Bostrychia moritziana (Sonder ex Kützing) J. Agardh

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 : 26

Bostrychia moritziana (Sonder ex Kützing) J. Agardh

Ganesan (pers. obser.) made in 2002; West & Ganesan (pers. obser.) made in 2003.

Distribution in India: Tamil Nadu (Pitchavaram, on mangrove roots and terrestrial soil on a tiny island in the middle of the estuary).

Notes: It is a widely distributed species throughout the world ( Guiry & Guiry 2017), that can occur in exclusively freshwater streams remote from the sea ( D’Lacoste & Ganesan 1987; Karsten et al. 1993) in estuaries, mangroves, and in truly marine habitats ( Silva et al. 1996; West & Zuccarello 1999). The probability of its occurrence exclusively in Indian freshwater streams in future collections, can not be ruled out since it has been reported from several tropical freshwater streams ( Kumano 2002). Sheath (2003) also considered this taxon as a potential invader from brackish/ marine habitats. West & Ganesan (pers. obser.) collected abundant material of this species from the mangrove roots of Pithchavaram mangrove forests, Tamil Nadu, which constitutes the first confirmable record of this species from India. It should be noted that West et al. (2013) showed the isolate 4278 from Tamil Nadu, India, occasionally forms only monosiphonous filaments, similar to B. anomala West, S. de-Goër & Zuccarello (2013). The Indian plants did not produce any reproductive structures similar to B. anomala . It was assigned to the lineage–7 within the B. moritziana – B. radicans species complex ( Zuccarello & West 2006; West et al. 2013, p. 169, Table 1) based on RuBisCo spacer sequences. Also, many B moritziana isolates from other latitudes in cultures also switch back and forth between mono- and polysiphonous form (West pers. comm.).