Hostinella BARRANDE ex STUR , 1881

Cleal, Christopher J. & Thomas, Barry A., 2021, Naming Of Parts: The Use Of Fossil-Taxa In Palaeobotany, Fossil Imprint 77 (1), pp. 166-186 : 177

Hostinella BARRANDE ex STUR, 1881

Silurian and Devonian fossil floras regularly yield fragments of slender, dichotomous axes that lack spines, leaves or attached sporangia, but determining their taxonomic affinities is virtually impossible. In stratigraphically younger fossil floras, such remains would normally be dismissed as merely unidentifiable plant debris and would not be named taxonomically. However, they play a more important role in understanding the development of the earliest terrestrial biotas and (following Høeg 1942, 1952) they are often placed in a separate fossil-genus (e.g., Edwards 1979, 1980, Prestianni et al. 2012). The problem is that the generic types are Middle Devonian stems that appear to be parts of early progymnosperm fructifications (Matten and Schweitzer 1982). Since none of Stur’s types can really be incorporated within the generic concept as envisioned by Høeg (1942), it is illegitimate to use the name Hostinella in this way.