MORPHOLOGY AND SYSTEMATICS OF RHODOCALLIS ELEGANS, RHODOCALLIDEAE, TRIB. NOV. (CERAMIACEAE, RHODOPHYTA), FROM SOUTHEASTERN AUSTRALIA

Recent collections of Rhodocallis elegans Kützing from southeastern Australia have permitted detailed observations of vegetative and reproductive structures that reveal features not exhibited by any existing tribe of Ceramiaceae. As a consequence, we establish the new tribe Rhodocallideae based on the unispecific genus Rhodocallis. Defining characters include: 1) four periaxial cells cut off in an alternating (rhodomelaceous) sequence; 2) determinate branchlets of two types: a) persistent lateral branchlets produced from the first-formed periaxial cells, and b) deciduous transverse branchlets produced from the second and third periaxial cells, with cortical filaments issuing from all four periaxial cells; 3) first- and second-order determinate branchlets terminated by thick-walled spines; 4) indeterminate branches formed at the tips of directly converted determinate branchlets; 5) axial cells of indeterminate branches heavily corticated by a cylinder of descending rhizoidal filaments; 6) spermatangial parent cells borne directly on unmodified outer cortical cells; 7) carpogonial branches borne in series on second and third periaxial cells of modified indeterminate axes; 8) procarps lacking sterile-cell groups; 9) a single derivative of the zygote nucleus transferred from the carpogonium to the auxiliary cell directly through a tube rather than by means of a connecting cell; 10) gonimoblasts surrounded by a network of rhizoidal filaments through which the gonimolobes protrude, the carposporophyte subtended by an investment of determinate branchlets; and 11) tetrasporangia tetrahedrally divided, borne on surface cortical cells of special determinate branchlets and protruding outside the cuticular layer.