Caloglossa beccarii (Zanardini) De Toni

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 : 23

Caloglossa beccarii (Zanardini) De Toni

Martens 1869a, p. 234; Post 1936, p. 64; 1963, p. 113; Desikachary et al. 1990, Part II B, p. 253.

Distribution in India: West Bengal (Kolkata, in front of Botanic Gardens on the right-hand bank of the Hoogly river; Kidderpore, Sealdah).

Notes: The first collection and description of C. beccarrii was based on material collected from a “stream near Gununh Pueh, Western Sarawak, Malaysia ” ( Silva et al. 1996). Subsequently, it was reported to occur in marine and mangrove habitats as well from widely separated geographical areas around the world (see Guiry & Guiry 2017). In India, it is more commonly included in the Indian marine algal checklist ( Oza & Zaidi 2001). The early Indian report ( Post 1963), apparently was based on Biswas’ collections from Kolkata, W. Bengal and most likely from a freshwater or a very mildly brackish water environment ( Post 1963. p.113) “in front of Botanic Garden on the right-hand bank of Hooghly (river)–an arm of the river Ganges and 75.5 miles from the mouth”. All the earlier records both from marine and freshwater habitats need confirmation and comparison with the data provided by West et al. (2015) and Kamiya et al. (2016). The Biswas collection in the Botanical Survey of India, Kolkata (BSI) was searched by two of us (EKG & JAW) in person and it is not traceable there. The report by Mohan et al. (2014) of “ C. beccarii ” from Periyar river in Kerala is referable to C. fluviatilis .