Bifurcaria bifurcata Ross, 1958: 754 (type locality: England).
Misapplied names:
Fucus tuberculatus.—Krauss, 1846: 213.
Bifurcaria tuberculata.—Barton, 1893: 82 (Knysna record only).
Note: Until K. Drew (1958) clarified the nomenclatural situation, Fucus rotundus Hudson (1762: 471; type locality: St. Ives, Cornwall, England) was referred to the rhodophycean genus Polyides C. Agardh (1822 [1822–1823]: 390) while F. tuberculatus Hudson (1778: 588; type locality: St. Ives, Cornwall, England) was referred to the phaeophycean genus Bifurcaria Stackhouse (1809: 59, 90). K. Drew (l.c.) showed that F. tuberculatus Hudson is a superfluous name for F. rotundus Hudson and that both names are typified with a Ray specimen in the Sherardian Herbarium at Oxford (OXF) that is representative of Polyides. Simultaneously, Ross (1958) adopted F. bifurcatus Velley (in Withering, 1792: 257, pl. XVII: fig. 1; type locality: England) as the earliest epithet-bringing name for the phaeophycean alga. This name, however, is yet another superfluous name for F. rotundus Hudson and, moreover, a later homonym of F. bifurcatus Gunnerus (1766: 96; type locality: Ofoten Fjord, Nordland, Norway) (Laminaria bifurcata (Gunnerus) Ruprecht, 1850: 159). Bifurcaria bifurcata Ross is thus treated as a nomen novum in accordance with Art. 58.3. It is not superfluous since Ross explicitly excluded the Polyides element. The species to which it applies is known with certainty only from the North Atlantic Ocean. If the Krauss record (repeated by Barton) were from the Cape of Good Hope, it would be referable either to Bifurcaria brassicaeformis (Kützing) Barton (1893: 82) (Pycnophycus brassicaeformis Kützing, 1860: 9, pl. 23: fig. I; type locality: Cape of Good Hope, South Africa) or to Bifurcariopsis capensis (Areschoug) Papenfuss (1940a: 212) (Fucodium capense Areschoug, 1854b: 339; type locality: Table Bay, western Cape Province, South Africa). The Krauss record, however, is from Knysna (eastern Cape Province), significantly east of the range of these two fucoids. Papenfuss (notes) was unsuccessful in searching for the voucher specimen.