Note on the Plymouth ‘Nitzschia’ Culture

Abstract

For nearly fifty years a small marine organism has been cultured at the Marine Biological Association's Laboratory at Plymouth, mainly to be used as a food supply in rearing marine larval forms.The cultures were originated by the late Dr E. J. Allen in 1907. The first record of these cultures and the methods used to maintain them were published by Allen & Nelson (1910) in a paper describing methods for obtaining persistent cultures of eighteen species of plankton diatoms. One of these cultures flourished so successfully that subcultures have been distributed to many laboratories and institutions both in Europe and America. This organism was named Nitzschia closterium W. Sm. forma minutissima. The authors, however, did not describe the organism or produce an illustration, so the combination can be considered only as a nomen nudum.