Bimeria tunicata Fraser, 1943a

? Calyptospadix cerulea Clarke, 1882: 136, pl. 7, figs. 1–9.

Bimeria franciscana Torrey, 1902: 28, pl. 1, fig. 4.

Bimeria tunicata Fraser, 1943a: 76, pl. 15, figs. 2a, b.

Garveia franciscana .— Vervoort, 1964: 127, figs. 1–4.

Syntypes. MCZ-IZ 9006: USA, Louisiana, Louisiana coast, 1918, winter, several colonies, up to 13 cm high, in fair to fairly good condition, with male and female gonophores, coll. Percy Viosca, labelled “ type ”; formalin, about to be transferred to ethanol.

Lectotype, by present designation. MCZ-IZ 9006: USA, Louisiana, Louisiana coast, 1918, winter, hydrocaulus of one colony, 7 cm high, in fairly good condition, with female gonophores, coll. Percy Viosca, labelled “ type ”; ethanol.

Paralectotypes. MCZ-IZ 146028: USA, Louisiana, Louisiana coast, 1918, winter, several colonies, up to 13 cm high, in fair to fairly good condition, some colonies with male and others with female gonophores, coll. Percy Viosca, labelled “ type ”; formalin, about to be transferred to ethanol.

Type locality. USA, Louisiana coast (Fraser 1943a).

Current status. Invalid.

Remarks. In establishing Bimeria tunicata, no name-bearing type was fixed by Fraser (1943a). Several colonies examined by him in preparing the original description, labelled “ Type ” and constituting syntypes, are at the MCZ (MCZ-IZ 9006). A hydrocaulus having the best-preserved female gonophores was selected from among the syntypes as the lectotype (MCZ-IZ 9006). All others are paralectotypes (MCZ-IZ 146028).

Bimeria tunicata was assigned to the synonymy of Bimeria franciscana Torrey, 1902 by Deevey (1950), following a study of abundant material from both Louisiana, type locality of the former, and San Francisco Bay, type locality of the latter. Vervoort (1964) referred the species to Garveia Wright, 1859, as G. franciscana . More likely this species will prove to be identical with, or at least congeneric with, the seldom-reported estuarine bougainvilliid Calyptospadix cerulea Clarke, 1882 (type locality: Fort Wool in Hampton Roads, Virginia, USA).

Labels with the syntypes credit the collector of this species as “ Percy Viaseo ”, believed by us to be the noted Louisiana naturalist Percy Viosca, Jr. (see Penn 1962).