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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus SHEPLEYA Gordon 1972: 69

Phylum Rhodophyta – Order Ceramiales – Family Ceramiaceae – Tribe Sphondylothamnieae

Thallus prostrate or erect, branching subdistichous to irregular, bearing 2–4 (–5) whorl-branchlets per axial cell, distichous or orthostichous in opposite pairs, mostly adaxially branched with terminal cells of similar diameter to lower cells, ends rounded, median cells 55–85 µm in diameter. Indeterminate branches formed in position of whorl-branchlets. Cortication absent or by descending rhizoids from basal cells of whorl-branchlets, adhering by haptera with a terminal digitate disc. Cells multinucleate.

Reproduction: Gametophytes dioecious. Procarps subapical on short lateral branchlets 4–7 cells long, the last 3 cells smaller, the subapical cell producing a sterile pericentral cell, a fertile pericentral cell (which cuts of the second auxiliary cell involved in the gonimoblast), and a supporting cell with a lateral carpogonial branch and a terminal sterile cell. The hypogenous cell bears no laterals, but is involved in the fusion cell which is furcate and produces terminal clavate carposporangia. Sterile procarp cells produce 2–3 inner involucral branchlets. Spermatangial heads sub-spherical to ovoid, borne adaxially on reduced branches of whorl-branches.

Tetrasporangia adaxial on small-celled branch systems on the whorl-branchlets.

Type species: S. wattsii (Harvey) Gordon 1972: 70.

Taxonomic notes: A genus of 5 species, 3 from southern Australia, S. claviformis Gordon (1972, p. 83) from the west coast of Western Australia, and S. elixithamnia Gordon-Mills & Norris (1986) from South Africa.

Distinguishing features are the whorl-branchlets with large cells with rounded ends, the small hypogenous cell, without laterals, of the female axis, the 2 auxiliary cells per procarp, and the furcate fusion cell involving the hypogenous cell.

References:

GORDON, E.M. (1972). Comparative morphology and taxonomy of the Wrangelieae, Sphondylothamnieae and Spermothamnieae (Ceramiaceae, Rhodophyta). Aust. J. Bot. suppl. 4, 1–180.

GORDON-MILLS, E. & NORRIS, R.E. (1986). Shepleya elixithamnia, a new species of Ceramiaceae (Rhodophyta) from South Africa. Phycologia 25, 160–167.

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

Author: H.B.S. Womersley

Publication: Womersley, H.B.S. (24 December, 1998)
The Marine Benthic Flora of Southern Australia
Rhodophyta. Part IIIC. Ceramiales – Ceramiaceae, Dasyaceae
©State Herbarium of South Australia, Government of South Australia

KEY TO SPECIES OF SHEPLEYA

1. Thallus prostrate, distichously branched, without erect axes; cortication absent; whorl-branchlets 2 per axial cell, median cells 55–85 µm in diameter; 2 inner involucral branchlets around the carposporophyte

S. australis

1. Thallus erect, 10–30 cm high; lower axes corticated with rhizoids; whorl-branchlets 2 or 4 per axial cell, median cells 130–300 µm in diameter; three inner involucral branchlets around the carposporophyte

2

2. Whorl-branchlets 2 per axial cell, distichous, median cells 180–300 µm in diameter and L/D 2–3

S. wattsii

2. Whorl-branchlets 4 per axial cell, orthostichous, median cells 130–150 µm in diameter and L/D 3–5

S. verticillata


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