Desmid of the month
March 2020

Actinotaenium pinicola

Cells of A. pinicola* are almost cylindric in outline with more or less truncate apices and lateral sides that tend to be slightly bent inwards near the cell ends. In that latter feature and also by a less slender shape it differs from A. inconspicuum. Like in A. inconspicuum, cell wall pores (usually hardly visible under the light microscope) are wide apart and arranged in some irregular, transversal rows. Zygospores are irregularly polygonal, the angles conically produced. A. pinicola occurs on wet to almost dry substrates. In the Netherlands it is but known from a very few sites. Zygospores were only very recently encountered.

* Often linguistically incorrectly named as ‘A. pinicolum’