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Electronic Flora of South Australia Family Fact Sheet
Phylum Rhodophyta – Class Florideophyceae – Order Corallinales – Family Corallinaceae
Thallus largely unconsolidated or encrusting; endophytic or epigenous and affixed by cell adhesion; genicula absent. Structure filamentous, partly or entirely pseudo-parenchymatous with diffuse or dimerous construction; cells of adjacent filaments not joined by cell-fusions or secondary pit-connections.
Reproduction: Vegetative reproduction unknown. Gametangia borne in uniporate conceptacles; tetrasporangia and bisporangia borne in multiporate conceptacles.
Gametangial thalli apparently dioecious. Carpogonial filaments usually 2-celled, arising from each female conceptacle chamber floor. CarposporophyteS developing within female conceptacles after karyogamy, composed of carposporangia terminating short gonimoblast filaments that arise from a central fusion cell. Spermatangial filaments unbranched or branched, produced from the floor, walls and roof of male conceptacle chambers.
Tetrasporangia and bisporangia borne on separate thalli from gametangia and carposporangia, with apical plugs each blocking a roof pore prior to spore release; tetrasporangia each containing zonately arranged spores; bisporangia each containing two bispores. Conceptacle roofs formed from filaments interspersed amongst and peripheral to developing sporangia.
Type genus: Austrolithon A. Harvey & Woelkerling 1995: 363.
Taxonomic notes: The Austrolithoideae includes two genera: Austrolithon, known only from southern Australia, and Boreolithon, known only from the British Isles and France (A. Harvey & Woelkerling 1995). Chaetolithon, long interpreted as a corallinacean endophyte with multiporate tetrasporangial conceptacles, is now known to prossess uniporate tetrasporangial conceptacles and is considered a heterotypic synonym of Choreonema; a full account is provided by Woelkerling (1987b).
References:
HARVEY, A.S. & WOELKERLING, W.J. (1995). An account of Austrolithon intumescens gen. et sp. nov. and Boreolithon van-heurckii (Heydrich) gen. et comb. nov. (Austrolithoideae subfam. nov., Corallinaceae, Rhodophyta). Phycologia 34, 362–382.
WOELKERLING, W.J. (1987b). The disposition of Chaetolithon and its type species, C. deformans (Corallinaceae, Rhodophyta). Phycologia 26, 277–280.
The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia Part IIIB complete list of references.
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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