Pinnatiphycus menouana N’Yeurt, Payri & P.W.Gabrielson (2006, p. 423)

Pinnatiphycus menouana N’Yeurt, Payri & P.W.Gabrielson (2006, p. 423)

This monotypic genus is recorded from New Caledonia and Fiji. Thalli are shown to be complanate, compressed to flattened and sprawling, arising from a basal disk or short stolon ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 4, 5) that anchors a short terete stalk that broadens through an apophysis ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 4, 5) to blades above that are attached to the substratum at intervals by slender haptera ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 5). Unique among the genera is the abundance of regularly spaced distichous, terete and simple or occasionally bifid horizontal marginal laterals ( Fig. 1 h View Fig ; N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 3–6). Axes consist of a broad core of compact filaments of elongate cells tightly encircled by a broad zone of radially aligned (in cross section) filaments of equal width and a three- or four-celled outer cortex ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 7–9). Spermatangia occur in crowded, deep ampullar pits ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 16) and tetrasporangia are flush with the surface and accompanied by elongate paraphyses ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 17, 18) within swollen tips of laterals ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 6, 19). Carpogonial branches are three-celled ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 11, 12) but auxiliary-cell position and features of diploidisation are not documented. A fusion cell persists in the centre of an extensive placenta ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 13), the terminal carposporangia borne on short spreading filaments three or four cells in length ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 14) and discharged through an apical ostiole ( N’Yeurt et al. 2006, fig. 13).