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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus ACANTHOPHORA Lamouroux 1813: 132

Phylum Rhodophyta – Family Rhodomelaceae – Tribe Chondrieae

Thallus erect, much branched, branches terete or compressed, bearing spirally to irregularly arranged short spines. Structure. Apices of branches depressed or projecting, bearing trichoblasts. Pericentral cells 5, corticated, grading to outer small cells, with rhizoids around the axial and inner cells. Spines multicellular.

Reproduction: Gametophytes dioecious. Procarps on lower cells of trichoblasts. Carposporophytes with a basal fusion cell and branched gonimoblast with terminal carposporangia. Cystocarps ovoid, sessile, pericarp ostiolate, several cells thick. Spermatangial organs forming flat plates with sterile marginal cells, borne on trichoblasts.

Tetrasporangia formed in lateral branchlets bearing spines, cut off from pericentral cells, several per whorl.

Type species: A. spicifera (Vahl) Børgesen 1910: 201.

Taxonomic notes: A genus of 7 species, mainly tropical-subtropical in distribution, characterised by the presence of short spines on the branches, recently monographed by de Jong et al. (1999). Only one record of A. dendroides from southern Australia exists.

References:

BØRGESEN, F. (1910). Some new or little known West Indian Florideae. II. Bot. Tidsskr. 30, 177–207.

DE JONG, Y.S.D.M., HITIPEUW, C. & PRUD'HOMME VAN REINE, W.F. (1999). A taxonomic, phylogenetic and biogeographic study of the genus Acanthophora (Rhodomelaceae, Rhodophyta). Blumea 44, 217–249.

LAMOUROUX, J.V.F. (1813). Essai sur les genres de la famille des thalassiophytes non articulées. Ann. Mus. Hist. Nat., Paris 20, 21–47, 115–139, 267–293, Plates 7–13.

The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia Part IIID complete list of references.

Publication: Womersley, H.B.S. (24 February, 2003)
The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia
Rhodophyta. Part IIID. Ceramiales – Delesseriaceae, Sarcomeniaceae, Rhodomelaceae
Reproduced with permission from The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia Part IIID 2003, by H.B.S. Womersley. Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra. Copyright Commonwealth of Australia.


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