Fucus gracilis Stackhouse, 1801 [1797–1801]: xxx, 100–101, pl. XVI in part (type locality: "Padstow, Cornwall, and elsewhere'', England, but lectotype without provenance fide Steentoft, L. Irvine, & Farnham, 1995: 115, fig. 1).
Gracilaria confervoides Greville forma gracilis (Stackhouse) Grunow, 1874: 42. V. May, 1948: 25–27.
Gracilaria gracilis (Stackhouse) Steentoft, L. Irvine, & Farnham, 1995: 115.
Taxonomic synonym:
* Sphaerococcus capillaris Kützing, 1863b: 16, nom. illeg. (type locality: Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, India).—Kützing, 1868: 26, pl. 73: figs. c, d.
INDIAN OCEAN DISTRIBUTION: Australia, India.
Note: Sphaerococcus capillaris Kützing, which was first published without a description (Kützing in Hohenacker, 1859 [1852–1862]: no. 345), was referred, with a query, to Gracilaria confervoides Greville by J. Agardh (1876: 413). The foregoing records probably do not apply to Gracilaria gracilis, which is a North Atlantic species. Sphaerococcus capillaris Kützing is a later homonym of S. capillaris (Hudson) C. Agardh (1817: XVII) (Fucus capillaris Hudson, 1778: 591; syntype localities: Kent (Sheerness), Devon, and Cornwall, England; Gloiosiphonia capillaris (Hudson) Carmichael in Berkeley, 1833 [1832–1833]: 45). The latter species has not been reported from the Indian Ocean.