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Electronic Flora of South Australia Family Fact Sheet
Phylum Rhodophyta – Class Florideophyceae – Order Corallinales – Family Corallinaceae
Thallus largely unconsolidated, vegetative portions endophytic but conceptacles protruding above the host surface; genicula absent. Structure filamentous to partly pseudoparenchymatous with diffuse construction; cells of adjacent filaments not joined by cell-fusions or secondary pit-connections.
Reproduction: Vegetative reproduction unknown. Gametangia and tetrasporangia borne in uniporate conceptacles. Bisporangia unknown.
Gametangial thalli dioecious. Carpogonial filaments 2- or 3-celled, arising from the 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, produced from the floor, walls and roof of male conceptacle chambers.
Tetrasporangia borne on separate thalli from gametangia and carposporangia, with apical plugs that collectively block the conceptacle pore prior to spore release, tetrasporangia each containing four zonately arranged spores. Conceptacle roofs formed from filaments peripheral to developing sporangia.
Type genus: Choreonema Schmitz 1889: 455.
Taxonomic notes: The Choreonematoideae includes a single genus and species (Woelkerling 1987a, 1988). Chaetolithon Foslie (1898b, p. 7), based on a single southern Australian collection, is considered to be a heterotypic synonym of Choreonema (Woelkerling 1987b).
References:
FOSLIE, M. (1898b). List of species of the lithothamnia. K. norske Vidensk. Selsk. Skr. 1898(3), 1–11.
SCHMITZ, F. (1889). Systematische Ubersicht der bisher bekannten Gattungen der Florideen. Flora, Jena 72, 435–456, Plate 21.
WOELKERLING, W.J. (1987a). The genus Choreonema in southern Australia and its subfamilial classification within the Corallinaceae (Rhodophyta). Phycologia 26, 111–127.
WOELKERLING, W.J. (1987b). The disposition of Chaetolithon and its type species, C. deformans (Corallinaceae, Rhodophyta). Phycologia 26, 277–280.
WOELKERLING, Wm.J. (1988). The Coralline Red Algae. [British Museum (N.H.): London.]
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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