Dasya sessilis

Thallus bush-like, delicate, soft, dark purple-red, branching irregularly alternate, from all sides. Main axes and branches terete, 0.5-1.0 mm thick. Branches densely covered with fine hair-like monosiphonous branchlets to 3 mm long giving to the plant pubescent appearance. In transverse section: central axis with 5(-4) pericentral cells covered with cortical (long cylindrical, 4×19 μm) cells. Sporangial stichidia cone-shaped, sessile, or sometimes shortly pedicelled, 125-215×750-940 μm, develop from monosiphonous branchlets. Sporangia spherical, 45-60 μm diam., tetrahedrally divided. Holdfast disc-like firmly attached to substrate. Growing on rocky, muddysandy bottom with stones, in low intertidal and upper subtidal to 4 m depth, in sheltered and semi-sheltered sites.

Note: Source of phycoerythrin.

Common in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Russia (Sea of Japan).