Lamprothamnium prosperity in permannetly hypersaline water

The leuco-halophytic charophyte, Lamprothamnium papulosum, readily germinates, grows and reproduces in C1 Pond of ICI's solar saltworks near Port Alma, a permanently hypersaline waterbody in Queensland, Australia. Its morphology very much resembles that of Chara corallina, although the two central cells of the axial node are subdivided, a feature found in Lamprothamnium but not in Chara. Some of the characteristics of the Port Alma population, like the occurrence of a considerable proportion of pedicellate gametangia among the normal sessile ones, or the deviation in the sizes of some plant parts from the ranges that have been reported previously, are unusual, even for this highly variable species.