Avrainvillea lacerata

Plants blade-like, solitary or in dense clusters, up to 8.5 cm high, greenish brown, olive-green to pale olive, zonated with alternating concentric dark and light strips. Blades stipitate, flabellate, reniform, 2-3 cm wide, 4-5 cm long, tightly woven, consisting of intertwined filaments. Filaments at basal portion to 40 μm diam., in the middle 10-22 μm diam., and near the margins about 6 μm diam. The filaments repeatedly dichotomously branched, tortuous, torulose with long-neck constrictions above dichotomies. Upper margins undulate, lacerate or irregularly lobed to finely fibrous. Stalk distinct to 3 cm long, 1-6 mm diam. Holdfast short, massive, bulbous bearing numerous blades. Growing on shallow rocks, dead corals, covered with sand, intertidal, subtidal (to 15 m deep).

Note: The alga is used in folk medicine of the Asia-Pacific countries.

Subtropics and tropics of Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans.