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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus HALOPLEGMA Montagne 1842: 258

Phylum Rhodophyta – Order Ceramiales – Family Ceramiaceae – Tribe Compsothamnieae

Thallus erect, flat and complanately branched, flabellate to lobed to much branched, spongy, margins usually smooth, holdfast rhizoidal with a short terete stipe. Structure. Blades with numerous fringing apices, slightly more prominent primary apices separated by several similar secondary apices, apical cells with more or less transverse cross walls. Apical filaments producing mainly opposite lateral filaments in the plane of the thallus which unite with those of adjacent filaments to form rectangular meshes of a network, with alternate cells of the apical filaments producing filaments towards the surfaces which produce small surface clusters forming a felt like cover to the thallus. Cells multinucleate.

Reproduction: Gametophytes dioecious. Carpogonial branches borne on the cells of short branches on lower cells of the surface clusters. Carposporophytes positioned just above the blade surface, with several rounded gonimolobes developing successively, all cells forming carposporangia, and loosely surrounded by filaments of the surface clusters. Spermatangial heads borne on the cells of the surface clusters, ovoid, with axial cells of the heads bearing whorls of cells which cut off spermatangia.

Tetrasporangia terminal on cells or short branches on the surface clusters, tetrahedrally divided.

Type species: H. duperreyi Montagne 1842: 258, pl. 7 fig. I.

Taxonomic notes: A genus of probably 3 species, the type and H. preissii Sonder, both of which are known from southern Australia, and H. anweri Shameel & Nizamuddin(1972) from Pakistan.

Although the details of procarps have not been described for the type species, reproduction of H. preissii indicates that Haloplegma is best placed in the Compsothamnieae.

References:

MONTAGNE, C. (1842) Troisieme centurie de plantes cellulaires exotiques nouvelles. Decades V, VI, VII, et VIII. Ann. Sci. Nat. Bot. Ser. 2, 18, 241–282, Plate 7.

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

Author: H.B.S. Womersley and E.M. Wollaston

Publication: Womersley, H.B.S. (24 December, 1998)
The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia
Rhodophyta. Part IIIC. Ceramiales – Ceramiaceae, Dasyaceae
©State Herbarium of South Australia, Government of South Australia

KEY TO SPECIES OF HALOPLEGMA

1. Thallus 400–600 µm thick, flat and lobed but relatively little branched, surface clusters 45–100 µm long with terminal unbranched rows of 2–4 cells, 8–14 µm in diameter

H. duperreyi

1. Thallus mostly 1–2 mm thick, complanate and becoming much branched with flat lobes, surface clusters 400–700 µm long with curved, unbranched filaments 250–500 µm and 15–25 cells long, 18–30 µm in diameter

H. preissii


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