The genus Griffithsia C. Agardh, with its type species G. corallinoides (L.) Batters, is characterized
by subdichotomous filaments of large multinucleate cells; by a fertile axis of three small discoid
cells of which the subapical cell produces 1(-2) procarp(s), whilst the lowermost cell (termed the
hypogenous) produces abaxially an involucre of 2-celled branches; by a large fusion cell; and by
the production of tetrasporangia and spermatangia on whorls of fascicles which often bear involucral
cells, or are surrounded by an involucre from the vegetative cell beneath the fascicles, or are naked.
Some southern Australian species previously placed in Monosporus Solier or Neomonospora
Setchell & Gardner, but which produce tetrasporangia and reproduce sexually, are related to
G. tenuis C. Agardh and G. barbata C. Agardh. They are characterized by subdichotomous filaments
of multinucleate elongate cells; by a 3-celled fertile axis of which the subapical cell produces a
procarp, and the hypogenous cell enlarges during procarp development and produces a whorl of
1-celled involucral branches; by a large fusion cell; and by tetrasporangia and spermatangial heads
produced singly either from the basal cell of a trichoblast, or on a separate clavate pedicel. These
species are referred to the genus Anotrichium Naegeli, differing from Griffithsia mainly in the
spermatangial heads and tetrasporangia. The genus Monosporus Solier, represented with certainty
in southern Australia only by M. australis (Harvey) J . Agardh, is retained as a form genus for those
species which produce monosporangia but for which sexual reproduction is unknown.
Study of Halurus equisetifolius (Lightfoot) Kuetzing, the type species of Halurus Kuetzing,
from England, shows that this genus is characterized by irregularly branched axes with dichotomous
whorl-branchlets; by the successive production of several fertile axes each of 3 small cells and
equivalent to a condensed, dichotomous, branch system; and by a subapical procarp and large
fusion cell. The involucre consists of vegetative whorl-branchlets and also a whorl of 1-celled
branches from the enlarged hypogenous cell of the fertile axis. Halurus thus differs from Griffithsia
mainly in cystocarpic features and the presence of whorl-branchlets.
Griffithsia setacea (Ellis) C. Agardh should probably be referred to Halurus.
An evolutionary trend towards reduction in the Griffithsieae is suggested: whorl-branchlets
have been reduced to trichoblasts and fertile whorl-branchlets to whorls of fascicles. The number
of procarps in a branch system and the female, spermatangial and tetrasporangial involucres show a
reduction sequence.