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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus BELLOTIA Harvey 1855a: 332

Phylum Phaeophyta – Order Sporochnales

Thallus 5–25 cm long, umbellate, with the lower axes bearing dense clusters of few to many, simple, laterals from their apices, these becoming 5–10 cm long and in older plants sometimes branching from their apices, with each branch bearing a dense, terminal tuft of long assimilatory filaments; attachment by a rhizoidal holdfast. Growth from a convex branch meristem, surmounted by the tuft of assimilatory trichothallic filaments. Structure haplostichous and pseudoparenchymatous, with a core of elongate axial cells and a smooth-surfaced cortex.

Reproduction: Sori compact, surrounding the branches for several centimetres from below the apical tufts of filaments (usually with sterile regions above and below), composed of densely grouped clavate paraphyses bearing lateral unilocular sporangia.

Gametophyte unknown.

Life history unknown, probably diplohaplontic and heteromorphic.

Type species: B. eriophorum Harvey.

Taxonomic notes: A monospecific genus of distinctive form, with clusters of long branches arising from the apex of parent branches, and with the sori surrounding the branches for several centimetres.

References:

HARVEY, W.H. (1855a). Short characters of some new genera and species of algae discovered on the coast of the Colony of Victoria, Australia. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 15, 332–336.

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

Author: H.B.S. Womersley

Publication: Womersley, H.B.S. (14 December, 1987)
The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia
Part II
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