Abstract
Asterosiphon Dangeard (1940: 720) presents a monospecific genus of xanthophytes, which can be easily distinguished from other genera in having filamentous siphons and exclusively asexual reproduction. Asterosiphon species forms macroscopic rosette of a few millimeters in diameter consisting of green procumbent and dichotomously branched siphons which are attached to wet soil by scarcely branched colorless rhizoids. The green filaments normally form the chains of akinetes germinating into the new siphons instantly or produce numerous aplanospores. Both ways of reproduction have been thoroughly investigated by Dangeard (1940, 1942) and subsequently by Rieth (1962a, b), who established identity of Asterosiphon siphons with Gongrosira-like stage of thalli ascribed previously to some representatives of the genus Vaucheria de Candolle (1801: 20) (Stahl 1879). The published records of Asterosiphon species are very scarce and concern to a few countries of Europe (Dangeard 1942, Rieth 1962b, Christensen 1986, Langangen 1994, Kusel-Fetzmann 1999, Cambra-Sánchez 2010, Carter & John 2012), Algeria (Gauthier-Lièvre 1954), India (Gupta 2012), China (Liu et al. 1994), and Argentina (Lacoste de Díaz 1981, cit. ex Cambra-Sánchez 2010).