TAXONOMY OF THE LENORMANDIA ‐ LENORMANDIOPSIS COMPLEX (RHODOMELACEAE, RHODOPHYTA)

Abstract

The genus Lenormandia is composed of nine species from Australia and New Zealand. Some of the these are well known, but others are rare, obscure and ill‐defined. We have examined material of all described species and found that they fall into two discrete groups that differ in apex morphology and position of reproductive structures. Plants of the first group, containing the type species L. spectabilis, have a cleft apex and reproductive structures produced directly on the blade surface, whereas those of the second group have a strongly inrolled apex and produce reproductive structures dorsally on small branchlets which arise either from the margins or the midrib. The groups were also found to form discrete clades on analysis of 18S rRNA sequences. All the members of the first group are endemic to Australia, whereas the second group, designated by the new genus name Adamsiella, contains two previously described New Zealand species and a single Australian representative. In addition, two new species are described in this group from New Zealand. Members of the closely related genus Lenormandiopsis were also examined and the type species, L. latifolia, was found to conform in apex morphology and position of reproductive structures to the genus Lenormandia. Accordingly Lenormandiopsis has been subsumed within Lenormandia. The remaining three members of the former genus Lenormandiopsis, however, were found to differ from both the type species and the genus Lenormandia and consequently have been transferred to the separate genus Geraldia, along with a new species from Geraldton, Western Australia which is designated as the type.