Gelidium pusillum (Stackhouse) Le Jolis 1863


Division     Rhodophyta
Class     Florideophyceae
Order     Gelidiales
Family    Gelidiaceae
Basionym     Fucus pusillus Stackhouse
SynonymKaliformia pusilla (Stackhouse) Stackhouse, Chondria pusilla (Stackhouse) W.J.Hooker, Acrocarpus pusillus (Stackhouse) Kützing, Fucus hetaerophyllus Clemente, Gelidium repens Okamura

    Thalli dark red in colour, cartilaginous, sparse to tufts or matted into cushions 3-5cm height. Stolonoid prostrate simple or irregularly branched, compressed, 150–400µm in diameter. Erect system attached by rhizoids or discoid haptera at regular intervals. Erect fronds numerous arising from creeping stolons, simple or rarely irregularly to sub-pinnately branched. Fronds terete in basal portions and flat upper portions with prominent notches. Cross section of the thallus shows small medullary region consists of thick walled filaments intermixed with numerous thinner rhizoidal filaments. Cortex made up of isodiametric cells with thin walled cells measures 4-10 µm diameters.


    Tetrasporangia borne in short ovate to elongated, stichidia measures 230 –480 µm broad and 500–1500 µm long. Tetrasporangia ovoid, 18–33 µm in diameter, tetraspores cruciate


Distribution in India

Bombay, Malabar Hill, (Boergsen 1933, 1935), Dwaraka (Boergesen 1934a); Veraval, Porbandar, Dwaraka, Bombay (Rao 1970); Vishakhapatnam (Umamaheswara Rao & Sreeramulu 1970); Tiruchendur (Krishnamurthy 1980) attached to rocks below LWL; Ratnagiri (leg. V.V. Agadhi).