Tuomeya americana (Kützing) Papenfuus

Ganesan, E. K., West, John A. & Jr, Orlando Necchi, 2018, A catalogue and bibliography of non-marine (freshwater and estuarine) Rhodophyta (red algae) of India, Phytotaxa 364 (1), pp. 1-48 : 20

Tuomeya americana (Kützing) Papenfuus

Babu & Baluswami 2005, p.1, figs 1–11.

Distribution in India: Tamil Nadu (Nanmukku, Upper Kothaiyar river, Tirunelveli district. Mar.).

Notes: Tuomeya , a monotypic genus with the single species T. americana , is unequivocally recorded from North Amerca only ( Kaczmarczyk et al. 1992). The reports of this genus in Europe ( Eloranta et al. 2011) and Asia ( Babu & Baluswami 2005, Shi et al. 2006 and Feng et al. 2007) are considered unsubstantiated (Necchi 2016). Feng et al. (2007) sequenced the rbc L gene of Chinese specimens and compared them with the previously published partial sequences of T. americana from North America. They reported sequence divergences of 0.6–10.4% among North American specimens and were unable to conclude that they belong to the same taxonomic entity. Pending comparative molecular data on the Indian specimens, the Indian record is considered highly doubtful based on the present evidence.