Ganonema borowitzkae Huisman
Australian Systematic Botany 820-823 (2002)
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 to 13 cm tall, pale pink to greenish, mucilaginous, lightly calcified, irregularly and sparingly branched, tending to paniculate. Axes terete, 0.5–1.0 mm in diameter, tapering gradually to pointed apices. Medullary filaments 15–75 µm in diameter, mingling with numerous rhizoids. Assimilatory filaments 180–250 µm long, sparingly subdichotomously branched, often with unbranched outer sections 3–5 cells long; cells barrel-shaped or cylindrical, 6–9 µm in diameter.
Reproduction. Monoecious. Spermatangial axes on subapical cells,
repeatedly branched, with terminal spermatangia. Carpogonial branches 3- or 4-celled, straight or slightly curved, on
the distal region or shoulder of the supporting cell. Gonimoblast
compact, with terminal quadripartite carposporangia 18–20 × 15 µm, with
cruciately arranged spores. Fusion
cell absent. Involucral filaments
borne on cells adjacent to the supporting cell, partially encircling the
carpogonial branch and subtending but not enveloping the gonimoblast.
Distribution. Known from Thevenard I., Barrow I., and the Dampier Archipelago, north-western W. Aust.
Habitat. G.
borowitzkae occurs in the lower intertidal and upper
subtidal; epilithic, the base generally covered by sand.
