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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus TIFFANIELLA Doty & Meñez 1960: 135

Phylum Rhodophyta – Order Ceramiales – Family Ceramiaceae – Tribe Spermothamnieae

Thallus tufted and expanding, with prostrate filaments attached by saccate or digitate haptera, and erect, irregularly branched, uniseriate filaments 5–20 (–50) mm high; epiphytic (usually) on Codium. Cells multinucleate.

Reproduction: Gametophytes dioecious or monoecious. Procarps subapical on laterals of erect filaments, the upper 3 or 4 cells shorter, with 3 periaxial cells, one sterile, one fertile producing only an auxiliary cell, and the other (the supporting cell) producing a sterile apical cell and a lateral carpogonial branch; fusion cell with 2 arms, involving both auxiliary cells and the hypogenous cell, with short gonimoblast filaments producing clavate to pyriform carposporangia; inner and outer involucral filaments absent, the carposporophyte naked. Spermatangial heads elongate, sessile or pedicellate on erect filaments, with axial cells cutting off radially initials which produce spermatangia.

Sporangia terminal on short pedicels, usually clustered on upper part of erect filaments, tetrahedrally or polyhedrally divided.

Type species: T. saccorhiza (Setchell & Gardner) Doty & Meñez 1960: 138, figs 1–14.

Taxonomic notes: A genus of eight species (Gordon 1972, p. 125), one on southern Australian coasts. Most species occur on Codium, and are attached by saccate rhizoids. The southern Australian species was considered by Gordon (1972, p. 124) to be the same as the Mauritius T. cymodoceae, though differing in host and digitate rather than saccate haptera. T. cymodoceae differs from the other described species in having tetrasporangia instead of polysporangia. Huisman (1985, p. 63) further discusses the characteristics of Tiffaniella.

References:

DOTY, M.S. & MEÑEZ, E.G. (1960). Tiffaniella, a new genus in the Ceramiales. Trans. Am. Microsc. Soc. 79, 135–144.

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

HUISMAN, J.M. (1985). Rhipidothamnion secundum gen. et sp. nov. and Spermothamnion miniatum sp. nov. (Ceramiaceae, Rhodophyta) from eastern Australia. Phycologia 24, 55–66.

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
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