Two new species of Chroococcidiopsis from India

✍ Scribed by N. D. Kamat

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1962
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 193 KB
• Volume: 20
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1573-5141
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00046318

✦ Synopsis

During the course of studies on Cyanophyceae of Karnatak, India, the author came across two new species of Chroococcidiopsis which were studied in detail in the laboratory as well as from the natural habitat. These studies are described below .

1 . Chroococcidiopsis karnatakensis sp . nov .

The alga was collected along with Scytonema sp. from the stones of a bridge from Kamberganvi in Karnatak on 2nd September 1951 . Microscopic examination revealed that the alga was in different stages of endospore formation along with the ordinary vegetative cells . These solitary cells (Pl. 1, f. 1) were separated and were grown in the hanging drop culture by using cavity-slides, using ordinary well water as the culture medium .

Before endospore formation begins, the cell enlarges in size (Pl . 1, f. 2), then the protoplast divides into two (Pl . 1, f. 3), and successive divisions take place until 24 endospores are formed (Pl. 1, f. 5-7) . Immediately after the first division has taken place, the cell wall also gradually gets enlarged to accomodate the growing number of endospores. The spines on the cell wall also gradually get disorganized during the first twothree divisions of the protoplasts and are no longer observed during the later stages .

When the 24 endospores have been formed, the endospores secrete thick cell wall, later on spines appear on the cell wall which are hyaline in the beginning but later on turn yellow brown . The endospores liberate by the gelatinization of the extended parent cell wall . In the laboratory the endospore liberation was observed in April 1952, that is after seven months .