Seaweeds of the South African South Coast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Order Bryopsidales

Family Codiaceae

Codium platylobium Areschoug 1854: 367

Thallus dark green, flaccid, erect, stipe terete at base, flattening and widening to bear flattened branches of up to 8 orders, branches 3-24 cm wide, 1.5 – 2 mm thick, up to 2 m long, linear-lanceolate, acute in young plants becoming blunt when old, old specimens often with many proliferations from margins. Utricles cylindrical or slightly club-shaped, 500-750 (-840) µm long, apices rounded or truncate, hairs or hair-scars occasional. Gametangia lanceolate-ovoid or ellipsoidal, 180-250 µm long, several per utricle, borne on conspicuous pedicels near or below middle of urticles.

Collections, ecology and regional distribution

Table Bay to southern KZN (Mtwalume River – Port Shepstone) (15-49).

A distinctive and characteristic species on the south coast, this is the only flat-bladed, erect Codium on the South African coast. It occurs in intertidal rock-pools and the shallow sublittoral zone.

World distribution: Also recorded from Senegal and Korea (Guiry & Guiry 2014).

Type locality: Port Elizabeth (lectotype) (Silva et al. 1996).

 

Codium platylobium (with red patches of the epiphyte Placophora binderii).

 Codium platylobium, utricles (reproduced from Stegenga et al. 1997).

 

References

Areschoug, J.E. (1854). Phyceae novae et minus cognitae in maribus extraeuropaeis collectae. Nova Acta Regiae Societatis Scientiarum Upsaliensis, series 3 1: 329-372.

Guiry M.D. in Guiry, M.D. & Guiry, G.M. 2014. AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. http://www.algaebase.org; searched on 02 July 2014.

Silva, P.C., Basson, P.W. & Moe, R.L. (1996). Catalogue of the benthic marine algae of the Indian Ocean. University of California Publications in Botany 79: 1-1259.

Stegenga, H., Bolton, J.J. and R. J. Anderson. 1997. Seaweeds of the South African west coast. Contributions from the Bolus Herbarium 18: 655 pp.

 

Cite this record as:

Anderson RJ, Stegenga H, Bolton JJ. 2016. Seaweeds of the South African South Coast.
World Wide Web electronic publication, University of Cape Town, http://southafrseaweeds.uct.ac.za; Accessed on 25 April 2024.