Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus CARPOMITRA Kützing 1843: 343, nom. cons.

Phylum Phaeophyta – Order Sporochnales

Thallus usually 10–25 cm long, much branched subdichotomously to laterally, with slightly to distinctly compressed, narrow, linear branches, with a faint midrib, attached by a rhizoidal holdfast. Growth apical, with a tuft of trichothallic assimilatory filaments surmounting the apex of the branch or the sporangial sorus. Structure haplostichous and pseudoparenchymatous, with a core of elongate axial cells and a small-celled phaeoplastic cortex.

Reproduction: Reproduction by unilocular sporangia borne laterally on branched paraphyses on the conical apex and within the cupulate branch end. Gametophyte (Motomura et al. 1985) monoecious, filamentous, branched, bearing terminal clusters of antheridia and enlarged terminal cells forming probable oogonia.

Life history diplohaplontic and heteromorphic.

Type species: C. cabrerae (Clemente) Kützing, type cons. [= C. costata (Stackhouse) Batters].

Taxonomic notes: A genus of three species, the type, C. filiformis (Suhr) Papenfuss (1943b, p. 82) from South Africa, and C. luxurians Taylor (1945, p. 104, pl. 3 figs 9–16, p1. 16, pl. 17 fig. 2) from Ecuador, the form of which is within the range of southern Australian plants of C. costata.

References:

KÜTZING, F.T. (1843). Phycologia generalis. (Leipzig.)

MOTOMURA, T., KAWAGUCHI, S. & SAKAI, Y. (1985). Life history and ultrastructure of Carpotnitra cabrerae (Clemente) Kützing (Phaeophyta, Sporochnales). Jap. J. Phycol. 33, 21–31

PAPENFUSS, G.F. (1943b). Notes on South African marine algae. II. J.S Afr. Bot. 9, 79–92.

TAYLOR, W.R. (1945). Pacific marine algae of the Allan Hancock Expeditions to the Galapagos Islands. Allan Hancock Pacific Expeditions 12, 1–528.

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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