Seaweeds of the South African South Coast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Order Corallinales

Family Corallinaceae

Subfamily Corallinoideae

Jania subulata (Ellis & Solander) Sonder 1848: 186

Plants pink, rather delicate, to 5 (-7) cm tall, profusely branched, with complanate axes and proliferation of short terminal branchlets, holdfast crustose. Branching dichotomous in main axes, with pinnate (opposite) branching in subsidiary axes; numerous terete or slightly compressed terminal branchlets impart somewhat feather-like appearance to axes. Basal segments terete to slightly flattened, 100-250 µm diameter; middle segments compressed, 0.7 – 1.0 mm diameter, 0.3-0.7 mm long. Branchlets terete to flattened, 100-300 µm in diameter, forked or unbranched, often tapering distally. Intergenicula inconspicuous. Conceptacles in distinctly swollen (to 400 µm diameter) terminal segments of axes or branchlets, often with lateral branchlets around them.

Collections, ecology and regional distribution

Epilithic or epiphytic in rock pools, lower eulittoral or sublittoral fringe. Recorded from just west of Port Elizabeth through to northern Kwazulu-Natal (35-58).

World distribution: Widespread in warm temperate and tropical seas (Guiry & Guiry 2014).

Type locality: West Indies (Silva et al. 1996).

 

Jania subulata, herbarium specimen.

Jania subulata, herbarium specimen.

Jania subulata, detail of herbarium specimen.

 

References Jania subulata

Guiry, M.D. & Guiry, G.M. 2014. AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. http://www.algaebase.org; searched on 12 March 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.

Sonder, O.G. (1846). Algae L. Agardh. In: Plantae Preissianae sive enumeratio plantarum quas in Australasia occidentali et meridionali-occidentali annis 1838-1841 collegit Ludovicus Preiss. (Lehmann, C. Eds) Vol. 2, pp. 148-160. Hamburgi [Hamburg]: sumptibus Meissneri.

 

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 19 December 2024.