The aquarium trade has been pretty good about assigning names to corals imported from around the world, as illustrated publications by authors who have taxonomic expertise have helped with identifications to genus and sometimes to species for the large number of species that are imported for the trade. However, as taxonomic researchers study corals the names can change, and sometimes imported species haven’t been formally described so no correct name can even be assigned. During the roughly 40 year history of the modern reef aquarium hobby, (yes of course I know it extends longer than that, but I am talking about its popular phase), there have been numerous instances where undescribed species have been imported and there have even been new discoveries in reef aquariums. The subject of this blog post is a name that is now well established in the reef aquarium hobby worldwide, and it is both a scientific name (genus) and the common name used in the trade/industry. The point of my blog post is to teach the trade/industry that this name is not the correct one for the coral given this name by the trade. The coral assigned this name was undescribed when it entered the trade, a fact that was recognized by me and published in my book Corals A Quick Reference Guide where I correctly suggested that it was closely related to the genus Klyxum. Later more investigation by German aquarist and author Daniel Knop lead to a publication in Coral Magazine that assigned a tentative name, Metalcyonium verseveldti, which was subsequently changed more recently when the coral was formally described as belonging to a new genus in the family Cladiellidae, Ofwegenum, which is about as hard to pronounce as it is to remember. Knop was involved in providing photographs and specimens for the paper describing it, which you can see here:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10795068/
The beautiful blue soft coral was named after the late octocoral taxonomist Leendert Pieter van Ofwegen. So, the correct name of the coral known in the trade as “Sympodium” is really Ofwegenum. Repeat that 10 times and tell all your reef keeping friends.
OK, so what about Sympodium, which is a valid genus of octocoral in the family Xeniidae… what does it look like?
There are currently two species now in the aquarium trade. I obtained one of them from Colin Foord of Coral Morphologic who found it as a hitchhiker on another imported coral. It grows well and is quite pretty, having a light purplish color under white light, similar in shade to another soft coral, er, um, Conglomeratusclera, which has about the most unpronounceable name of all the common soft corals in our hobby. It too is incorrectly identified in the trade… it’s what EVERYONE, incorrectly, calls Cespitularia. That could be the subject of another blog post, but you can see a good article online about it, by Joe Rowlett, here:
https://reefs.com/conglomeratusclera-is-the-fun-new-name-for-blue-xenia/
Back to the subject of Sympodium. There is another species in the trade that was initially brought to my attention by Joseph Patterson at Triad Aquatic Services of Greensboro NC. He found it as a hitchhiker too. I really like this one a lot… It sort of looks like something that could be a pest in the aquarium, but after a couple of years growing it I can confirm it is not. It forms low encrusting sheets that are grayish with short brown polyps, superficially something like a small Erythropodium, and rather similar as well to the uncommon coral (in the aquarium hobby) Rhytisma. Within a few weeks of Joseph pointing it out to me and supplying a living sample, I got another specimen from Biota, where it was growing in one of their coral systems in Ft Lauderdale. A sample sent to Cathy McFadden of Harvey Mudd University confirmed the identification as Sympodium, same genus as the rather different looking soft coral from Colin Foord, though the polyps are quite similar, with blunt tips on the tentacles.
You can read more about the real Sympodium spp. here
I find it very interesting that at the time of publication of this blog, a Google search (see below) for the name Sympodium correctly points out that it is a valid genus of soft coral, and that it is in the family Xeniidae but the photos shown are dominated by the aquarium trade pictures of Ofwegenum! Ofwegenum is in the family Cladiellidae. The information the AI gathered is a blend of fact and fiction. Hopefully my blog post and subsequent online chatter will push the algorithm to get the facts and photos correct.
