Filicites sect. Odontopteris 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 : 19

Filicites sect. Odontopteris BRONGNIART

Text-fig. 2a, b

1822a Filicites (Odontopteris) BRONGNIART , p. 234.

1825 Odontopteris (BRONGNIART) STERNBERG, Tentamen p. xxi (nom. cons.).

Ty p e. Filicites (sect. Odontopteris) brardii BRONGNIART, 1822a, p. 234 , pl. 2, fig. 5; Loc. Upper Pennsylvanian Series, Lardin-Saint-Lazare, near Terrasson, Département

b

de la Dordogne, France (vide Brongniart 1831b: 252); ≡ Odontopteris brardii (BRONGNIART) STERNBERG, 1825 , Tentamen p. xxi (original spelling “ Berardi ”).

D i a g n o s i s. “plantes dont les pinnules sont adherents au rachis par toute leur base sans nervure médiane, et dont les nervures secondaires partent toutes perpendiculairement de ce rachis.”

D i s c u s s i o n. This use of the name Odontopteris has been conserved against an earlier homonym that had been based on an extant fern ( Odontopteris BERNHARDI, 1801 – see Cleal and Shute 1991). Otherwise, the nomenclature is straightforward with the name being mostly used for frond adpressions of Palaeozoic Medullosales with pinnules that are broadly attached to the supporting rachis. There has to date been no unequivocal record of such fronds as anatomically preserved fossils.