Seaweeds of the South African South Coast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Order Corallinales

Family Corallinaceae

Sub-family Corallinoideae

Corallina sp 1 (“C. officinalis”)

Plants pink to purplish-pink or greyish, with a crustose base and many erect axes up to 8 cm tall, forming dense clumps usually with a pyramidal outline. Axes cylindrical to compressed, pinnately branched. Genicula with single transverse band of cells, inconspicuous. Intergenicula flattened to cuneate, 0.5 – 1.5 mm long, 0.5 – 1.5 mm broad; branching usually from every intergeniculum, sometimes more than one branch arising on one side of an axial segment; adventitious branching from surfaces of intergenicula may occur on proximal axes; apices of terminal segments rounded and pale, terminal segments sometimes spathulate. Fertile branchlets often resembling tiny clubs; conceptacles swollen, borne axially, ostiole terminal occasionally with short, thin surmounting branchlets.

Collections, ecology and regional distribution

Common and abundant on exposed rock in pools and gulleys from the lower eulittoral to shallow subtidal. Recorded (as C. officinalis) from Oudekraal (west coast of Cape Peninsula; Stegenga et al. 1997) to northern Kwazulu-Natal (De Clerck et al. 2005) (16-58).

Collections, ecology and regional distribution

Common and abundant on exposed rock in pools and gulleys from the lower eulittoral to shallow subtidal. Recorded (as C. officinalis) from Oudekraal (west coast of Cape Peninsula; Stegenga et al. 1997) to northern Kwazulu-Natal (De Clerck et al. 2005) (16-58).

 

Corallina sp 1, Arniston.

Corallina sp 1, detail of segments.

Corallina sp 1, fertile specimen, Tsitsikamma.

Corallina sp 1, branch detail.

Corallina sp 1. Habit (reproduced from Stegenga et al. 1997, as C. officinalis).

 

References Corallina sp 1

De Clerck, O, Tronchin, E. M., Schils, T. 2005. Red algae. In: De Clerck, O., J.J.Bolton, R. J. Anderson and E. Coppejans, 2005. Guide to the Seaweeds of Kwazulu-Natal. National Botanic Garden of Belgium, Brussels (Scripta Botanica Belgica), pp. 130-269.

Kogame, K., Uwai, S., Anderson, RJ., Choi, H-G & JJ Bolton. 2017. DNA barcoding of South African geniculate coralline red algae (Corallinales, Rhodophyta). South African Journal of Botany 108: 337-341.

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.

Williamson, C.J., Walker, R.H., Robba, L., Yesson, C., Russell, S., Irvine L.M. & J. Brodie. 2015. Toward resolution of species diversity and distribution in the calcified red algal genera Corallina and Ellisolandia (Corallinales, Rhodophyta). Phycologia 54: 2-11. 

 

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 01 May 2024.