Vaucheria

(named for the Swiss botanist J. P. E. Vaucher, 1763-1841), a genus of yellow-green algae (according to other data, it is green). There are approximately 40 species, living in soil and in fresh and salt water. Vaucheria are fine spreading acellular threads. The chloroplasts are disk-shaped and have no pyrenoids. The storage product is oil. Vaucheria vegetatively reproduce through pieces of the thread; asexual reproduction is by multinuclear, multiflagellar zoospores, aplanospores, or cysts. The sexual process is oogamy.