Botryocladia skottsbergii (Borgesen) Levring
The natural history of Juan Fernandez and Easter Island 645 (1941)
Conservation Code:
Not threatened
Naturalised Status: Native to Western Australia
Name Status:
Current
Scientific Description
John Huisman & Cheryl Parker,
Monday 20 June 2011
Habit and structure. Thallus 18–20 mm in height, deep red-purple, with clusters of irregularly branched stipes bearing 1–3 subspherical to pyriform terminal vesicles. Vesicles subspherical to obovoid, 7–10 mm long by 5 mm in diameter, hollow, with a wall of 3–4 cell layers and 100–150 µm thick, the inner layer of large, hyaline medullary cells, grading outwardly to smaller pigmented cortical cells. Outer cortical cells forming a continuous layer, not in rosettes. Gland cells arising in groups of 2–7 (occasionally more) on inner surface of medullary cells, pyriform, to 35 µm in diameter.
Reproduction. Reproductive structures not seen.
Distribution. Probably widely distributed in warmer waters.
Habitat. Epilithic in the intertidal to 12 m depths.
