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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus NACCARIA Endlicher 1836: 6

Phylum Rhodophyta – Class Florideophyceae – Order Bonnemaisoniales – Family Naccariaceae

Thallus (gametophyte) erect, mucilaginous, much branched irregularly radially, branches terete, holdfast discoid. Structure uniaxial, with a conspicuous apical cell and each axial cell producing two opposite (and at opposite ends) periaxial cells, mainly on a ¼ spiral, then developing branched periaxial filaments which form a cortex of large inner cells and smaller outer cells; descending rhizoidal filaments formed from periaxial cells.

Reproduction: Gametangial thalli monoecious or dioecious. Carpogonial branches 3- or 4-celled with the hypogynous cell bearing nutritive cells, borne on inner periaxial cells or upper cells of the rhizoidal filaments. Fertilized carpogonium fusing with the hypogynous cell and developing gonimoblast filaments which ramify between the cortical filaments forming a diffuse carposporophyte with terminal ovoid carposporangia, the whole swelling the branch; pericarp absent. Spermatangia in clusters, cut off from outer cortical cells.

Tetrasporophyte (of N. wigghii - Jones & Smith 1970) prostrate, minute, of branched filaments producing terminal, tetrahedrally divided, sporangia.

Life history (where known) triphasic, with heteromorphic gametophytes and tetrasporophytes, or a filamentous stage giving the gametophyte directly.

Type species: N. wigghii (Turner) Endlicher, from Europe.

Taxonomic notes: Tetrasporophyte prostrate, of branched filaments.

A genus of about 5 species (Millar 1990, p. 378), with one present on southern Australian coasts.

References:

ENDLICHER, S.L. (1836). Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita. pp. 1–160. (Beck: Wien.)

JONES, W.E. & SMITH, R.M. (1970). The occurrence of tétraspores in the life history of Naccaria wiggii (Turn.)Endl. Br. phycol. J. 5, 91–95.

MILLAR, A.J.K. (1990). Marine Red Algae of the Coffs Harbour Region, northern New South Wales. Aust. Syst. Bot. 3, 293–593.

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

Author: H.B.S. Womersley

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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