*** Welcome to piglix ***

Phymatolithon

Phymatolithon
Scientific classification
(unranked): Archaeplastida
Division: Rhodophyta
Class: Florideophyceae
Order: Corallinales
Family: Hapalidiaceae
Subfamily: Melobesioideae
Genus: Phymatolithon
Foslie, 1898
Species
At least 11, including
  • P. bornetii
  • P. elatum Chamberlain, 1990
  • P. laeve
  • P. calcareum
  • (Incomplete list, please expand)
Synonyms
  • Leptophytum Adey, 1966

Phymatolithon is a genus of nongeniculate coralline red alga, known from the UK. and Australia It is encrusting, flat, and unbranched; it has tetrasporangia and bisporangia borne in multiporate conceptacles. Some of its cells bear small holes in the middle; this distinctive thallus texture is termed a "Leptophytum-type" thallus surface, and has been posited as a taxonomically informative character. It periodically sloughs off its epithallus, reducing its overgrowth by algae by as much as 50% compared to bare rock.



...
Wikipedia

...