Thorea

Taxobox | color = khaki
name = "Thorea"
regnum = Protista
phylum = Rhodophyta
classis = Florideophyceae
ordo = Batrachospermales
familia = Thoreaceae
genus = "Thorea"

"Thorea" is a genus of freshwater algae in the Phylum Rhodophyta (red algae).cite book |author=R. G. Sheath & A. R. Sherwood |chapter=Phylum Rhodophyta |editor=D. M. John, B. A. Whitton & A. J. Brook |year=2002 |title=The Freshwater Algal Flora of the British Isles |publisher=Cambridge University Press. Cambridge |id=ISBN 0-521-77051-3] "Thorea" is a small alga with filaments up to 200 cm long, dark green in colour and not red as are marine Rhodophyta. The filaments have only as few secondary branches.

"Thorea" is distributed throughout temperate and tropical regions.cite journal |quotes=no |author=D. M. John, L. R. Leslie & J. A. Moore |year=1989 |title=Observations on "Thorea ramosissima" Bory (Batrachospermales, Thoraceae), a freshwater red alga rarely recorded in the British Isles |journal=Br. phycol. J. |volume=24 |pages=99–102 |doi=10.1080/00071618900650091]

There is only one species of "Thorea" in the British Isles: "Thorea hispida" (Thore) Desvaux (Synonyms: "Thorea anadina" Lagerheim et K.Mobius, "T. lehmannii" Horneman and "T. ramosissima" Bory).

The first record of "Thorea ramosissima" in the British Isles is in Harvey's Manual (1841):cite book |author=W. H. Harvey |year=1841 |title=A Manual of the British Algae:... |publisher=John van Voorst, London] "Found in a pool in a bog in the Co Donegal Mountains, going from Letterkenny to Dunfanaghy; July". These specimens are in the Ulster Museum (BEL: F42–F47), but proved to have been incorrectly identified and were specimens of "Batrachospermum".cite journal |quotes=no |author=D. M. John, J. A. Moore & L. R. Johnson |year=1990 |title=The red alga "Thorea" in the British Isles |journal=Br. Phycol. Newsletter |volume=28 |pages=11–12]

References