Notes on Ceramiaceae (Rhodophyta) from the eastern Cape Province, South Africa. II. Zonariophila semiendophytica nov. gen., nov. spec., a minute epi/endophyte of Zonaria subarticulata (Lamour.) Papenf

Zonariophila semiendophytica is described as a new genus and species from the coast of the East Cape, South Africa. It is characterized by a single large elongate basal cell immersed in the thallus of Zonaria subarticulata (Lamour.) Papenf.; this laterally compressed cell gives rise, on both edges, to several short (up to 2.5 mm), uncorticated, erect, sparingly branched filaments. The position and structure of the procarp (the subapical cell in a determinate female fertile filament bears two sterile pericentral cells and one fertile pericentral cell, the latter with one sterile cell and a four-celled carpogonial filament), and the development of a single involucral filament from the hypogenous cell, put this genus in the immediate vicinity of Pleonosporium, and placement in the tribe Compsothamnieae is proposed.