The New Zealand Plant Conservation Network

Species

Nitella leonhardii

Common Name(s)

Stonewort

Authority

Nitella leonhardii R.D. Wood

Family

Characeae

Brief Description

Small branched submerged plant with easily punctured stems and branches. Distinctive forked branches. Fruiting heads are orange, covered in a clear jelly.

Flora Category

Non Vascular - Native

Synonyms

Nitella leptostachys

Distribution

Indigenous. New Zealand: North, South Island. Also Australia.

Habitat

Lakes, swamps and slow flowing waters.

Features

Aquatic, submerged, macro-algae. Lax plant with open, uneven 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. Plant is monoecious, with antheridia and oogonia on the same plant, located together in a strongly contracted fertile spike and with heavy mucus present on and enclosing orange, spike-like fertile heads. Usually has a two, or often more, cells beyond the last fork, including a blunt or sausage-like end cell. Often a slimy feeling to the plant.

Similar Taxa

Easy to identify when fruiting, but sterile plants are difficult to tell apart from Nitella hookeri, N. masonae, N. tricellularis, N. claytonii and N. sp. aff. cristata. Distinguished from the above by blunt or sausage-like end cells.

Fruiting

Oospores are commonly chestnut brown, laterally compressed, between 330 and 450 µm in length and have low ridges, with a clearly reticulate membrane surface.

Propagation Technique

Fragments or oospores.

This page last updated on 7 Jan 2013