It’s a fleshy, cartilaginous and flattened red alga. It has dark red fronts, up to 100 mm high, with short cylindrical stripe from basal disc.

This Rhodophyta is repeatedly dichotomist with branches strap-shaped, apices rounded, and sometimes paler than the rest of the frond.

The reproductive structures are external, wart-like excrescences.

In terms of habitat, it lays in the lower littoral in pools and emergent, and sub littoral up to 13 m and also it’s tolerant to sand cover. These plants typically are encrusted with species of Bryozoa, Foraminifera and calcareous algae (Dixon & Irvine 1977: 218, 219).

This often locally abundant algae, can sometime be in the sand-covered rocks, lower intertidal in southern and western coasts.

Reference: 

M.D. Guiry in Guiry, M.D. & Guiry, G.M. 2013. AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. http://www.algaebase.org; searched on 23 November 2013.