Pterocladiaceae

The Pterocladiaceae is a small family of red algae containing 2 genera of agarophytes. They are found growing on the coast of Portugal, South Africa, India, Japan, Mexico, Chile and New Zealand. From the Gelidiales order, Gelidium J.V. Lamouroux and Pterocladia J. Agardh, are two of the most widespread genera (which have been often confused for each other) of the Gelidiaceae family. They are separated only by basic features of cystocarps (fruiting structures). The genus Pterocladiella Santelices et Hommersand was later established to segregate from Pterocladia those species with distinct carposporophyte developmental characters (Santelices and Hommersand 1997). Molecular analyses of taxa within the Gelidiales have identified four major lineages equivalent to Gelidiella, Pterocladia and Pterocladiella as sister taxa, and a fourth large clade including species of Acanthopeltis, Gelidium, Ptilophora, Porphyroglossum and Capreolia (Freshwater et al. 1995, Bailey and Freshwater 1997, Freshw......read more on Wikipedia.