Rosenvingea intricata

Thallus soft, forming intricate subspherical tufts to 40 cm high, light golden brown, olive-brown, consisting of hollow branches, often fusing with adjacent branches. Branches cylindrical, compressed, contorted, 2-3(-10) mm wide, abruptly decreasing in length and tapering towards apices. Apices blunt, roundish to acute. Branching irregular, di-, trichotomous. In transverse section, cortex composed of single layer of small spherical, subspherical cells, 12.5-14(-25) mm diam.; medullar cells of two layers of large colorless cells, near to roundish in shape, 75-130 mm diam. surrounding a hollow. Surface hairs in tufts. Plurilocular sporangia oval, to 20×50 μm. develop from surface cells. Rhizoids inconspicuous, disclike. Plants easily detached from substratum, free-floating. Growing intertidal, subtidal (10-35 m), on rocks, shells, dead corals, in protected or moderately wave-exposed shores.

Temperate to tropical waters of Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. China, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand.