Nitella subtilissima
Common name
Stonewort
Family
Characeae
Flora category
Non-vascular – Native
Brief description
Small branched submerged plant with easily punctured stems and branches. Distinctive forked branches.
Distribution
Indigenous. New Zealand: South Island. Also Australia.
Habitat
Glacial lakes.
Detailed description
Aquatic, submerged, macro-algae. Usually a slender, elongate plant with regular branching. Forked 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. Branchlets usually only fork once to occasionally twice. Two terminal cells beyond the last fork include a small conical end cell. Plant is dioecious, and only female plants have been recorded in New Zealand.
Similar taxa
Has one tier of branchlets in each whorl, rather than two tiers in Nitella hyalina and N. stuartii. Very similar to N. pseudoflabellata, but branches are not so dense or regular, they usually fork only once, and plant is dioecious.
Fruiting
Oogonia occur on slightly contracted whorls, which may be on the upper shoots or distributed lower stems.
Propagation technique
Fragments only?
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.