Cyathophyllum Cæspitosum Goldfuss, and other Devonian Corals considered in a Revision of that Species

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Abstract
I. Introduction Few names appear more frequently in the literature of Devonian palaeontology than “ Cyathophyllum cæspitosum Goldfuss”; yet the descriptions of that species are most unsatisfactory, partly because a lectotype had not been chosen until lately (Lang and Smith, 1934, p. 80), and partly because the internal characters of the type specimens have not yet been made known. Occurring in a faunal list, the name usually connotes no more than a phaceloid coral. Goldfuss described the coral in 1826, on page 60 of his classical work “Petrefacta Germanise”, and illustrated it by figures of four syntypes, from the Eifel and Bensberg, in pl. xix, figs. 2 a–d. He also described and figured, in the same work, Lithodendron coespitosum (p. 44, pl. xiii, fig. 4), which has been considered by many authors a synonym of Cyathophyllum cæspitosum ; and Cyathophyllum hexagonum (p. 61, pi. xix, figs. 5 a–f; pl. xx, figs. 1 a, b), of which the examples illustrated on pl. xix, figs. 5 a–d, have also been cited as conspecific with C. cæspitosum . Through the courtesy of Professor Tilmann, who has very kindly lent us the types (preserved in Bonn University), we have been able to investigate the structures of these species, and to choose a lectotype of Cyathophyllum cæspitosum : namely, the specimen figured in Goldfuss, 1826, p. 60, pl. xix, fig. 2 b. Since Cyathophyllum cæspitosum and Lithodendron cæspitosum cannot be included in either Cyathophyllum or Lithodendron , we have investigated the genotypes of the various genera to which those two