ABSTRACT
A new Grateloupia species from Luxun park, Qingdao Province, North China, was discovered during recent investigations and named Grateloupia serra H. W. Wang & Y. Lou sp. nov. Morphological observations showed that: (1) the thalli were purple to dark red, cartilaginous and mucilaginous in texture, 15–45 cm in height; (2) the surface of thalli was covered with numerous proliferous branchlets and proliferous branchlets that were dentate when on the main axes; (3) the thalli were 450–550 µm thick, a cortex consisted of 6–8 layers of oblong or rounded cells and a medulla covered by compact medullary filaments; (4) the carpogonial branch was 6-celled and the auxiliary-cell branch was 5-celled, they were typical Grateloupia-type; (5) the internal structure of mature tetrasporangia were cruciately divided, oblong or square in shape. The morphological differences were supported by molecular analyses based on ribulose-1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase gene (rbcL) sequences. Sequences of four G. serra sp. nov. samples were embedded into the Grateloupia clade and showed no pairwise divergence.
SUBJECT EDITOR:
Acknowledgements
We thank Yu Ling, Zhao Shuyu, Tian Yilin of Liaoning Normal University for their technical assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.