Lutherella Pascher, 1930

Holotype species: Lutherella adhaerens Pascher

Original publication and holotype designation: Pascher, A. (1930). Zur Kenntnis der heterokonten Algen. Archiv für Protistenkunde 69: 401-451.

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Description: Solitary cells, sometimes aggregated into two, four, more rarely eight or 16 cells, attached on aquatic vegetation. Cells spherical, ovoid or ellipsoid, sometimes pyriform and generally with the long axis perpendicular to the substratum. Spherical cells 3-10 (15) _m diameter; ellipsoid cells 3-10 _m wide and 3-10 _m long. Cells without pedicels. Cell walls thin and smooth, thick in one species and red colored. Chloroplasts 1 to 8, voluminous when single, discoid, cup shaped and sometimes more or less lobed on the edges. Crystalline, refringent corpuscles and globular lipids more or less numerous. Asexual reproduction by zoospores and autospores. Zoospores, ovoid, two to four per mother cell with conspicuous metaboly and quickly becoming amoeboid. Zoospores with two unequal flagella inserted in cell anterior, one or two chloroplasts; stigma present or absent. During spore liberation cell wall of zoosporocyte divides in two and opens by an operculum. According to Bourrelly this character placed genus in Sciadiaceae. Autospores also formed in twos or fours in mother cells. Lutherella is a typical freshwater alga epiphytic on other algae and aquatic phanerogams in ponds of low pH; L. pyriforme Pascher in brackish water. Genus reported from central and northern Europe and North and South America. Species distinguished based on cell morphology and dimensions and on number of chloroplasts.

Information contributed by: G. Tell. The most recent alteration to this page was made on 2022-12-20 by M.D. Guiry.

Taxonomic status: This name is of an entity that is currently accepted taxonomically.

Gender: This genus name is currently treated as feminine.

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Contributors
Some of the descriptions included in AlgaeBase were originally from the unpublished Encyclopedia of Algal Genera, organised in the 1990s by Dr Bruce Parker on behalf of the Phycological Society of America (PSA) and intended to be published in CD format. These AlgaeBase descriptions are now being continually updated, and each current contributor is identified above. The PSA and AlgaeBase warmly acknowledge the generosity of all past and present contributors and particularly the work of Dr Parker.

Descriptions of chrysophyte genera were subsequently published in J. Kristiansen & H.R. Preisig (eds.). 2001. Encyclopedia of Chrysophyte Genera. Bibliotheca Phycologica 110: 1-260.

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Citing AlgaeBase
Cite this record as:
M.D. Guiry in Guiry, M.D. & Guiry, G.M. 20 December 2022. AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. https://www.algaebase.org; searched on 01 May 2024