Zamites

Zamites is an extinct genus of plants in the family Williamsoniaceae that lived from the Triassic to the Eocene. This plant is reported in the Mesozoic from North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Antarctica, and in the Cenozoic only in North America.

== Naming == As explained by Zijlstra & van Konijnenburg-van Cittert (2020), the application of the genus name Zamites has over time drifted away from Brongniart's original concept to one where the species Z. gigas (Lindl. & Hutton) Morris has been treated as a de facto type, to the degree that none of Brongniart's four original species would now be assigned to it, instead being allocated to Otozamites and possibly elsewhere; this includes Z. bucklandii, designated as the type of Zamites by Pfeiffer in a publication dating from 1871-1875, but now (as O. bucklandii) the type of Otozamites. Technically, unless otherwise addressed, this renders Otozamites a synonym of Zamites and would mean that Z. gigas plus all the species recognisably closer to it than to Z. bucklandii would require a new genus name. Zijlstra & van Konijnenburg-van Cittert chose to attempt to circumvent this situation by proposing that Zamites should be re-defined based on designating Z. gigas as a new type to replace Z. bucklandii, a proposal that was recommended for acceptance by the Nomenclature Committee for Fossils in 2022.