Devaleraea, A New Genus of the Palmariaceae (Rhodophyta) in the North Atlantic and North Pacific

Abstract

INTRODUCTIONThe family Palmariaceae Guiry (Palmariales: Rhodophyta) at present includes the genera Palmaria Stackhouse (the holotype genus: see Guiry, 1974, p. 523), Halosacdon Kiitzing, Leptosarca A. & E. S. Gepp and Neohalosacdocolax I. K. Lee & Kurogi. Halosacdon and Leptosarca were included in the original description of the family (Guiry, 1974) and Neohalosacdocolax was recently described by Lee & Kurogi (1978) for a small parasite on Halosacdon minjaii I. K. Lee from the Aleutian Islands. The structure and reproduction of Neohalosacdocolax make it quite clear that its affinities lie with the Palmariaceae (Lee & Kurogi, 1978). The Palmariaceae of the island of Hokkaido (northern Japan) have been the subject of a recent study (Lee, 1978) and the details of structure and reproduction given for the northwestern Pacific species of Palmaria and Halosacdon confirm that the unusual structure and mode of reproduction described by Guiry (1974, 1975, 1978) for Atlantic and northeastern Pacific representatives of these genera are also found in the northwestern Pacific representatives (see also Lee, 1977a).