Leibleinia polychroa Meneghini, 1844b: 304 (type locality: Dalmatian coast, Croatia).
Lyngbya polychroa (Meneghini) Rabenhorst, 1847: 83.
Lyngbya sordida Gomont, 1892b: 126, pl. 2: fig. 21 (lectotype locality: Dalmatian coast, Croatia; see Note).—Jadin, 1894: CLXIII.— Forti, 1907: 260–261.— Børgesen, 1936: 60.— Desikachary, 1959: 285, pl. 52: fig. 1.— S. Dixit, 1968: 12.— Whitton & Potts, 1979b: 4, 5.— Farghaly, 1980: 141.— N. Anand & Venkatesan, 1985: 101, fig. 3.— Islam & Mannan, 1986: 11, pl. 1: fig. 1.— G. Subramanian et al., 1989: 315, 317.— Thajuddin & G. Subramanian, 1992a: table III.
INDIAN OCEAN DISTRIBUTION: Aldabra Islands, India, Madagascar, Mauritius, Sri Lanka.
Note: Drouet (1968: 88) treated Lyngbya sordida Gomont as a nomenclatural synonym of Leibleinia capillacea Kützing (1843b: 221), which he referred to Schizothrix mexicana Gomont. When establishing Lyngbya sordida, Gomont (1892b: 152), however, listed Leibleinia capillacea as a species inquirenda, so that the two names do not share the same type. When later starting points in Cyanophyceae are abandoned, as in the present catalogue, L. sordida is seen to be a superfluous name since Gomont included in its synonymy several legitimate names, the earliest being Leibleinia polychroa and L. violacea, both published by Meneghini (1844b: 304) and both transferred to Lyngbya by Rabenhorst (1847: 83 and 1865: 144, respectively). The type specimens of the Meneghini species should be in his herbarium in FI, but Drouet (1968: 88, 94) chose specimens distributed by Meneghini and housed in L, both of which he assigned to Schizothrix mexicana Gomont. Of the two names, either of which could serve as the correct name for the later starting-point species L. sordida Gomont, we herewith choose Lyngbya polychroa (Meneghini) Rabenhorst. Gomont did not purposely by-pass Meneghini's names; rather, he intended to make a new combination of Calothrix sordida Zanardini (1843: 63), which he thought was an earlier available name. That name was published without a description, however, and is thus invalid. Moreover, Lyngbya sordida Gomont is a later homonym of L. sordida P. Crouan & H. Crouan (in Mazé & Schramm, 1878: 21), based on Leibleinia sordida Kützing (1845: 179), an illegitimate substitute name for Calothrix luteofusca C. Agardh (1827: 635).