Agardhina Nardo, 1834

Type species: a type species (generitype) appears not to have been designated.

Publication details: Nardo, 1834: 675

Original publication: Nardo, G.D. (1834). De corallinis ac nulliporis auct. Isis von Oken 1834(1): 673-675.

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The most recent alteration to this page was made on 2009-07-17 by M.D. Guiry.

Taxonomic status: This name is currently regarded as a synonym of Phymatolithon.

Comments: In a subsequent general algal treatise, Nardo (1835: 20) reaffirmed his treatment of coralline red algae as plants and provided a classification in which Nullipora was clearly treated as a synonym of Agardhina.

Seven generic names are based on Millepora polymorpha Linnaeus and thus are ultimately typified by the type of Millepora calcarea Pallas. Chronologically these are Apora Gunnerus (1768), Nullipora Lamarck (1801), Agardhina Nardo (1834), Agardhia Meneghini (1838), Juergensia Reichenbach (1841), Phymatolithon Foslie (1898) and Eleutherospora Heydrich (1900). Because Phymatolithon is a conserved name, it automatically takes precedence over the other six names, which must be rejected under ICBN Art. 14.4, irrespective of when they were validly published. Separate entries for each name are provided in AlgaeBase.

An account of the epitype specimen of Millepora calcarea Pallas, the correct name for Millepora polymorpha Linnaeus, is provided by Woelkerling & Irvine (1986, as Phymatolithon calcareum).

Changes in the ICBN necessitated an update (Spencer et al. 2009: 253) to the original typification (Woelkerling & Irvine 1986 58) of Millepora calcarea; the species is now lectotypified by an illustration (Ellis 1755, Tab. 27, Fig. C) cited in the protologue (Pallas 1766: 265) and epitypified by BM 000562555 (Algal Box Collection 1626) housed in the Natural History Museum, London(BM). Further information is provided in the AlgaeBase entry for Phymatolithon.

Nomenclatural note
The ICBN rules cited below are those adopted by the Seventeenth International Botanical Congress, Vienna, Austria, July 2005 (McNeill et al. 2006).

Nardo (1834) established Agardhina as a plant genus for species that were included in Nullipora Lamarck (1801), originally described as a genus of animals. At that time, as noted by Nardo (1834: 673), there was still debate as to whether organisms now known as coralline red algae (particularly those lacking genicula) were plants, animals or even mineral deposits (also see Philippi 1837; Woelkerling 1988: viii). Nardo (1834) considered the nullipores (an informal term %u2013 see Woelkerling 1998: 243) to be algae and thought it necessary to propose a new generic name (Agardhina) when placing them in the plant kingdom. There was no International Code of Botanical Nomenclature in 1834 to guide Nardo (the first ICBN was published 33 years later %u2013 see De Candolle 1867), but currently (McNeill et al. 2006), under ICBN Art 45.4, Nullipora Lamarck (1801) has priority in botanical nomenclature from 1801 even though it was first published as an animal name. This means that Agardhina Nardo (1834) is a superfluous substitute name (ICBN Art. 52) for Nullipora, as noted in Irvine & Woelkerling (1986) and Woelkerling & Irvine (1986).

Nullipora Lamarck (1801), in turn, is a superfluous substitute name for Apora Gunnerus (1768), and Apora, in turn, is a formally rejected name in favour of Phymatolithon Foslie (1898), which is formally conserved under ICBN Art. 14. See AlgaeBase accounts of Apora, Nullipora, and Phymatolithon for further details of this rather complicated nomenclatural story.

All of these generic names, including Agardhina Nardo, are typified by the type of Millepora polymorpha Linnaeus (1767: 1285), a superfluous substitute name for Millepora calcarea Pallas (1766: 265) and thus illegitimate under ICBN Art. 52 (see Woelkerling & Irvine 1986 for further information). As a result, Millepora polymorpha is automatically typified (ICBN Art. 7.5) by the type of M. calcarea, the name that ought to have been adopted under the rules. The current correct name (see ICBN Appendix VII for definition of a correct name) for Millepora calcarea is Phymatolithon calcareum (Pallas) Adey & McKibbin (1970: 100). For further information, see the AlgaeBase entry for Phymatolithon. - (17 July 2009) - M.D. Guiry

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Citing AlgaeBase
Cite this record as:
M.D. Guiry in Guiry, M.D. & Guiry, G.M. 17 July 2009. AlgaeBase. World-wide electronic publication, National University of Ireland, Galway. https://www.algaebase.org; searched on 24 May 2025