Batrachospermum desikacharyi Sankaran

Ganesan, E. K., West, John A. & Jr, Orlando Necchi, 2018, A catalogue and bibliography of non-marine (freshwater and estuarine) Rhodophyta (red algae) of India, Phytotaxa 364 (1), pp. 1-48 : 15

Batrachospermum desikacharyi Sankaran

Sankaran 1984, p. 169, Pl. 1; figs 1–4; figs 1–13; Desikachary et al. 1990, Part II A, p. 95, Fig. 18 A–J; Kumano 2002, p. 154, figs 1–4.

Distribution in India: Tamil Nadu (Valparai, at an altitude of approximately 1000 m at Anamalai Hills [Elephant Hills] in a hill stream near waterfalls and also from the channel drawn from the waterfalls).

Notes: This species is known from the single original collection. The long pedicellate or stalked carposporophytes show it is unique among the species of Batrachospermum known from India. The holotype specimen is not traceable in the Herbarium at the Centre for Advanced Study in Botany , University of Madras, Chennai, India (Ganesan, pers. obser.). The section to which the above species belongs is unclear. Sankaran (loc. cit.) included it in the section Virescentia based on the shape of trichogyne (sub-sessile and club-shaped). However, Kumano (2002, p. 155) indicated that the longer carpogonial branches (up to 5–10 discoid cells) in B. desikacharyi are unlike other members of Virescentia , but similar to the section Batrachospermum . The taxonomic status of this species and its taxonomic position at a sectional level remains to be defined.