Champia laingii Lindauer 1938
Publication Details
Champia laingii Lindauer 1938: 411, pl. 55
Published in: Lindauer, V.W. (1938). Note on a new species of New Zealand Champia. Transactions of the Royal Society of New Zealand 67: 411-413, pl. 55.
Request PDFType Species
The type species (holotype) of the genus Champia is Champia lumbricalis (Linnaeus) Desvaux.
Status of Name
This name is of an entity that is currently accepted taxonomically.
Type Information
Type locality: New Zealand: North Island: Flat Rocks, Long Beach, Russell, Bay of Islands; (Lindauer 1938: 412) Type: V.W. Lindauer; 17.ix.1936; AK 143927; 143927 Notes: Type fide W.A. Nelson & L. Phillips (New Zealand Journal of Botany 34: 557. 1996)
General Environment
This is a marine species.
Description
Plant procumbent, matted, generally epiphytic, fronds freely interattached, anastomosing, becoming a tangled mass of several layers, rooting repeatedly where fronds touch the substratum, holdfasts so formed small discs, stipitate; frond in young growths terete, ½-1 mm. wide, in older parts compressed, ellipsoid in section, tapering or constricted towards the base, and either attenuated or bluntly rounded at the tips; old fronds from 12 ½ mm. wide and up to 4 or more centimetres long; ramuli opposite, alternate, or growing here or there erect from the upper surface, but never from the under side; never verticillate or dichotomous, frequently of greater width than main frond, fusiform, ventricose, branches usually again branched, but further branching does not occur unless plant has attached itself by tip of frond or ramulus, when a new series of outgrowths commences; fronds and ramuli normally arched. Plant regularly articulated, lightly constricted at the joints, sometimes obviously so, articulations as broad as long in the young cylindrical growths, and from 2-3 times as broad as long in the older compressed parts; ends of damaged tips show a dimple exposing the septum at the next constriction, but seldom, do regeneration tips occur. Fronds tubular, with a cortical layer of smallish, coloured, oblong or pyriform, vertical, assimilative cells; diaphragms composed of large, colourless, hexagonal cells, containing minute granules; hexagonal cells completely filling the tube in transverse section at the node; diaphragms connected by jointed, longitudinal filaments, one apparently passing through diaphragm after each third hexagonal cell, the number of the latter being the same (12-20) in both axes of the transverse section. Tetraspores in tetrads, scattered among the cortical cells, in the mature fronds and ramuli, sometimes in 4-5 transverse rows, on the under surface only, never on the upper iridescent surface; cystocarpic plants have not yet been found, although large quantities of material have been examined. Colour pinkish, but old growths generally light green mature growths which appear pink when dry show, in the fresh state, on the upper surface an iridescence of the most brilliant beetle-wing green, electric blue, or metallic purple, the iridescence appearing as minute specks, wanting at the nodes.
Habitat
Champia laingii seems to be an evanescent plant, frequently disappearing from a locality for long periods. It is to be found at or near low-water mark around the margins of shallow pools epiphytic upon the basal parts and sheltered by stunted Carpophyllum maschalocarpum, Xiphophora chondrophylla, occasionally on Zonaria sinclairii, rarely amongst stunted Hormosira, Cladophora, and Corallina. It will also attach itself to fragments of shell, sand, rock, etc. The plant seems to prefer shallow pools or channels containing running water on more or less horizontal platforms over deep water at low-water mark; or if amongst Corallina a scarcely shelving sea-floor in exposed situations. In winter C. Laingii occurs in small, simple forms without much branching. In spring terete, longish growths arise which expand into normal fronds which in turn may become attenuated at the tips taking root whence new plants develop. Where broken the fronds exude gelose profusely.
Created: 09 July 1998 by M.D. Guiry.
Last updated: 19 December 2013
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Citing AlgaeBase
Cite this record as:
M.D. Guiry in Guiry, M.D. & Guiry, G.M. 19 December 2013. AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. https://www.algaebase.org; searched on 25 April 2024
