Champia vieillardii

Plants gelatinous, soft, form tufts, 1-3 cm high, or small patches, reddish-purple to reddish-brown color. Branching pinnate, irregular and alternate to opposite. Axes and branches flat, with faint segmentation, 2-3 mm in width, tapering to blunt tips and bases. Superficial cells composed of large, polygonal, 42-65×40-62 mm, rarely of smaller cells, 22.5-30×32-35 mm, interspersed between the large cells, and hair cells (~10 mm in diam.), which located at junctions between the large cells. The medullary cavity filled with a mucilaginous content and divided by numerous cellular partitions; the inner walls of the cortex are lined with longitudinal filaments, 8-10 mm in diam., 200-250 mm long; gland cells oval, sparsely develop on the filaments. Tetrasporangia tetrahedrally divided, spherical, 80-100 mm in diam., scattered between cortical cells. Cystocarps urn-shaped, ~0.9 mm in diam. Attachment by discoid holdfasts. Growing in the interdidal to upper subtidal zones, on hard substrata, epiphytic on larger algae.

Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans. Countries of the Asia-Pacific Region.