-celled, on a primary ampulla filament (in the inner cortex) which develops secondary filaments which surround the carpogonial branch, or in Zymurgia 4-celled without an ampulla; connecting filaments developing from the fertilized carpogonium. Auxiliary cell ampullae arising in the inner cortex, with the auxiliary cell within or on a primary filament which develops secondary filaments and in some genera up to five orders of filaments, with the auxiliary cell lying at or near the base of the ampulla with the filaments either converging above or remaining cupulate (in the outer cortex). Carposporophyte developed from the diploidized auxiliary cell towards the thallus surface, with most cells becoming carposporangia usually within gonimolobes, surrounded by a slight to conspicuous involucre derived from the ampullary filaments or also including medullary filaments; ostiole present or not. Spermatangia cut off from surface cortical cells.
Tetrasporangia scattered in the outer cortex, sometimes in sori, or between paraphyses in slightly raised nemathecia, cruciately divided.
Life history triphasic with isomorphic gametophytes and tetrasporophytes.
Taxonomic notes: A family of about 20 genera, well represented on southern Australian coasts with some 11 genera. The family is clearly characterised by its thallus structure and sexual reproduction, involving carpogonial branches and auxiliary cells borne in filamentous ampullae. However, separation of many of the genera requires further study and, hopefully, recognition of better features for their separation. The family is clearly in need of further study and generic placement of several species described below is tentative.
This family has been known as the Cryptonemiaceae Harvey (1849b, p. 132) and the Grateloupiaceae Schmitz in Engler (1892, p. 18), but Guiry (1978, p. 192) has pointed out that Halymeniaceae Bory 1828 is the earliest valid name.
References:
BORY DE ST-VINCENT, J.B. (1828). In Duperrey, L.I., Voyage autour du monde, exécuté par ordre du Roi, sur la corvette de Sa Majesté, la Coquille, pendant les années 1822, 1823, 1824 et 1825. Botanique, Cryptogamie, pp. 1–300, Plates 1–39. (Bertrand: Paris.)
ENGLER, A. (1892). Syllabus der Vorlesungen über specielle and medicinisch-pharmaceutische Botanik ... Grosse Ausgabe. (Borntraeger: Berlin.)
GUIRY, M.D. (1978). Notes on some family names of Florideophyceae (Rhodophyta). Taxon 27, 191–195.
HARVEY, W.H. (1849b). A manual of the British marine algae. Edn 2. (Van Voorst: London.)
The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia Part IIIA complete list of references.
Publication:
Womersley, H.B.S. (14 January, 1994)
The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia
Rhodophyta. Part IIIA, Bangiophyceae and Florideophyceae (to Gigartinales)
Reproduced with permission from The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia Part IIIA 1994, by H.B.S. Womersley. Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra. Copyright Commonwealth of Australia.
KEY TO GENERA OF HALYMENIACEAE
1. Surface of thallus smooth, without minute excrescences; reproductive organs borne in the normal thallus | 2 |
1. Surface of thallus rough and covered with minute excrescences or of fibrils forming a meshwork often with associated sponge; reproductive organs borne in small (less than 1 cm long) flat leaflets on the upper thallus, free from sponge | 10 |
2. Thallus subdichotomous or laterally branched, branches | 3 |
2. Thallus much branched with narrow branches or broad and foliose, soft to firm, surface mucilaginous, without a perennial thickened stipe or prominent midrib, usually not cartilaginous and adhering to paper on drying | 5 |
3. Thallus subdichotomously to irregularly branched or foliose, branches usually more than 4 mm broad; tetrasporangia scattered in the cortex | CRYPTONEMIA |
3. Thallus repeatedly subdichotomously to alternately branched, branches usually | 4 |
4. Thallus complanately branched, branches | CARPOPELTIS |
4. Thallus slightly compressed, | POLYOPES |
5. Medulla in young and mid thallus lax, with sparse filaments, becoming denser in older parts; auxiliary cell ampullae relatively simple in most taxa, with few secondary or tertiary filaments (or more elaborate in some species of Grateloupia); ampullary involucre slight to prominent | 6 |
5. Medulla throughout of moderately to densely entwined filaments; auxiliary cell ampullae much branched and bushy; ampullary involucre prominent | 8 |
6. Thallus slender, densely radially branched, branches terete. Carpogonial branches 4-celled, borne on inner cortical cells, without ampullae; auxiliary cell ampullae with few branches, cupulate | ZYMURGIA |
6. Thallus slender to robust, usually largely complanately branched Carpogonial branches 2-celled, within an ampulla; auxiliary cell ampullae cupulate or converging; involucre present | 7 |
7. Medulla in young parts with sparse filaments mostly transverse, becoming dense with irregular filaments in older parts; refractive ganglionic cells usually present; auxiliary cell ampullae broad, not converging above; thallus foliose or complanate and pinnate | HALYMENIA |
7. Medulla of sparse, loosely entwined filaments; refractive ganglionic cells absent; auxiliary cell ampullae with few or many branches, usually converging above; involucre slight to prominent; thallus usually much branched, in some species slightly branched and proliferous or foliose | GRATELOUPIA |
8. Thallus complanately branched, pinnate to bipinnate, with prominent axes | GELINARIA |
8. Thallus foliose to irregularly lobed, | 9 |
9. Cortex of anticlinal filaments of | PACHYMENIA |
9. Cortex of anticlinal filaments of | AEODES |
10. Thallus branches | THAMNOCLONIUM |
10. Thallus branches | CODIOPHYLLUM |
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