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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus GULSONIA Harvey 1855b: 334

Phylum Rhodophyta – Order Ceramiales – Family Ceramiaceae – Tribe Crouanieae

Thallus erect, 5–30 cm high, very mucilaginous, irregularly much branched, branches terete with annulations of the whorls of whorl-branchlets, whorls of 4 equal whorl-branchlets, branched several times often with terminal hairs and gland cells. Lateral branches arising from basal cells of whorl-branchlets, with long rows of cells before initiation of whorl-branchlets. Mature axes corticated with rhizoids from basal cells of whorl-branchlets, dense below. Cells uninucleate.

Reproduction: Gametophytes dioecious. Procarps borne singly or opposite on axial cells of short lateral branches which cease vegetative growth, with a supporting cell bearing a 4-celled carpogonial branch, developing post-fertilization one to a few rounded gonimolobes surrounded by whorl-branchlets from below. Spermatangia are cut off terminally from end cells of whorl-branchlets.

Tetrasporangia sessile on mid and outer cells of whorl-branchlets, subspherical, tetrahedrally divided.

Type species: G. annulata Harvey 1855b: 334.

Taxonomic notes: A genus of 2 species, the type and G. mediterranea Kylin (1956, p. 373) from the Mediterranean, distinguished by the very mucilaginous thallus, whorls of 4 equal whorl-branchlets, lateral branches arising only from the basal cell of whorl-branchlets, and branch initials many cells long before initiation of their whorl-branchlets.

References:

HARVEY, W.H. (1855b). Short characters of some new genera and species of algae discovered on the coast of the Colony of Victoria, Australia. Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 15 (ser. 2), 332–336.

KYLIN, H. (1956). Die Gattungen der Rhodophyceen. (Gleerups: Lund.)

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

Author: E.M. Wollaston & 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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