Asterophyllites 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 : 20

Asterophyllites BRONGNIART nom. rej.

Text-fig. 3c

1822a Asterophyllites BRONGNIART , p. 210 (nom. rej.).

Ty p e. Asterophyllites radiatus BRONGNIART, 1822a, p. 235 , pl. 2, fig. 7; ≡ Annularia radiata (BRONGNIART) STERNBERG, 1825 , Tentamen p. xxxi.

D i a g n o s i s. “Feuilles verticillées, à une seule nervure.”

D i s c u s s i o n. Brongniart (1822a) initially used this generic name for all fossils leaves that have a single vein and are arranged in whorls around the stem. However, Brongniart seems to have been unaware that there was a pre-existing name for an almost identical genus (although with different types) – Annularia STERNBERG, 1821 . In the same work, Sternberg had also created a second genus ( Schlotheimia STERNBERG ) for articulated stems with leaf whorls at the nodes.

Sternberg (1825) later confused the issue by dividing Schlotheimia into Bornia STERNBERG, 1825 , and Brukmannia STERNBERG, 1825 , the former for leaves he regarded as being from trees, the latter for whorls of more slender, rigid leaves that he regarded as coming from herbaceous plants (he illegitimately abandoned his earlier name Schlotheimia ). In addition he referred a heterogeneous group of fossil sphenopsids shoots to a genus he named Bechera STERNBERG, 1825 , but Doweld (2017a) has shown this name to be nomenclaturally superfluous (it also included the type of an existing name of the charophyte genus Gyrogonites LAMARK, 1801 ). All of these generic distinctions are now rejected as taxonomically unhelpful (e.g. Jongmans 1911).

Brongniart (1828a) later accepted the original view of Sternberg (1821) that two genera could be distinguished for these leaf whorls, adopting the latter’s Annularia , and illegitimately using his own original name Asterophyllites for Schlotheimia . This distinction and nomenclature has subsequently been almost universally accepted in the palaeobotanical literature (e.g. Jongmans 1911, Abbott 1958). Unfortunately, however, the original type of Asterophyllites was now within the circumscription of Annularia . To avoid substantial disruption to palaeobotany (transferring the many Annularia species to Asterophyllites , and the species usually included within Asterophyllites to Schlotheimia ) Vogellehner (1967) proposed that Brongniart’s (1828a) nomenclature for these fossils should be conserved and this was included in the Seattle ICBN ( Stafleu et al. 1972).

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.