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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet
Phylum Rhodophyta – Class Florideophyceae – Order Rhodymeniales – Family Champiaceae
Thallus 1–3 mm high, lobed, hemiparasitic on Champia but pigmented, branches terete with rounded apices, segmented by diaphragms, attached to the host by rhizoids penetrating the cortex. Structure multiaxial, developing a cortex 2 cells thick bordered internally by longitudinal filaments bearing secretory cells and with regular, but few, monostromatic diaphragms.
Reproduction: Gametangial thalli monoecious. Carpogonial branches 4-celled, borne on a large cortical (supporting) cell together with a 2-celled auxiliary cell branch. Carposporophyte erect, with branched gonimoblast filaments bearing terminal carposporangia; basal nutritive tissue slight, erect filaments slender. Cystocarps external, ovoid, pericarp thick, inner cells stellate, without or with a very narrow ostiole. Spermatangia cut off from initials on the outer cortical cells, forming extensive sori.
Tetrasporangia scattered, transformed from larger intercalary cortical cells, tetrahedrally divided.
Life history triphasic, with isomorphic gametophytes and tetrasporophytes.
Holotype species: C. sarae Bula-Meyer 1985: 429, figs 1–17.
Taxonomic notes: Champiocolax has been known only from the type species from the Caribbean. A second species is now described from southern Australia.
References:
BULA-MEYER, G. (1985). Champiocolax sarae gen. et sp. nov., an adelphohemiparasite of the Champiaceae (Rhodyméniales, Rhodophyta). Phycologia 24, 429–435.
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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