Caulerpa brachypus Harv.
Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 333 (1860)
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 grass-green or olive-green, laterally spreading to 40–50 cm, with terete, smooth stolons 2–3 mm in diameter, attached to the substratum by pillars bearing dense rhizoidal clusters. Assimilators with short basal terete stipes to 7 mm long, then flattened, simple or branched, ligulate, to 9 cm in height and 5–18 mm broad, generally of uniform width or tapering slightly, rarely sinuous or with constrictions. Ramuli absent, the margins of assimilators smooth or with minute, widely spaced, spines and generally an apical notch.
Habitat. C. brachypus is generally epilithic in sandy areas of the lower intertidal and subtidal and is occasionally locally very common (e.g. at Barrow I.).
