Rhodopeltis Harvey, 1863
Holotype species: Rhodopeltis australis (Harvey) Harvey
Original publication and holotype designation: Harvey, W.H. (1863). Phycologia australica: or, a history of Australian seaweeds; comprising coloured figures and descriptions of the more characteristic marine algae of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia, and a synopsis of all known Australian algae. Vol. 5. pp. [i]-x, v-lxxiii (Synoptic catalogue), Plates CCXLI-CCC (with text). London: Lovell Reeve.
Request PDFDescription: Plants reach 10-15 cm in length, arise from a crustose base, and consist of distal, flattened, articulated, calcified fronds borne on uncalcified, terete, cartilaginous lower axes. Nemathecia containing carpogonial branches and auxiliary cells are uncalcified and borne on the flat surfaces of the major axes. 2-3 gonimoblast initials arise on connecting filaments adjacent to generative auxiliary cells, and almost all cells of the carposporophyte become carposporangia. Gametophytes are dioecious, spermatangia forming in dense dendroid lateral clusters from nemathecial filaments. Tetrasporangia form in non-calcified nemathecia.
Information contributed by: G.T. Kraft. The most recent alteration to this page was made on 2020-10-06 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.
Most recent taxonomic treatment adopted: Schneider, C.W. & Wynne, M.J. (2007). A synoptic review of the classification of red algal genera a half a century after Kylin's "Die Gattungen der Rhodophyceen". Botanica Marina 50: 197-249.
Comments: Distribution: The type species is endemic to western and southern Australia, where it occurs on subtidal rock. The second species, R. borealis Yamada, occurs from southern Japan and the Philippines in the western Pacific to the Perth region of Australia in the eastern Indian Ocean. Itono (pers comm.) has made a critical study of three other species credited to Rhodopeltis (R. gracilis Yamada and Tanaka in Yamada, R. liagoroides Yamada, and R. setchellii Yamada) and, in a manuscript left unpublished at his death, erected the new genus Leptopeltis (non Leptopeltis F. Hohnel [1917]) for them based on differences in vegetative structure and the anatomies and locations of carpogonial and auxiliary-cell branches. Although Itono noted similarities of Leptopeltis and Polyides, he concluded that features of Rhodopeltis proper were more in line with the Dumontiaceae than the Polyideaceae.
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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. 06 October 2020. AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. https://www.algaebase.org; searched on 20 April 2024
