''Padina japonica'' is a
species
In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...
of small brown alga found in the tropical and subtropical Indo-Pacific region.
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Description
''Padina japonica'' has a flat blade rolled into a circle. The upper surface is whitish while the underside is brown. It is similar to '' Padina australis'' but rather smaller and the blade is usually unsplit. Another very similar species is '' Padina sanctae-crucis''; the underside of the latter is more highly calcified, the oogonia
An oogonium (plural oogonia) is a small diploid cell which, upon maturation, forms a primordial follicle in a female fetus or the female (haploid or diploid) gametangium of certain thallophytes.
In the mammalian fetus
Oogonia are formed in larg ...
and the tetrasporangia
Red algae, or Rhodophyta (, ; ), are one of the oldest groups of eukaryotic algae. The Rhodophyta also comprises one of the largest phyla of algae, containing over 7,000 currently recognized species with taxonomic revisions ongoing. The majority ...
are large and globular rather than small and oblong, and there is a single row of tetrasporangial sori rather than the multiple irregular rows of ''P. japonica''.
References
{{Taxonbar, from=Q29890181
Dictyotaceae
Protists described in 1931
Brown algae species