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Electronic Flora of South Australia Genus Fact Sheet

Genus MUELLERENA Schmitz in Schmitz & Hauptfleisch 1897: 496

Phylum Rhodophyta – Order Ceramiales – Family Ceramiaceae – Tribe Dasyphileae

Thallus erect, 3–13 cm high, consistently alternately distichously branched, axes and branches terete, corticated with rhizoids from basal cells of whorl-branchlets. Apical cells of axes dividing transversely, lateral branches alternate, 2 cells apart, subapical cells developing whorls of 5 whorl-branchlets in alternating sequence, whorl-branchlets di- or trichotomous several times, with gland cells. Cells uninucleate.

Reproduction: Procarps on short special branches on basal cells of whorl-branchlets, with the supporting cell bearing a sterile cell and a 4-celled carpogonial branch. Diploidisation via a connecting cell with the auxiliary cell pit-connecting to the apical cell of the fertile axis and cutting off an upper gonimoblast cell which produces successive lobes of carposporangia on elongate stalk cells. Sterile cells adjacent to the procarp and on the supporting cell form loose involucral filaments around the carposporophyte. Spermatangia unknown.

Tetrasporangia borne on cells of the whorl-branchlets, sessile, tetrahedrally divided.

Type species: M. wattsii (Harvey) Schmitz in Schmitz & Hauptfleisch 1897: 496.

Taxonomic notes: Muellerena wattsii has been described in detail by Wollaston (1972) and shown to belong to the Dasyphileae by Wollaston (1977a, p. 450). The genus is probably monotypic.

References:

SCHMITZ, F. & HAUPTFLEISCH, P. (1897). Ceramiaceae. In Engler, A. & Prantl, K., Die natarlichen Pflanzenfamilien, Vol. 1, Part 2, pp. 481–504. (Leipzig.)

WOLLASTON, E.M. (1972). The morphology and relationships of Muellerena wattsii (Harvey) Schmitz (Ceramiaceae, Rhodophyta). Trans. R. Soc. S. Aust. 96, 119–124.

WOLLASTON, E.M.(1977a). Morphology and life history of Dasyphila preissii Sonder, with notes on the taxonomic position of Muellerena wattsii (Harvey) Schmitz (Rhodophyta, Ceramiaceae). Phycologia 16, 443–450.

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
©State Herbarium of South Australia, Government of South Australia


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