Species

Tolypella nidifica

Common Name(s)

Stonewort

Authority

Tolypella nidifica (O. Muller) R.D. Wood

Family

Characeae

Brief Description

Small branched submerged plant with easily punctured stems and branches.

Flora Category

Non Vascular - Native

Distribution

Indigenous. New Zealand: South Island. Also Australia, Europe.

Habitat

Shallow, fresh to brackish water of two coastal waterbodies.

Features

Aquatic, submerged, macro-algae. Low-growing plant (>0.2 m), with a untidy appearance. Loose, uneven branchlets arise in whorls from central stems, which are anchored in the sediment by colourless rhizoids. Stem and branchlets are comprised of strings of single cells that are easily punctured. Plant is not forked, but has short, multi-celled laterals, with blunt end cells. Monoecious, with antheridia and oogonia occurring on the same plant, often together and without mucus present on fertile heads.

Similar Taxa

None, this is the only charophyte that does not have forked branchlets, but has multi-celled lateral rays with blunt end cells.

Fruiting

Produces small (<500µm long) golden to brown coloured oospores that are round in transverse section. Oospore has 5-6 sinistral spiralling ridges that are prominent, and a smooth membrane surface.

Propagation Technique

Fragments or oospores.

References and further reading

Broady, P.A.; Flint, E.A.; Nelson, W.A.; Cassie Cooper, V.; de Winton, M.D.; Novis P.M. Chapter 23 Twenty –Three :Phyla Chlorophyta and Charophyta (Green Algae). In: New Zealand Inventory of Biodiversity (Volume 3), Gordon, D.P. (Ed), Canterbury University Press, 616pp.

Casanova, M.T.; de Winton, M.D.; Karol, K.G.; Clayton J.S. (2007). Nitella hookeri A. Braun (Characeae, Charophyceae) in New Zealand and Australia: implications for endemism, speciation and biogeography. Charophytes (1): 2-18

de Winton, M.D.; Dugdale, A.M.; Clayton, J.S. (2007). An identification key for oospores of the extant charophytes of New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany:463-476

Wood RD, Mason R 1977. Characeae of New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Botany 15: 87–180.

This page last updated on 7 Jan 2013