Alloberberis aceroides (Knowlton) Doweld, 2018

Doweld, Alexander B., 2018, New names of fossil Berberidaceae, Phytotaxa 351 (1), pp. 72-80 : 73

Alloberberis aceroides (Knowlton) Doweld , comb. nov.

≡ Sterculia aceroides Knowlton (1923: 191 , pl. 43, fig. 12) ≡ Mahonia aceroides (Knowlton) Schorn & Wolfe in Wolfe & Schorn (1990: 17).

≡ Mahonia creedensis Axelrod (1956: 293) , nom. illeg. et superfl. non Mahonia creedensis Axelrod (1987: 111) , nom. illeg.

Type:—[ fossil leaves] north bank of Rio Grande near Sevenmile Bridge, Creede, Mineral County, Colorado, USA (holotype, USNM P 36537 , National Museum of Natural History , Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA; epitype (designated here): USNM P 36531 , National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, USA [illustrated by Wolfe & Schorne 1990: pl. 4, figs 8b, 10b]) .

Occurrence:—Upper Oligocene (Chattian); North America ( USA).

IFPNI:— 7B7E64DF-C2D1-E78C-8C3F-3C0DA2220023.

Notes:—The fossil-species Mahonia aceroides (Knowlton) Schorn & Wolfe has been revised and correctly established instead of the illegitimate and nomenclaturally superfluous Mahonia creedensis Axelrod. When Axelrod (1956) proposed the “new name” Mahonia creedensis Axelrod , he inadvertently included as synonym the previously validly published fossil-species Sterculia aceroides Knowlton (1923) , which was based on the fragmentarily preserved basal portion of a Mahonia leaflet. Later Axelrod (1987: 113) explained his actions as follows: “In my initial grouping of Creede specimens into M. creedensis , I inadvertently included the specimen of Sterculia aceroides Knowlton in the synonymy ( Axelrod, 1956, p. 293). That specimen represents the basal portion of a Mahonia leaflet that is unique to the flora. Scores of Mahonia leaflets have been collected at Creede, but none is similar to the specimen figured by Knowlton. Nor have I found any leaflets among modern species, including those of eastern Asia, similar to the aceroides specimen. Inasmuch as it is incomplete and should not stand as the type of a species, it seems best to reject it as a Creede species”. As a consequence, Axelrod (1987) excluded the specimen of Sterculia aceroides Knowlton from his newly emended circumscription of M. creedensis and designated a new ‘lectotype’ for the fossil-species, thus technically produced the illegitimate later homonym, Mahonia creedensis Axelrod (1987: 111) , nom. illeg. non Mahonia creedensis Axelrod (1956: 293) , nom. illeg. et superfl. Wolfe & Schorn (1990: 17) criticized Axelrod’s nomenclatural solutions: “Although Mahonia creedensis was published by Axelrod (1956) as a “new name,” the lack of a previously published description and (or) diagnosis clearly, under the ICBN, made this a new species; for a new species, a holotype is selected, not a lectotype. A description and (or) diagnosis of M. creedensis was not published by Axelrod (1956, 1987), and therefore this binomial must be rejected as illegitimate. Indeed, the inclusion of Sterculia aceroides in Axelrod’s (1956) synonymy of M. creedensis , although now rejected by him ( Axelrod, 1987), made M. creedensis a superfluous name at the time of publication”. I could concur only with Wolfe & Schorn’s (1990) analysis that M. creedensis is a superfluous name, when originally published, being illegitimate substitute to Sterculia aceroides Knowlton ; the other statements that M. creedensis lacked descriptive element associated with the name in 1956 and 1987 are incorrect: Axelrod provided scanty descriptive material in observations. In sum, the earliest validly published species epithet for the peculiar fossil Mahonia is restored as Alloberberis aceroides (Knowlton) Doweld. Since the holotype of the fossil-species is a basal portion of a leaflet, not bearing all valuable information on the structure of leaves, the formal epitype is designated here for the fossil-species on the specimen [ USNM 36531] from the same location which was named as a ‘hypotype’ by Wolfe & Schorn (1990: pl. 4, figs 8b, 10b).