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(2513) Proposal to conserve the name Voltziopsis with a conserved type (fossil Gymnospermae : Voltziopsida )
Author(s) -
Doweld Alexander B.
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
taxon
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.819
H-Index - 81
eISSN - 1996-8175
pISSN - 0040-0262
DOI - 10.12705/662.25
Subject(s) - citation , index (typography) , type (biology) , institution , library science , correct name , genealogy , political science , history , computer science , world wide web , biology , law , paleontology
Voltziopsis Potonié (l.c.: 303) was introduced as a replacement, but superfluous, name for four previously and validly published distinct fossil generic names: Cheirolepis W. Schimp. (Traité Paléont. Vég. 2: 247. 1870, non Boiss., Diagn. Pl. Orient. 2(10): 106. 1849 [Asteraceae]), Glyptolepis W. Schimp. (l.c.: 243. 1870 ≡ Glyptolepidium Heer in Mém. Acad. Imp. Sci. St.-Pétersb. 22(12): 72. 1876, nom. superfl.), monotypic Swedenborgia Nathorst (in Förh. Geol. Fören. Stockholm 2: 65. 1875, S. cryptomerides Nathorst) and Leptostrobus Heer (l.c.: 72). Potonié curiously decided to create a new generic name (“Sammel-Gattung”) to accommodate the previously known conifer twigs with cones that had been described under distinct generic names, since he was highly skeptical about the possibility of providing distinctions between them. The question of the priority of the generic names previously published and incorrectly subsumed into the synonymy of the newly formed Voltziopsis was left aside: “In der Pflanzenpalaeontologie häufen sich leider, da überwiegend nur einzelne Theile der Arten vorliegen, die Schwierigkeiten, der Prioritäts-Nomenclatur (der ich sonst durchaus anhänge) überall zu folgen, dermaassen, dass hier vielfach nur durch Entscheidung nach persönlicher Zweckmässigkeit ein Ausweg zu finden ist.” On account of priority, Glyptolepis W. Schimp. (1870) should be adopted as the earliest available name (Cheirolepis W. Schimp. 1870 being a later homonym) if one wished to adopt Potonié’s generic circumscription. However, his taxonomic treatment received no support from contemporaries, and was altogether abandoned. Later Seward (l.c.: 387), overlooking the illegitimate and nomenclaturally superfluous status of Voltziopsis, decided to revive the generic name for extinct conifers from Gondwana to separate them generically from analogous foliage and seed-scales of known fossil Mesozoic conifers from the Northern Hemisphere. In that approach he was followed by Florin (in Kongl. Svenska Vetensk.-Akad. Handl., ser. 3, 19: 57–58. 1940 & in Palaeontographica, Abt. B, Paläophytol. 85: 486–488. 1944) and Townrow (in Pap. & Proc. Roy. Soc. Tasmania 101: 173. 1967), in applying Voltziopsis only to Mesozoic conifer foliage and seed-scales from Gondwana. All Potonié’s species that originated from northern non-Gondwanan areas were explicitly excluded, such as V. coburgensis (Schauroth) Potonié, V. escheri (Heer) Potonié and V. leptostrobus Potonié. Andrews (in Bull. U.S. Geol. Surv. 1013: 258. 1955 & 1030: 225. 1970) correctly typified Voltziopsis by Voltzia coburgensis Schauroth (in Zeitschr. Deutsch. Geol. Ges. 4: 539. 1852),