Trentepohlia is a genus of filamentous chlorophyte green algae in the family Trentepohliaceae, living free on terrestrial supports such as tree trunks and wet rocks or symbiotically in lichens. The filaments of Trentepohlia have a strong orange colour caused by the presence of large quantities of carotenoid pigments which mask the green of the chlorophyll.
Trentepohlia (alga)
Trentepohlia aurea, Tauberland, Germany
Trentepohlia aurea var. polycarpa grows prolifically on Monterey Cypress trees at Point Lobos, California
Illustration
Chlorophyta is a taxon of green algae informally called chlorophytes. The name is used in two very different senses, so care is needed to determine the use by a particular author. In older classification systems, it is a highly paraphyletic group of all the green algae within the green plants (Viridiplantae) and thus includes about 7,000 species of mostly aquatic photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. In newer classifications, it is the sister clade of the streptophytes/charophytes. The clade Streptophyta consists of the Charophyta in which the Embryophyta emerged. In this latter sense the Chlorophyta includes only about 4,300 species. About 90% of all known species live in freshwater.
Like the land plants, green algae contain chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b and store food as starch in their plastids.
Green algae on coastal rocks at Shihtiping in Taiwan
"Siphoneae" from Ernst Haeckel's Kunstformen der Natur, 1904