Many marine protists produce a benthic resting stage during their life history. This non-motile cyst stage can either germinate near the sediment surface to provide the inoculum for subsequent blooms or, be buried by sediment deposits over time and entrained into the sedimentary record.

Amphipogon is a genus of eight species endemic to Australia. The genus has usually been treated as a member of the subfamily Arundinoideae (Watson & Dallwitz 1992, 1994 despite the similarities of the microhairs of Amphipogon to those of Enneapogon in the Chloridoideae (Amarasinghe & Watson 1988). Barker (1997) followed Renvoize (1981) and 'a recent survey of the genus by Linder (pers. comm.)' in stating that the leaf blades of Amphipogon species lack microhairs, despite also citing Watson and Dallwitz (1992) who described them in detail. At best this statement is applicable only to abaxial leaf blade epidermes. Microhairs on the adaxial surface of Amphipogon leaves are recorded and illustrated by Johnston and Watson (1976), Jacobs (1986) and Amarasinghe and Watson (1988). More recent information is summarised in Dallwitz (1992, 1994) based on light microscopy of seven species of Amphipogon plus transmission electron microscopy of longitudinally sectioned adaxial leaf blade microhairs of A. caricinnus by Amarasinghe and Watson (1988). From Johnston and Watson (1976), Jacobs (1986), Amarasinghe and Watson (1988) and Dallwitz (1992, 1994) it is clear that microhairs are regularly found on the adaxial leaf surface as well as on the lemmas. The generic description and some illustrations are available on the WWW (currently at http://www.biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/).The rbcL data support the placement of Amphipogon in the Arundinoideae by Dallwitz (1992, 1994), but the presence of bicellular microhairs similar to those in Enneapogon (Chloridoideae) justify their caution.