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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus PITYOPHYCOS Papenfuss 1958: 107

Phylum Rhodophyta – Family Rhodomelaceae – Tribe Polysiphonieae

Thallus erect, with one to a few axes bearing long lateral indeterminate branches for 3–4 orders, upper branches clothed with short, coupled, determinate laterals, spirally arranged, the upper pinnate and the lower usually simple. Attachment by basal stoloniferous branches. Structure. Subapical axial cells cutting off 4 pericentral cells which become rapidly corticated, bearing spirally adjacent, short, determinate laterals in a 1/4 divergence; these laterals alternately distichously branched, polysiphonous from close to their apical cells and with branched trichoblasts.

Reproduction: Gametophytes little known. Cystocarps borne on pinnate determinate laterals, ovoid.

Tetrasporangia in branches of determinate laterals, single per segment, spirally arranged.

Type species: P. tasmanica (Sonder) Papenfuss 1958: 107.

Taxonomic notes: Pityophycos is a little-known monotypic genus but seemingly distinct in the morphology of its determinate laterals, with an upper pinnate one and lower simple one, compared to Chiracanthia where they are branched and taper to an apical cell or monosiphonous filament.

References:

PAPENFUSS, G.F. (1958). Notes on algal nomenclature. IV. Taxon 7, 104–109.

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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