A NEW MARINE VAUCHERIA FROM AUSTRALIA

Abstract

OF THE NUMEROUS marine and brackish-water species of Vaucheria, only one, V. dichotoma (L.) Ag. (May, 1938) has as yet been recorded in the flora of Australia. While vegetative material of other species can be found, the absence of sex organs generally renders it impossible to identify the material precisely. In 1953 and 1954, fruiting material belonging to a species which is as yet unknown elsewhere was collected by H. B. S. Womersley. It is apparently related to V. litorea Hofm. and Agardh, which is known from the coasts of northern Europe and the United States. It is smaller in nearly every dimension, however, and has other peculiarities, particularly the absence of a reflexed oogonium, which separates it from that species as well as from the other species of the section Piloboloideae, to which it belongs.