Fucus corneus Hudson, 1762: 474 (type locality: Devon, England).
Sphaerococcus corneus (Hudson) Stackhouse, 1797 [1795–1801]: xxiv.—Suhr, 1834: 731.— Drège, 1843: 154, 157.
Gelidium corneum (Hudson) Lamouroux, 1813: 129.—Kützing, 1843b: 406.— Sonder, 1848 [1846–1848]: 174.— J. Agardh, 1851 [1851–1863]: 469–471.— Harvey, 1863: xxxv.— J. Agardh, 1876: 549.— Sonder, 1880: 26.— Prain, 1892: 342, 359.— Barton, 1893: 172.— Weber-van Bosse, 1921: 225.— S. Dixit, 1940a: 95.— S. Dixit, 1941: 127.— Biswas, 1948: 49.— Durairatnam, 1961a: 51.— S. Dixit, 1966: 12.— Desikachary, 1967: 10.— V. Krishnamurthy & H. Joshi, 1970: 18.— Sreenivasa Rao, 1971c: 71–72, figs. 5A–E, pl. 2h.— Lawson, 1980: 45.— Mahendran et al., 1980: table 1.— Untawale, Dhargalkar, & Agadi, 1983: [28].
INDIAN OCEAN DISTRIBUTION: Australia, Burma (Coco Group), India, Indonesia (Java and Timor), South Africa, Sri Lanka.
Note: Although the identity of Gelidium corneum has been ascertained by an examination of the type specimen (Dixon, 1967: 60–61), most authors in this century have unjustifiably rejected the name as being ambiguous. It should be applied to the species currently known in Europe as G. sesquipedale (Clemente y Rubio) Thuret. Papenfuss (notes) did not complete his review of South African records of G. corneum. Those specimens that he studied, however, were in his opinion representative of Gelidium amansii, G. crinale, and G. capense. Number 31 of Harvey's Ceylon exsiccata (1857a) was distributed under the name Gelidium corneum var. proliferum, without author or description. It was referred to G. corneum by G. Murray (1887: 28).