Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Singh and Prakash (1980) introduced a new species of fossil leaf in the extant genus Ziziphus (family: Rhamnaceae) and named it Ziziphus indica. This species was recovered from the compact, hard, bluish grey to dark grey shale, which occurs as thin bands (nearly 0.5 m thick), in the coarse-grained, salt and pepper coloured sandstone of the Dafla Formation (Middle–Late Miocene), exposed at about 5 km north of Pasighat in the Siang district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. However, the species name, Z. indica, is found to be a later homonym of Z. indica Chazelles (1790) (extant) and must be rejected (Art. 53.1 of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi and plants, Turland et al., 2025). Z. indica T. Singh & U. Prakash 1980 is, therefore, replaced with a new name, Ziziphus singhii nom. nov.
REPLACEMENT NAME
Ziziphus singhii R.K. Saxena & Doweld, nom. nov.
≡ Z. indica T. Singh & U. Prakash, Geophytology, 10(1–2): 104, pl. 1, fig. 1 (smaller leaf on the left side). Dec.1980 (“indicus”) non Z. indica Chazelles, Supplemént au Dictionnaire des Jardiniers 2: 728. 1790, nom. illeg.
Holotype—Singh and Prakash (1980), specimen no. WIF/A78, pl. 1, fig. 1, stored at the museum of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, India.
Locality and horizon—About 5 km north of Pasighat, in Siang district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Dafla Formation (Lower Siwalik, Middle–Late Miocene).
Etymology—The species epithet is in honour of Dr Trilochan Singh, formerly of the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun, India.
IFPNI registration record—48863DBE-3A82-7AC7-9B11-AD0E6E11F19B.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
