Schmitzia hiscockiana Maggs & Guiry is a small, rare, red seaweed

Seaweed

Seaweed is a loose, colloquial term encompassing macroscopic, multicellular, benthic marine algae. The term includes some members of the red, brown and green algae...

 or marine

Marine (ocean)

Marine is an umbrella term. As an adjective it is usually applicable to things relating to the sea or ocean, such as marine biology, marine ecology and marine geology...

 alga of the phylum Rhodophyta or red algae. It was discovered and named in 1985.

Distribution

This small red marine alga is known from most coasts of Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

, Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a cultural, historical and ethno-linguistic region in northern Europe that includes the three kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, characterized by their common ethno-cultural heritage and language. Modern Norway and Sweden proper are situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula,...

 .

Habitat

This species is known only from the sublittoral zone to 15m depth; it grows on cobbles and pebbles.

The gametophyte plants exist between April and August, and are in the crustose phase from September to December.

Species description

The gametophyte

Gametophyte

A gametophyte is the haploid, multicellular phase of plants and algae that undergo alternation of generations, with each of its cells containing only a single set of chromosomes....

 phase is a soft and gelatinous plant, no more than 8 cm long, 6 cm wide and a few millimeters thick. It is flattened and divided in a leaf-like manner with marginal proliferations. Rose pink in colour, the blades are composed of a filamentous axis bearing whorls of branchlets, four or five per axial cell. These whorls of branchlets form a cortex.

Life history

The plants are monoecious, bearing spermatia and carpogonia. After fertilization and development of connecting filaments and fusion with intercalary vegetative cells, a carposporphyte develops. The tetrasporophyte phase is crustose and unknown in the wild. It is bright red and grows to 6 mm in diameter and composed of a single basal layer of cells which produce erect filaments some of which produce tetraspores. These tetraspores develop and grow to give rise to the gametophyte generations.

Similar species

Other species of Schmitzia are distinct. S. neapolitana from the North Atlantic and Mediterranean is always terete.
S. hiscockiana is easily recognizable: it more closely resembles S. evanescens (New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

) and S. japonica (Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 and Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

).

External links

• Schmitzia hiscockiana Maggs et Guiry HabitasOnline, A National Museums Northern Ireland Website
• Schmitzia hiscockiana Maggs & Guiry Description and pictures from Michael Guiry's Seaweed Site.