Seaweeds of the western coast of tropical Africa 

 and adjacent islands: a critical assessment. 

 III. Rhodophyta (Bangiophyceae) 



D. M. John 



Department of Botany, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana 



J. H. Price 



Department of Botany, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD 



C. A. Maggs 1 



Department of Botany, British Museum (Natural History), Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD 



G. W. Lawson 



Department of Biological Sciences, University of Lagos, Nigeria 



Contents 



Synopsis ............. 69 



Introduction 69 



Species list 71 



Species names mentioned within species entries ...... 78 



References . 79 



Synopsis 



This paper assembles and, so far as is possible without extended field and herbarium studies, examines 

 critically the validity of records of marine and brackish-water Bangiophyceae for the western coast of 

 tropical Africa. The whole mainland coastline from the northern boundary of former Spanish Sahara 

 southwards to the southern boundary of Namibia [former South West Africa], the oceanic islands from 

 the Salvage Islands southwards to Ascension, and all islands close to the African mainland coast are 

 included in the area covered. Each species entry includes all traced records for the species, the names 

 which have previously been applied to it for the area, and additional comments or evaluation, as 

 necessary. Comments have also been made at generic level in certain difficult cases. 



Introduction 



The area dealt with in this part is the same as that covered by parts I (Lawson & Price, 1969) 

 and II (Price et al., 1978). A coastline map of west Africa (Fig. 1) provides details of names and 

 boundaries of the constituent countries. The arrangement of genera and species is no longer 

 presented as a single alphabetical order. This was possible in the previous parts because the 

 coverage of each group was complete in the single part. With the greater numbers of Rhodophyta 

 (red algae), complete coverage in one publication was not feasible and division by systematic 

 arrangement at class, order or family level according to the size of the particular group has 

 therefore been adopted. The present part (class Bangiophyceae) is arranged alphabetically in 

 order of genera and species within the above hierarchy. 

 Each main species entry consists of three, sometimes four, principal parts: 

 (i) The major bold heading, which represents the accepted species name and authorities. 



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Bull. Br. Mus. nat. Hist. (Hot.) 7 (2) : 69-82 Issued 25 October 1979 



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