Studies in the Helminthocladiaceae, III 
Liagoropsis 1 
Maxwell S. Doty 2 3 and Isabella A. Abbott 8 
In the first paper in this series of studies of 
the Helminthocladiaceae (Doty and Abbott, 
1961), we have shown that, in two species of 
Helminth ocladia from Hawaii, the female re- 
productive structures are generally similar to 
those described by other workers for other spe- 
cies in the genus, and that vegetative structures 
such as internal cortical rhizoids may be used to 
distinguish at least the Hawaiian species. In the 
second paper of this series (Abbott and Doty, 
I960) a new genus, Trichogloeopsis, was de- 
scribed as containing three species, one new and 
two transfers from the genus Liagora. They 
share a major character in common, that of ster- 
ile rhizoidal extensions of the gonimoblast, but 
again the three species may be distinguished 
from each other by their vegetative structures. 
Liagoropsis was first described by Yamada 
(1944) from material collected in Taiwan 
(Formosa). The type and only known species 
was L. maxima. The type specimens of all the 
1 This work was made possible through financial 
assistance from the National Science Foundation on 
Contract #G3833, from the Philippine National Re- 
search Council by funds for expenses provided under 
Republic Act 1606, and from the Graduate Committee 
of the University of Hawaii. 
For the loans of critical materials used in this study 
we wish to thank Y. Yamada, Hokkaido University; 
P. Bourrelly, Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 
Paris; T. Norlindh, Lund University; The Botanical 
Museum of the University of Copenhagen; T. V. Desi- 
kachary, R. Subramanyan, and V. Krishnamurthy, Ma- 
dras University; Laura Huerta, Escuela Nacional de 
Ciencias Biologicas, Mexico City; and L. Williams, 
Duke University. We are also indebted to Gregorio 
Velasquez, University of the Philippines, who accom- 
panied the senior author and made possible some of 
the field trips in the Philippines. 
2 Department of Botany, University of Hawaii, Ho- 
nolulu, Hawaii. 
3 Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University, 
Pacific Grove, California. 
species concerned here have been studied by us 
and we have included illustrations 4 of them 
( Figs. 1-4 ) when they have not been illustrated 
before. We have studied two thalli from Yama- 
da’s collections of the type species: the type 
(Yamada, 19 44: fig. 5), a male thallus; and a 
cotype, ° a female specimen. It is upon the char- 
acteristics of the female thallus that the main 
description of the generic taxon rested. In ex- 
amining specimens (Table 1) of eight of the 
nine collections which we believe constitute 
Liagoropsis, we are of the opinion that the 
structural vegetative differences seen, whether 
external or internal, are without taxonomic sig- 
nificance at either the generic or specific level. 
Thus, we believe that the genus can be amply 
delineated on the basis of characters possessed 
by the female reproductive apparatus alone, and 
that Liagoropsis as known at present should be 
considered monotypic. 
4 Desikachary published (1957: fig. 1) a photo- 
graph of his material. Yamada (1944: fig. 5) has an 
excellent drawing of the type of Liagoropsis maxima, 
which specimen we have studied. Boergesen published 
(1909: plates I and II, respectively) photographs of 
one of his sheets of Nemalion schrammi and of the 
type of Nemalion longicolle. 
5 By using "cotype” here the authors mean not to 
derogate the more precise terms isotype and paratype. 
The thalli under consideration are parts of the same 
collection but were separate thalli and of different sex. 
To use isotype would be akin to using this term for 
both the male and female branches collected at one 
time from, respectively, separate staminate and pistil- 
late flower-bearing trees. To use paratype would imply 
that in the original place of publication this was a 
specimen other than the holotype cited with the origi- 
nal description. This specimen was not cited by Ya- 
mada although the dioecious nature of the species as 
represented by the specimens examined was mentioned 
and aspects of both the male and female thalli were 
described. 
441 
