Lycopodites BRONGNIART

Cleal, Christopher J. & Thomas, Barry A., 2018, Nomenclatural Status Of The Palaeobotanical “ Artificial Taxa ” Established In Brongniart’S 1822 “ Classification ” Paper, Fossil Imprint 74 (1 - 2), pp. 9-28 : 15-17

Lycopodites BRONGNIART nom. rej.

Text-fig. 3a

1820 Lycopodiolithes SCHLOTHEIM, p. 412 (nom. inval.).

1822a Lycopodites BRONGNIART , p. 209 (nom. rej. vide Pal and Gosh 1990).

Ty p e. Lycopodites taxiformis SCHLOTHEIM ex

BRONGNIART, 1822a, p. 231, pl. 2, fig. 1.

D i a g n o s i s. “Feuilles linéaires ou setacées sans nervures, ou transverses par une seule nervure insérées tout autour de la tige ou sur deux rangs.”

D i s c u s s i o n. Brongniart (1822a) used the name for various types of leafy shoot with small, simple leaves (now referred to microphylls) and grouped them into three informal sections: (1) shoots that were probably attached to arborescent lycopsid stems he called Sagenaria (= Lepidodendron ); (2) shoots that are similar to Lycopodites taxiformis with stiff leaves in two rows, and which today are widely regarded as Palaeozoic conifer shoots (e.g. Florin 1938 -1945); and (3) shoots that he regarded as possibly the remains of herbaceous lycopsids, such as the Cenozoic Lycopodites squamatus BRONGNIART, 1822a (although others have interpreted this species as a bryophyte or conifer – Unger 1850, Seward 1910). Most subsequent authors have adopted the name for shoots of herbaceous lycopsids. However, in the generic protologue Brongniart (1822a) clearly stated that he regarded the second section, now know to comprise conifer remains, to be most typical (“c’est ce groupe que nous pensons qu’on doit réserver particulièrement ce nom de Lycopodites ”) and so L. taxiformis must be taken as the generic type (Pal and Gosh 1990). To allow the continued widespread use of the generic name for lycopsid shoots to continue, Lycopodites LINDLEY et HUTTON, 1833 , has, therefore, been conserved over Lycopodites BRONGNIART (based on a proposal by Pal and Gosh 1990) since the St Louis ICBN ( Greuter et al. 2000).

Figures

Text-fig. 3. Illustrations of specimens in Brongniart (1822a, b) that were originally generic or section types but which have been subsequently supressed; see text for further details. All reproduced half original size, except d which is original size. a) Lycopodites taxiformis SCHL. ex BRONGNIART. b) Filicites (Glossopteris) dubius BRONGNIART (≡ Glossopteris dubius (BRONGNIART) STERNBERG), Pennsylvanian Subsystem. c) Asterophyllites radiatus BRONGNIART (≡ Annularia radiata (BRONGNIART) STERNBERG). d) Filicites (Neuropteris) heterophylla BRONGNIART (≡ Neuropteris heterophylla (BRONGNIART) STERNBERG), Pennsylvanian Subsystem, Saar-Lorraine.