Ilex artocarpidioides (Lesquereux, 1878) Brown, 1962

Doweld, Alexander B., 2019, New names for Ilex and Ilexpollenites (Aquifoliaceae), extant and fossil. Notulae Systematicae ad Palaeofloram Europaeam spectantes II. Aquifoliaceae, Phytotaxa 388 (2), pp. 179-191 : 186

Ilex artocarpidioides and Ilex ovata

The distinctive fossil-species Ilex artocarpidioides ( Lesquereux 1878: 268) Brown (1962: 76) was initially published as a fossil-species Celastrinites artocarpidioides Lesquereux (1878: 268) , however, with erroneous original observations on the leaf venation, which were corrected by Knowlton (1930: 100) (“certain folds in the leaf having been mistaken for secondaries”). The correction of the leaf venation type precludes the possibility to assign this North American fossil-species to the fossil-genus Celastrinites Saporta (1865b: 52) of the European Tertiary. Later Brown (1962) transferred the fossil-species to the genus Ilex , but having conspicuously cuneate bases and more open secondary venation which has connecting loops between the secondaries well within the margin set apart this fossil-species from the Ilex - type of foliage. As there are no close relationships with other known foliage types of the Palaeocene of North America, it is concluded to segregate it into the genus of its own.