South African Seaweeds

Order Nemaliales

Family Scinaiaceae

Scinaia salicornioides (Kutzing) J. Agardh 1851: 423

Plants bright to dark red, mucilaginous, up to about 25 cm tall, with a small discoid holdfast. Axes erect, cylindrical, 1-4 mm in diameter, several times di- or trichotomously branched, distinctly constricted at forks. Structure multiaxial, with narrow core of longitudinal filaments surrounded by a layer of radiating filaments and a solid epidermal layer of colourless vesicular cells; assimilatory cells confined to subepidermal layers; vesicular cells broadly club-shaped, up to 20 µm diameter in surface view.

Spermatangia superficial, cut off in small groups from narrow spermatangial mother cells that penetrate the epidermis. Carposporophytes globose, immersed in the thallus. Tetrasporic phase unknown.

Collections, ecology and regional distribution

Recorded from Muizenberg (drift specimen) to St Lucia in Kwazulu-Natal (18-55); mainly a species of the South African east coast. Found in the eulittoral fringe and sublittoral zone.

World distribution: South African endemic.

Type locality: Durban (Silva et al. 1996).

Scinaia salicornioides. Herbarium specimen.

Scinaia salicornioides. 1. Habit. 2. Cross section of cortex. Reproduced from Stegenga et al. (1997).

References Scinaia saliconioides

Agardh, J. 1851. Species genera et ordines algarum ... Part 2, fasc. 1, pp. [2] 337 [bis]- 351 [bis] 352–504. Lund: C.W. K. Gleerup. (Note: the year of publication of this fascicle follows Silva, Basson & Moe (1996)).

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 26 April 2024.