GRACILARIA HUMMII SP. NOV. (GRACILARIALES, RHODOPHYTA), A NEW NAME FOR THE AGAROPHYTE "GRACILARIA CONFERVOIDES" HARVESTED IN NORTH CAROLINA DURING WORLD WAR II

Gracilaria hummii Hommers. et Freshwater is proposed as a new name for the inshore cylindrical species found in North Carolina that was treated as Gracilaria confervoides (L.) Grev. during World War II, and more recently as G. verrucosa (Huds.) Papenf. Molecular evidence places G. hummii in the Gracilis-group in Gracilaria together with G. gracilis (Stackh.) Steentoft, L. M. Irvine et Farnham, the name currently applied to specimens formerly identified as G. confervoides and G. verrucosa. G. hummii differs from G. gracilis in possessing shallower male conceptacles in which the spermatangial filament originates from a surface cortical cell rather than from a subcortical cell. The cystocarps are similar, except that the gonimoblasts of G. hummii are attached to the base of the pericarp by numerous, prominent thickened terminal tubular cells and because terminal tubular cells are absent above the midregion of the cystocarp or in the vicinity of the ostiole. The gonimoblasts are subtended by a bundle of longitudinally oriented, thick-walled secondary filaments of a type that has not been described before in Gracilaria but that may be characteristic of some other species. G. hummii occupies a basal position in the Gracilis-group and is distinct from all other cylindrical North Carolina Gracilaria species, according to the molecular and morphological evidence.