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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus NEOGONIOLITHON Setchell & Mason 1943: 90

Phylum Rhodophyta – Class Florideophyceae – Order Corallinales – Family Corallinaceae – Subfamily Mastophoroideae

Thallus encrusting, warty, lumpy or fruticose; epilithic or epizoic and affixed by cell adhesion, or unattached and free-living as rhodoliths; genicula absent. Structure pseudoparenchymatous; organisation dorsiventral in crustose portions and radial in protuberant branches; construction monomerous, consisting of a single system of branched filaments that collectively contribute to a ventrally or centrally situated core, and a peripheral region where portions of core filaments or their derivatives curve outwards towards the thallus surface; cells of adjacent filaments joined by cell-fusions, secondary pit-connections absent; epithallial cells terminating filaments at the thallus surface, distal walls rounded or flattened but not flared; trichocytes present or absent, if present appearing, in section, arranged in horizontal fields, horizontal rows, vertical rows, or occurring singly at the thallus surface, sometimes becoming buried within the thallus.

Reproduction: Vegetative reproduction by thallus fragmentation. Gametangia, carposporangia, tetrasporangia and bisporangia borne in uniporate conceptacles; gametangia and carposporangia usually formed on separate plants from tetrasporangia and bisporangia.

Gametangial plants monoecious or dioecious; carpogonia and spermatangia produced in separate conceptacles or rarely in the same conceptacle. Carpogonia terminating 3-celled filaments arising from the female conceptacle chamber floor. Carposporophytes developing within female conceptacles after karyogamy, lacking a large central fusion cell and with short gonimoblast filaments bearing terminal carposporangia. Spermatangial filaments unbranched, formed on the chamber floor, walls and roof.

Tetrasporangia and bisporangia formed across the chamber floor or peripheral to a central columella, conceptacle roofs formed by filaments either surrounding sporangial initials or surrounding and interspersed amongst sporangial initials, each mature sporangium lacking an apical plug, zonately divided.

Type species: Neogoniolithon fosliei (Heydrich) Setchell & Mason 1943: 90.

Taxonomic notes: At least 62 species and infraspecific taxa have been ascribed to Neogoniolithon (Woelkerling 1988, p. 142). Recently, an emended description of the genus has been published (Penrose 1992b) and the number of true species of Neogoniolithon is unknown. Information on nomenclature and the historical background of the genus has been provided by Woelkerling (1988, pp. 141,142,145).

References:

PENROSE, D. (1992b). Neogoniolithon fosliei (Corallinaceae, Rhodophyta), the type species of Neogoniolithon, in southern Australia. Phycologia 31, 338–350.

SETCHELL, W.A. & MASON, L.R. (1943). Goniolithon and Neogoniolithon: Two genera of crustaceous coralline algae. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. Washington 29, 87–92.

WOELKERLING, Wm.J. (1988). The Coralline Red Algae. [British Museum (N.H.): London.]

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

Author: W.J. Woelkerling (with some genera by D.L. Penrose)

Publication: Womersley, H.B.S. (28 June, 1996)
The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia
Rhodophyta. Part IIIB. Gracilarialse, Rhodymeniales, Corallinales and Bonnemaisoniales
Reproduced with permission from The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia Part IIIB 1996, by H.B.S. Womersley. Australian Biological Resources Study, Canberra. Copyright Commonwealth of Australia.


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