Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants

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WikiProject Plants

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Type species sourcing

I was reviewing edits like this and was wondering... what is the best source to find the correct type species of a genus? I looked in POWO but didn't see anything. Steven Walling • talk 20:33, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

IPNI or Tropicos are good for type species. Plantdrew (talk) 03:48, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

ING is the most up-to-date for types of genera [1]https://naturalhistory2.si.edu/botany/ing/ Weepingraf (talk) 20:12, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Category: Taxa by author - a hoary old problem?

Seem to me that some editors have difficulty distinguishing between "taxa named by X" and "species named by X" (as for example here), when creating categories (eg. Category:Taxa named by X). Is there guidance somewhere to assist with an explanation of the difference? Gderrin (talk) 04:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

• As I wrote at Talk:Sambucus australasica, I don't think there is a distinction between "taxa named by X" and "species named by X" – species are just one kind of taxon. A real issue is the difference between the nomenclature codes in how they handle transfers of species to another genus. The ICZN is only interested in the original author; the ICNafp takes account of the transferring author. So Sambucus australasica (Lindl.) Fritsch could be categorized:

1. Only in "Taxa named by John Lindley"
2. Only in "Taxa named by Karl Fritsch"
3. In both these categories

There's a case for (1) – consistency across nomenclature codes – and a case for (3) – all authors cited with the taxon – but in my view no case for (2). Personally I prefer (1), since it's then consistent with "Plants described in YEAR" (except for replacement names), as well as with ICZN names. Sambucus australasica was described and named by John Lindley in 1838 (as Tripetelus australasicus), so should be categorized in "Plants described in 1838" and "Taxa named by John Lindley".

A problem with also using "Taxa named by <transferring author>" is whether current acceptance is enough to privilege one synonym of the basionym over others. In the very broadest sense a species has been named by any author transferring it to another genus. It's cleaner to categorize based on the basionym only. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:48, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

I mildly prefer (3) because it is almost like a collaborative naming, just across time instead of like with a more recently named taxon where multiple authors are given credit. But I have been doing (1) because that what I have seen other editors doing. And I think I have failed to properly add the "named by" category on at least one article I wrote where the species does have two authors. Have to fix that when I'm back at editing next month.

Thanks for your comment, a very good summary, as usual. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 17:52, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

• Would Category:Taxa described by xxx (for consistency with the year described categories) or Category:Taxa described and named by xxx be better? —  Jts1882 | talk  14:05, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Possibly, but it would need a wider discussion across ToL WikiProjects, I think. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:58, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

This discussion seems to reoccur with regular frequency ... maybe it's time to finally have this discussion and iron out some explanatory text to go on the category page?

• Follow-up thread started at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Botanical_Taxa_by_Author. Esculenta (talk) 22:11, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Floral emblem#Requested move 14 September 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Floral emblem#Requested move 14 September 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – MaterialWorks 16:58, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Distribution categorization of monotypic genera and species redirects

There seems to be a divergence of practice as to where to put the distribution categories for monotypic genera whose only species is described on a page with the genus as the title. I've consistently interpreted the guidance at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Plants/World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions#Using the categorization hierarchy

"Taxa of the lowest rank are always included (species, subspecies, varieties). Higher taxa are included only if endemic (for example, a genus endemic to Western Australia could have the genus article itself included in that category)"

to mean that the species redirect is always categorized, and the genus article is categorized only if endemic. So, for example, I would put both Scaraboides and Scaraboides manningii in Category:Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces. On the other hand, I would put Pentaglottis sempervirens in Category:Flora of Southwestern Europe but wouldn't put Pentaglottis in a distribution category.

I was prompted by the recent removal of a distribution category from Scaraboides manningii to look at examples to try to find out what the usual practice was. It seems to me that there isn't any consistency and I can't find any explicit guidance. I wonder if we could agree on how to handle distribution categories for monotypic genera and species redirects. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:07, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

• I also categorise fungal/lichen distributions similarly as your interpretation, and think adding extra guidance to the category page is a good idea. Esculenta (talk) 19:26, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
• I support Peter's view of the guidance. Category:Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces should be a category for the redirect Scaraboides manningii per "Taxa of the lowest rank are always included" and also a category for Scaraboides per "Higher taxa are included only if endemic". Putting the Pentaglottis sempervirens redirect in Category:Flora of Southwestern Europe is correct, as is not having one for Pentaglottis, not being endemic. The guidance appears clear to me as written, but maybe further clarification could be made that species redirects are included. Declangi (talk) 03:51, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Ok, well as no-one else has commented, and the three of us agree, I added to the guidance the sentence "In the case of monotypic taxa, redirects should be categorized in exactly the same way." Peter coxhead (talk) 09:02, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

I also categorized the two examples I gave above as per the revised guidance. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:05, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Eruca vesicaria#Requested move 18 September 2023

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Eruca vesicaria#Requested move 18 September 2023 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:10, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Necessity of new image collages for Plantae and Angiosperms

• The original images for Angiosperms and Plantae were replaced a few months ago, presumably for not being taxonomically representative enough. While I agree with the sentiment (and the original angiosperm image put too much emphasis on horticultural and European species), the new images are not as neatly organized and the Angiosperm one is entirely comprised of Northern Hemisphere taxa. I'd say we need new collages with their own imagemaps just like those on the Animal pages.Geekgecko (talk) 01:24, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
  • For the Angiosperm one at least, I propose six rows of 3 images each: the first representing the basal angiosperms, the second representing the magnoliids, the third and fourth representing the monocots, and the fifth and sixth representing the eudicots. All photos focus on flowers and fruit, there is representation from many different geographical regions, and only wild-type plants are shown. The collage for the plant page could be similar as it currently is but should be better organized. Geekgecko (talk) 01:24, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject Plants MoS?

Is there a Manual of Style page on how to make pages for botanical taxa? Davest3r08 ^(talk) 13:53, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

@Davest3r08:, see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Plants/Template (although it is just advice, not a Manual of Style with guideline status). Plantdrew (talk) 16:02, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Davest3r08 ^(talk) 16:05, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Proposed Species?

Draft:Nepenthes titiwangsa is in the Articles for Creation queue. Do proposed new species count as notable? Newystats (talk) 06:28, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

@Newystats:, a species that hasn't been formally named doesn't meet the rationale of WP:SPECIESOUTCOMES. However, it could be notable (Denisovans haven't been formally named but are certainly notable). Even formally naming a species is still essentially just a proposal; we would like to see secondary sources that show that other experts recognize any proposed, formally named species.

There are article on some other Nepenthes species that haven't been formally named: Nepenthes sp. Anipahan and Nepenthes sp. Misool, and the draft on Nepenthes titiwangsa is much better developed than the existing articles. It seems likely that the user Amin28th who has added most of the text to the draft is Amin-Asyraf Tamizi, who published the paper from which most of the content is derived. That paper was listed as "in press" in earlier versions of the draft (but has now been published), and now there is a second paper listed as "in press" which may end up containing the formal naming. Amin28th has created articles on two other Nepenthes species that had Amin-Asyraf Tamizi as one of the authors in the publications where they were formally named.

I would suggest leaving the page in draft space for now, pending a publication where the species is formally named. Plantdrew (talk) 16:42, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks Newystats (talk) 10:57, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Deletion of "List of Lepidoptera that feed on" articles

There is currently a discussion ongoing at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Lepidoptera that feed on Aster that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. AryKun (talk) 09:53, 5 October 2023 (UTC)

Template:TNCStatus

I have been using Template:TNCStatus created by @Dr vulpes all over as I edit plants. It has some problems, but mostly works really well once I add the status to WikiData. But as I've gone along I have started to wonder if there are objections to using this template. Should I be directly putting in status manually until the template is more developed? I have noticed, occasionally, that the status in Wikipedia will be out of date and WikiData will be more current. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 15:53, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

SL-class

See also: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Archive75 § Project-independent quality assessments 2

Hello project members! Note that per WP:PIQA, all the class ratings are being harmonised across different WikiProjects so we are looking to remove any non-standard classes like SL-class from your project banner. Would you like to automatically reclassify these as List-class or perhaps Stub-class? Alternatively it could just be removed and then the articles in Category:SL-Class plant articles would inherit the quality rating from other projects (or just become "unassessed" if there were no other projects) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 09:56, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

@MSGJ: I think that WP:PIQA leads to a bad decision in this case. Why should we not able to assess the quality of a list class article? (So showing that more work is needed.) The SL class should be left left alone. I see no reason for this decision to be imposed on us. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:16, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree - if anything we should be standardizing in the opposite direction by making rated lists the norm. I would appreciate some further discussion on this matter. Fritzmann (message me) 12:20, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

So we have two main options here. The first is to opt-out of PIQA completely. That will leave your project free to continue using whatever classes it wants to use. The process to do this was described in the notification linked above. (Would have been great if people had replied to it!) The disadvantage is that your banner will not inherit the global class from the banner shell and would generally be moving against the direction of travel to other WikiProjects. The other option is to find some other way to track the information you need to run your project. For example, we could fallback to Start-class but have another indicator/category that the article is a list. I agree completely that ratings should apply to lists and we are looking at various proposals to improve the assessment scheme, but things move slowly around here :) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:09, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

I am glad that it is being discussed because when this notice inspired me to look at I was appalled by the quality of some of the articles. Many of them seem to be 20% done passion projects that have been abandoned for four or five years. I am quite enthusiastic about reasonably finished plant lists (I happen to be working two of them right now) but I think most or all of the "list of plants from <place>" articles should be put back in the draft space because they're so incomplete. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 22:58, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

With the prospect of losing a way to keep track of some dreadfully incomplete lists, I think we should get some of them out of article space while we are still tracking them. My first thought was deletion, but draft space would work too. Plantdrew (talk) 00:46, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Okay here is a concrete proposal. SL-class will be classified as List-class but we will tag all the current articles in Category:SL-Class plant articles with |attention=yes, which will populate Category:Plant articles needing attention and can be used for editors to review. Alternatively we can add a new parameter |SL=yes which can give a more descriptive message/category. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 11:32, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Any further thoughts on this? — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:09, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

There is wikibooks:Flora of New York on WikiBooks... just a thought, without any proposal. Tosha Langue (talk) 15:06, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

@MSGJ:, flagging with |attention=yes is a good solution. Plantdrew (talk) 16:48, 20 October 2023 (UTC)

This is now completed, and you have 126 articles in Category:Plant articles needing attention to look through (if you wish) — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 20:18, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Relevant discussion

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life#Setting policy for lists of synonyms? for a discussion that impacts on this WikiProject. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:18, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Ongoing FAC for Hypericum sechmenii

Hello, there is an ongoing Featured Article Candidacy for Hypericum sechmenii at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Hypericum sechmenii/archive1. All who wish to give input are invited to leave comments and improve the article. Thank you! Fritzmann (message me) 16:57, 19 October 2023 (UTC)

Plant ID on the Commons

Hello all! I can ID some of these (at least to genus). Should I just add the ID to the image description? Should I add it somewhere else? Should I have it checked first? If so, where and how? How does this usually work? (I'm new to editing the Commons and wary of breaking things somehow, haha.) -- Photosynthetic430 ❧ 18:16, 20 October 2023 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Photosynthetic430 (talk • contribs)

Easy access to journal full texts

I'm not sure often you use The Wikipedia Library but you can access loads of full text content through it. I've made a file which you can download and import into the REDIRECTOR add on for Firefox and Chrome and it will redirect you to the full articles e.g. doi:10.1016/j.drugpo.2010.11.001 to https://www-sciencedirect-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/science/article/pii/S0955395910001581?via%3Dihub. It should work wherever you find the links i.e. from google scholar etc. SmartSE (talk) 11:27, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Which are the most high priority articles to create?

Hi all

I've seen Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Article requests and I'm wondering if there any other high priority articles that have been identified by the community as important and missing? Eg endangered plants, edible plants, plants from a specific genus or family etc.

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 14:33, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

I just did a quick search and found nothing. I suspect such a category or list does not exist because it would be more work to create it than to just fill gaps with a stub. The list of articles by importance and status on the front page lists 12 articles that are top priority articles that are only "start" quality, and none that are "stub". All of them are about general subjects like bud. The "high" importance articles that are "start" status include some species like Areca catechu, Cannabis indica, Capsicum annuum, etc. There are also LOTS of "mid" importance articles about species that are listed as "stubs". That's where you'll really find the gaps.

All the articles that I have added as new articles have be judged to be "low" importance though they are quite prominent locally. Truth is that most individual species are not critical article subjects from a global point of view. Though there are still lots of local endemics that need articles. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 14:58, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Article requests is garbage. Being listed there is not an indication that creating an article should be a high priority. User:Pengo/missing plants is the best list of missing plant articles; it's based on how frequently a scientific name was found in a corpus of published works. Synonyms presented there aren't always up to date (the first red link is [[[Dolichos biflorus]] which the list suggests is a synonym of Macrotyloma uniflorum; but POWO has it as a synonym of Macrotyloma biflorum).

Overall, the issue isn't so much that Wikipedia is missing lots of high priority articles (although it is missing many low priority articles) so much as it is that Wikipedia has some very poorly developed articles that should be a high priority. Wikipedia:WikiProject_Plants/Popular_pages gets at (some) existing articles that should be a high priority. Take the quality ratings there with a big grain of salt (articles may have been expanded and have a quality rating that is too low, or an article may have a high quality rating and be well developed for aspects of human use, but lacking basic botanical content (strawberry was the second most viewed article last month, is rated B-class, and doesn't have a botanical description of the plant).

Some of the redirects in Category:Plant redirects with possibilities should be at least somewhat high priority. Plantdrew (talk) 18:24, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

A pretty good way to determine high priority species without articles would be to sort by number of observations on iNaturalist. There's an old thread on their forums where that was done previously. There were only 29 species listed, and articles for all of them were created fairly quickly. Another round of that, with several hundred species listed would be a good thing. Plantdrew (talk) 21:29, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

That is a very clever idea. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 21:36, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

lus.?

What does lus. mean in a scientific name? I came across Crocus heuffelianus lus. concolor and a few others under Crocus heuffelianus and elsewehere. I found the original description from 1862 for Actinostemon concolor lus. microphyllus and that does not explain the rank. Anyone know this abbreviation? -- awkwafaba (📥) 15:38, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

from here: "Isolated individuals with aberrant characteristics not caused by an invading foreign organism, and with limited or no sexual and asexual reproduction, which have been formerly designated as lusus naturae, monstrosities, or teratological taxa; or have been misidentified but named as genera, species, subspecies, varieties or formae, are to be named under the infraspecific rank lusus naturae (lus.).”" Esculenta (talk) 15:45, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. That doesn’t sound like a clade, though. Why is it in IPNI as one? awkwafaba (📥) 16:17, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

I think i get it now, it’s a non-rank rank to prevent people from repeatedly creating new species. awkwafaba (📥) 16:36, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Request for Article improvement: Common symbiosis signaling

Request for Article Improvement : Common symbiosis signaling

Recently I have created an article on common symbiosis signaling pathway. It is just an initial version and needs a lot of improvement.

This article needs following improvements.

• 1. I have added some representational images. Need better quality images.
• 2. Needs to be scrutinized by more knowledgeable people in this specific topic, to check if there are any technical mistakes or wrong informations, and subsequently correcting them.
• 3. Needs to be add some sections in plain language to make the topic more sense to non-technical readers.
• 4. Needs a lot of minor edits regarding spelling, formatting, (italics, capitalization etc.) in context of scientific conventions.
• 5. If you or your institute is a part of research that is connected to Arbuscular mycorrhiza, Myc-factors, Symbiosis genes etc; then please feel free to enrich this article with photo and data files such as confocal fluorescence photomicrographs, calcium wave electrophysiology data, protein models, protein evolution and phylogeny, etc.
• Any other improvements.

Requesting the plant biology, plant physiology and plant molecular biology task forces to look it up. RIT RAJARSHI (talk) 15:11, 25 October 2023 (UTC)