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:The template allows for immediate categorization, linking, and standardization, which is highly desirable when dealing with a large number of pages that must contain the same information. Your suggested rewording also has some problems. The ''author'' is not botanical, and the abbreviation is only used when it appears following a scientific name, never in other circumstances. --[[User:EncycloPetey|EncycloPetey]] 20:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
:The template allows for immediate categorization, linking, and standardization, which is highly desirable when dealing with a large number of pages that must contain the same information. Your suggested rewording also has some problems. The ''author'' is not botanical, and the abbreviation is only used when it appears following a scientific name, never in other circumstances. --[[User:EncycloPetey|EncycloPetey]] 20:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

⚫
::I am not following your argument completely, but would like to add that the author names are important, because a number of same names are used for different taxons and often the only way to know which group of plants are being referred to, is by the author name given. I have run into this problem a few times on Wikipedia. [[User:Hardyplants|Hardyplants]] 20:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
::Having been a botanist for the last 68 years, I'm aware of the appropriate places to use an author abbreviation. Perhaps I failed to lucidly explain my reservations. Being a botanist does indeed make an author 'botanical' in the same sense that one has 'botanical painters' or 'botanical people'. However, the main problem is the appearance and positioning of the template, which I feel can do with a lot of improvement to make it blend in, and failing that, be put at the very bottom of the article where it would give least offence. Cheers, [[User:Raasgat|Raasgat]] 13:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

⚫
:::I am not following your argument completely, but would like to add that the author names are important, because a number of same names are used for different taxons and often the only way to know which group of plants are being referred to, is by the author name given. I have run into this problem a few times on Wikipedia. [[User:Hardyplants|Hardyplants]] 20:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)


== [[Striped French marigold]] ==
== [[Striped French marigold]] ==

Revision as of 13:30, 4 September 2007

Shortcut
Archives for WP:PLANTS (Archive index) edit

Top priority stubs

The following articles are the "stubs" which appear in the Category:Top-importance plant articles:

It would be nice to see our Project expand all its Top-priority articles beyond "stub", as having such top-priority stubs is a little embarrassing. --EncycloPetey 00:33, 14 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. Do you think we could benefit from creating a collaboration of the month to gear up interest in these, one at a time? --Rkitko (talk) 20:38, 15 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We might, though i don't know whether a formal project is worth the effort. There is a COTM for novels (which I participate in a little), and they have voting and a project page, etc....but typically 4 or 5 people collaborate, and make only 50 edits over the course of the month. We might just try something simple and informal, and only go to setting up something more formal if the response warrants it. --EncycloPetey 22:29, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
For those who don't know, all the articles are grouped by Top-Stub etc at Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Plant_articles_by_quality/4 - it gets updated every 2-3 days. FWIW, I think official collaborations are best targetted at getting B articles up to GA quality (starting with the Tops), as in general you need contributions from more than one person to get a GA whereas Stubs and Starts can be upgraded by individuals. You don't even need specialist knowledge, just a bit of research can be enough to get up to at least a Start. Personally I really enjoy stubkilling, especially in this kind of context as you're dealing with things that are kinda important, but not fashionable, so you end up learning a lot about the back streets of the subject.
I also find it quite helpful to divide and conquer - I've taken the High Stubs and split them very roughly into taxa, anatomy, 'concepts' and 'the rest' to try and tempt someone into taking one of them on ;-/ I've also reassessed quite a few that were marked as stubs but were better than that. Someone might also decide that some of these don't deserve to be Highs - and conversely something like Bryology could be a Top? Anyway, here are those High Stubs :
Incidentally, Photoperiodism seems to be a school essay, it's more than a stub but I've left it as that because it desperately needs a copyedit.FlagSteward 23:29, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for this! I've been doing some of that too, and made one pass through the "High" stubs to get the most obviously mis-classifications, but it could use another pass or two by additional sets of eyes. My personal viewpoint for taxon articles was to allow "Top" "High" status for (1) globally important economic plants, (2) pages that are likely to have critically important morphological and/or ecological information for a globally important group, and (3) divisions and classes. For an order or family to achieve "Top" status it's got to be a huge group with a real possibility of containing significant quantities of information, or at least a major fraction of the including group and radical morphological diffeences from its close relatives.
For example, Oaks are a key ecological component of northern forests, are economically important for its wood and supports a major industry, and the article also is likely to contain a lot of information about the group such as on acorns, subgenera, hybridization, etc., so I would rate Oak as "Top". On the other hand, although Fagales is an economically and ecologically important group, it is really the members of the group that are important. The Fagales page is not likely to have much information that is generally important, and most of the information will probably reside on family and species pages. And for really large families and genera, there has to be a possibility of becoming a sizable article, or it just really isn't that important. At least that's how I've been thinking about it so far.
In my specialty field of liverworts, I would rate Marchantiophyta, Jungermanniales, Metzgeriales, Marchantiales, Lejeuneaceae, Marchantia, Plagiochila, and Riccia as "Top", and maybe Porella and Frullania, but that's a complete list out of 6000 to 8000 liverwort species. I include orders rather than classes because, as we're set up, there are no articles on the two classes of liverworts. I include Lejeuneaceae because it is by far the largest family (75 genera and >1600 species) and is ecologically important in tropical forests as eppiphytes. It also has highly distinctive morphology among liverworts.
Incidentally, I wouldn't rate Bryology as "Top" because I expect the article will be mostly a history of the field and its workers. It is certainly a broad area of Botany, but not a critical one to understanding plants generally. Bryology is something of a specialty field. I expect that most botanists haven't a clue how Bryology differs from the study of vascular plants (Tracheophytology?), so it doesn't really qualify as a core article, IMO, and I say that as someone with a primary interest in Bryology and Pteridology. --EncycloPetey 00:20, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Aha! So it's your fault that there's so many bryophyte Stubs! :-//// Fair enough, I only mentioned bryology as a suggestion, I just thought it might make a convenient 'jumping off point' article given that Bryophyta doesn't really exist any more. Certainly over on the Wine Project, we've ended up with a couple of articles getting ranked highly more for their qualities as a way in to the rest of the articles than the for the merits of the subject in itself.
>to allow "Top" status for (1) globally important economic plants
That'll be grapevines then ;-/ Hey, it's WPP's business how they classify articles, I wasn't really trying to make a point, but even among Highs there are Highs and not-so-Highs. A Plant that effectively has an entire WikiProject to itself is a fairly high High ;-/
As you can see I've killed the Chervil stub, but Arugula has been classified in its place.... FlagSteward 01:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I meant "High" status and have corrected my statement above. I understand your viewpoint, but do disagree with it. Grapevines aren't central to understanding plant biology. We have only one species listed as "Top" if that makes you feel any better. :) Aside: What do you mean Bryophyta doesn't exist anymore? It still exists, it's just been more narrowly defined as the division of the mosses. There is an article at Bryophyte too. --EncycloPetey 02:11, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Bryophyta - argghhhh, you're not the only one writing stuff that you don't mean :-)) Blame it on a late night and trying to do 5 things at once. ;-/ What I was trying to say was that Bryology or Bryophyte would make a more comprehensive 'way in' article than Bryophyta, since the English words haven't changed as the Latin name has, making the English versions more 'inclusive'. No big deal, it was only an idea that was formed before I'd really seen what the Bryophyte article said. On the Top/High thing, a devil's advocate might suggest that your logic would work for a 'Botany' project, but not one calling itself 'Plants'.;-/ But no matter - I'm just a visitor here, I'm not trying to throw everything upside down.
Onto more substantive matters - might I suggest that Day neutral plant, Long day plant and Short day plant get merged into Photoperiodism before it gets its copyedit? I'm all in favour of having one good article that covers a subject, rather spreading it over bitty half-articles. It also gets a third of the 'concept' articles destubbed :-)) By the same token, there's probably scope for merging some of the anatomy stubs - capsule and follicle might be merged into Fruit, or perhaps into a new article of Simple fruits? And so on - it wouldn't be right for me to propose any such mergers, but the regulars here might want to scan some of those articles and think about whether they should be stand-alones or would be better as part of a more comprehensive article. Experience suggests that it takes a while to sort these things out, so it's better to start things moving on any potential mergers and then start on the uncontroversial stubs whilst you're debating the mergers.FlagSteward 20:43, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've got Flora Europaea up to a good Start, it's probably not far off being a bad B with a bit of tidying up and mebbe a bit more of the history after 1993. I didn't hunt too hard for articles on the editors, but it's worth mentioning that only one of them came up blue on a simple link test - I'd suggest all of them are notable for this and other reasons.FlagSteward 01:04, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Polbot

Greetings, botany-folks! I run a bot called Polbot, and she creates new stub articles based on information from the IUCN redlist. She's done all the animals, and I'm getting her ready to do the plants. I have a few questions for you folks, though, before I start. I'm trying to find a way to automatically assign an appropriate stub type, based on the species' taxonomic information. But it's harder than I thought it would be. The plant stub-types are all listed at Category:Plant stubs. The first one I looked at is {{asterid-stub}}, and the asterids article says asterids all belong to the same unranked clade. The IUCN data only lists Kingdom, Division (which it calls Phylum), Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. Nothing else. Okay, I thought, I'll just make a list of all the ranked taxa that are asterids. Not easy. The asterids article lists ten orders and twelve or thirteen separate families -- but many of these aren't listed in the IUCN. (Wikipedia articles don't always use the same taxonomy as the IUCN.) So the Wikipedia article says the Oncothecaceae family is an asterid, but the IUCN doesn't return any hits when you search on "Oncothecaceae". Is that because the IUCN doesn't list any species in that family, or because the IUCN calls it something different, or because the IUCN considers "Oncothecaceae" to be a superfamily or subfamily or whatever. It's very difficult for a non-botanist like me to figure out. So would any of you fine people be willing to help me? For each plant stub-type, what IUCN classes/orders/families should I give that type of stub to? Thanks for any help, – Quadell (talk) (random) 22:15, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The IUCN will not be up-to-date for plant nomenclature. There have been many recent innovations in the way plant taxa are arranged and that plants are classified. I have personally been adding Bryophyte high-level taxa, and have had to make many adjustments. I have been coordinating this effort with Wikispecies. I know that the mosses and most liverworts now match classification structure for both WS and en-WP. The pteridophytes also mostly match (except the Lycopodiophyta) between projects. I have not spent any serious time with seed plants to know their status, but do know that WP uses ANPG II as the basis for its angiosperm taxonomy. If you have a list of genera for bryophytes or pteridophytes, I can point you to a family (and higher) classification. I think those groups have all pages in down to the orders, and links to nearly all the moss and pteridophyte families. Only the liverworts are lacking many family links among those groups. --EncycloPetey 22:23, 17 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In general, it is a pretty difficult problem, as plants are getting reclassified a lot these days. Some of the common cases should be easier, though. For example Template:grass-stub, Template:orchid-stub, Template:palm-stub and Template:monocot-stub should correspond to Poaceae, Orchidaceae, Arecaceae and the rest of monocot. The only plants or families which have been moved into or out of the monocots are Hydatellaceae, a small family, and I don't think those three families have had plants moved in or out of them. Anything tagged as Asteraceae should be Template:asteraceae-stub (no reclassifications in or out of this family, as far as I know). Template:legume-stub shouldn't be too bad as long as you can figure out whether IUCN is using Fabaceae sensu lata or sensu stricta. There, I just listed some of the biggest plant families (should be at least half the plant species if you handle the cases above). Maybe the stub sorting people can advise about how much work you should spend on this, or when you should just tag them as Template:plant-stub and let someone worry about it later. Kingdon 02:46, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Giving the stub-sorters the same problem: gee, thanks. :) Actually, the likes of the asterids are already on the verge of needing to be split into more specific stub types on size grounds. I'd suggest prioritising those species which can be mapped between the IUCN's taxons and "Wikipedia's" (WP's de facto practice, that is). If the WP article for a taxon marks it as deprecated, then as Kingdon says, one has to do a finer-grained analysis at a lower taxon. If WP completely lacks an article on a higher taxon, then I think we're rather in trouble until that's rectified. Having numerous articles on species of particular order or family seem of dubious value without that article to put it context (especially since the bot-created articles are themselves going to be rather lacking in specifics), and will be a real nightmare to stub-sort. For example, I recently had to create some really crappy family-level articles, just to avoid a stub type required to contain numerous stubs of said families themselves having redlinks in the template and category... Hopefully knowledgeable editors can be found for these, and the process "rolled out" in a somewhat top-down fashion. Alai 01:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Alai, I was actually going to suggest splitting apart the asterid, rosid, and perhaps monocot stubs by order, but was waiting for Polbot to complete its run. We might also want to think about completing the upper-level APGII set of stub types. Particularly important will be some kind of magnoliid as there are quite a few Laurales and Piperales being created, but they warrant their own stub categories, in my opinion. I'm also in the process of getting BotanyBot approved for stub sorting, so your bot will have some help :-) Rkitko (talk) 01:50, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Splitting those sooner rather than later makes a lot of sense to me. Even if they don't meet the size threshold at present, we can "upmerge" the templates, in anticipation of future need (possibly not so very "future", given this discussion). If Quadell were to give us some indication of likely size of "run" on a per taxon basis, we'd have further grist to the mill. Alai 02:32, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've looked at the monocots; the only new stub that looks worthwhile to split off presently would be one for the Araceae. There are about 500 monocot stubs and about a third of those are Anthurium. Note that creating new stubs according to ANPG order names won't be helpful, since Polbot isn't using that system of orders. --EncycloPetey 03:17, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
At the order level, it looms like Asparagales, Alismatales and Liliales would all make viable stub types. Alai 04:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
...yes, but the latter two are very likely to be misinterpreted over and over by contributors. In any case, IUCN doesn't know about Asparagales and so doesn't use it, and Polbot doesn't put the Araceae in Alismatales. It wouldn't use the stubs correctly. (Or we could get the bot to use the stubs correctly, then the stub order would be a mismatch with the order in the Taxobox). --EncycloPetey 04:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Could you elaborate on the first point? I may be a little tired and punchy at this stage... On Araceae, if that's now a settled reclassification, can't we just bot over both the stub type and the "ordo" field at the same time? Or is there more to it than that? Alai 04:33, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Because the circumscription of those taxa has been significantly reduced (for Liliales) and significantly expanded (for Alismatales) under ANPG II, contributors adding stub templates by hand will likely not know how to correctly label new articles. Of course, the Asparagales doesn't have this problem because it's relatively novel. Where do get a high count for Liliales? There aren't many families or genera left in that order any more.
While I suppose we could bot the Araceae, that one family is huge and will likely swamp out all other inclusions in the category, I think going straight to family level for a new stub (as we've already done e.g. for grasses, orchids, and palms) would be a better approach for that group. The remainder of the Alismatales should fit comfortably in the monocot-stubs. --EncycloPetey 05:08, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was wondering if we should go straight to family level. It's certainly less controversial and easier. Have any ideas on the other proposed order stubs? I got all the potential stub counts at WP:WSS/P from the category structure, which seems to follow the APG II changes. --Rkitko (talk) 13:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I guess wht I'm really asking is whether the count was donr before or after I fixed the order names on the Polbot articles. --EncycloPetey 16:24, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I did the counts by category intersection. For example, an intersection of Category:Plant stubs + Category:Monocot stubs with Category:Liliales and its subcats yielded an approximate count of all (listed) stubs within the Liliales order. That assumes the categories are correct, which for the most part they are. Polbot is placing the new articles in genus and family categories. Most family categories already existed. --Rkitko (talk) 16:41, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But the families are going to be incorrect in some cases, since Polbot is not using current nomenclature. Remember that at one time the Liliales included most monocots that weren't arums, palms, orchids, or grasses. Most of those are now in the Asparagales. If you could generate a list, I could sight-check it very quickly as I have a familiarity with monocot genera (and up). --EncycloPetey 22:32, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Polbot should not add bryophyte articles. Of the added bryophyte articles I've seen, the taxobox classifications are incorrect, the categories are incorrect, and the stub type is incorrect. Could someone provide a list of Polbot additions so that I can fix them? --EncycloPetey 02:39, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The taxonomy on the IUCN often uses a less popular (and sometimes no longer accepted) circumscription. IUCN uses Leguminosae and Scrophulariales, apparently. Polbot's additions should appear on the bot-generated new article list and on the assessment log in the next few days. --Rkitko (talk) 02:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That doesn't excuse its creation of whole new genus-based categories for single bryophyte articles or using the incorrect stub type. At least Leguminosae and Scrophulariales were in use when I was in college; the bryophyte classification they're using went out of fashion around the time I was born. --EncycloPetey 02:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The genus-based categories were my suggestion. I'm not sure if Polbot could count how many articles it was going to be creating and then decide to create or not create a genus category based on the number. I made the suggestion because the family-level categories were getting overstuffed with new articles and some sort of organization seemed prudent. I didn't realize the IUCN was so out of date on bryophyte taxonomy. Oh, I meant to ask you, also, if everything looked OK with the new {{Bryophyte-stub}} and Category:Bryophyte stubs that just passed WP:WSS/P. Feel free to change the photo in the template if you know of a better one. I just grabbed one that I thought looked OK at a small scale. --Rkitko (talk) 02:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, thanks for the new stub type. There are already 85 articles there. The problem with taxon-based categories is that they tend to go all the way to the top and mimic classification. Wikispecies already does this. One problem with this is that you have to already know the classification in order to find the article using categories. It also means that lots of useless one-item categories are created. Since Lunularia cruciata is the only species in that genus, there is no sense in having a Category:Lunularia; and since that the family Lunulariaceae has only the one genus, it is silly to have a Ctageory:Lunulariaceae. For some genera and families, such a structure could be useful (either now or eventually), but for bryophytes no such categories would be currently useful. There are fewer than 200 existing bryophyte articles, and most of the species articles are for separate genera. Offhand I can't think of any two bryophyte species articles that are for the same genus. The current bryophyte categories are only for the division level. --EncycloPetey 03:10, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I also note that the genus categories are very frequently have redlinked parents. I think that goes to the same general point of, would be much better if this worked in a more top-down manner, seeking to correlate with existing content to a much greater extent. Alai 02:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Rkitko: if it can create 'em, it can count 'em. I gather this isn't precisely the way it's working at the moment, given the repeated edits to the genus articles, but it seems straightforward in principle. (Easy to say when someone else gets to do the coding, of course...) The new stub type looks fine. I must admit I just tend to grab an image from the corresponding article, unless it's a very "non-landscape" shape, or has very bad contrast... and even then, if I can't find anything else within a few clicks... Alai 04:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Polbot is putting all the flowering plants into "Phylum Tracheophyta". Looks like all the taxoboxes will have to be corrected after the entries are created. --EncycloPetey 23:45, 21 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's because the IUCN puts them all into phylum Tracheophyta. – Quadell (talk) (random) 00:02, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Then IUCN is clueless about plants. The ICBN advocates the use of divisions (divisio) for the botanical rank between kingdom and class. Botanists do not use phyla. The "phylum" Tracheophyta went out of vogue in the 1960s. (and that page is a redirect here). It also doesn't explain why thy don't include ferns as vascular plants! The fern articles were created with "phylum Polypodiophyta". --EncycloPetey 00:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
According to Art. 3.1:
The principal ranks of taxa in descending sequence are: kingdom (regnum), division or phylum (divisio, phylum), class (classis), order (ordo), family (familia), genus (genus), and species (species). Thus, each species is assignable to a genus, each genus to a family, etc.
Unless the new Code has changed, division and phylum are treated as equivalent ranks and the ICBN does not advocate the use of one over the other. Botanists have traditionally used division rather than phylum, although I've seen "phylum" used in some recent classifications. I don't know if that indicates any trend towards recognizing plant phyla or not. The real problem is that there is still little consensus on what taxonomic rank (or name) to assign to various groups like "ferns" or "flowering plants". MrDarwin 17:27, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But if you're going to recognize "vascular plants" (Tracheophyta) as a group, you would presumably put all the vascular plants into that group, not just some of them as IUCN does. In any case, I have never seen phylum used in a published classification or textbook for botany. --EncycloPetey 22:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've gone through the Polbot additions so far and corrected the Taxoboxes for all non-dicots. I don't know the ANPG dicot classification well enough to work through them with any speed, whereas I learned my monocot higher classification through Dahlgren so I can handle those easily. The only ones I did that I'm not completely sure about are some of the "Blechnales" ferns. The WP classification of ferns hasn't been fully revised to match the Smith et al. classification, and I don't have a copy of that paper (yet). Otherwise, I've cleaned up all the bryophytes, ferns, cycads, a conifer, and the monocots that Polbot added as so far listed on the bot-generated list of new plant articles. --EncycloPetey 04:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, that's excellent; thanks for doing all that work! --Rkitko (talk) 13:16, 22 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Common names and taxoboxes

User:Kotare (contributions) has been modifying the taxoboxes in numerous plant article to change the botanical name to the common name, even when the article's title is the botanical name of the plant, with the edit note "changed name in taxobox as per guidelines on taxobox page". For example, see Avicennia marina, Schefflera digitata, Phyllocladus trichomanoides, etc. I don't generally edit taxoboxes but this does seem to follow the guidelines at Wikipedia:Taxobox usage which state that, for plant articles, "The name should be the most common name when one is in widespread use, and a scientific name otherwise." Unfortunately this strikes me as something that's going to re-open the common name can of worms, as editors argue over what is the most common, appropriate, or "correct" common name. MrDarwin 17:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously that section needs to be changed to 'The name should be the same as the name of the article, except in those cases where the article name is altered from the name of the organism (e.g., by substitution of "x" for the hybrid sign "×"); in those cases the name should be unaltered.'--Curtis Clark 17:36, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, it does say "The name should be the most common name when one is in widespread use...". I take that to mean that is there is not a common name in widespread use, the "common" name should not be used. --EncycloPetey 19:01, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My concern is that it requires an additional level of analysis by the editor, it contradicts Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora), it allows for contradiction of the article (a common name could be inserted that was not otherwise mentioned), and I can see no rationale for having the taxobox and article name disagree.--Curtis Clark 19:28, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Same for me. I think we agree and are saying the same thing with different emphasis. --EncycloPetey 20:19, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've started discussion of the change here.--Curtis Clark 21:30, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think MrDarwin's concern is over a re-igniting of the very nasty edit wars we had about a year ago (and a similar one nearly a year before that iirc). Keep in mind also that the consensus to name articles using scientific names is also a relatively new thing as well (in fact, when I first started editing one might have been scolded for using either common or scientific names for stub articles). Common names can differ radically from region to region (like bittersweet and bittersweet), be seen as offensive or misleading by different readers and editors (like nigger daisy or eastern red cedar), or in some cases the "common names" one finds in the reference materials are far less commonly used than the scientific names (like plantain lily). The taxobox usage policy as it stands is likely just a relic from before the adoption of the flora naming conventions... probably good to change it for plants (though I think the animal people might want to keep the common name usage in the taxobox). --SB_Johnny | PA! 21:31, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's not that old. Just 2 months ago MPF ignited it again. Circeus 21:55, 19 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm interesting, yeah I can see that it is a bit of a difficult issue. Firstly, Please be aware that it wasn't my intention to cause problems and I'm keen to discuss these issues. You may have realized this but I was basically going through the "trees of New Zealand" category and changing the names of the taxoboxes where I thought appropriate. I consciously tried to avoid replacing the scientific name with a common name in trees which also grew in other parts of the world and which thus have several common names ( ie: Dodonaea viscosa) as it's very difficult to judge which is the most widely used name in these cases. Most of the changes are pretty valid in my opinion however, Tanekaha (Phyllocladus trichomanoides), Miro (Prumnopitys ferruginea) Karaka (Karaka (tree) among others are examples of trees where here in New Zealand there is only one common name which is widely used. To be honest, I think there is a case for renaming alot of these articles with common names which are widely used..Kotare 00:36, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some might be valid, but at least one of them probably is not. Phyllocladus trichomanoides has multiple common names. The only one that I've ever heard or seen is "Celery pine", but more often I see it referred to as Phyllocladus trichomanoides. It is widely grown in botanical gardens outside of New Zealand, and we don't always choose the local common name for an article. Consider that the local common name for Metasequoia would be in Chinese. --EncycloPetey 01:02, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That would open a can of worms that many editors hoped was safely closed with the latest changes to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora). But I'm sure you'll agree that it's better to address that directly than to use the taxobox name as a "back door".--Curtis Clark 00:57, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Although I'm a proponent for using botanical names for the article title, I do tend to think that using a well-accepted common name (where it exists) at the top of the taxobox has advantages:
  • Provides assurance for those searching by common names that they have arrived on the correct page e.g. Tree of Heaven
  • It is the general practice across all Wikipedia taxoboxes (provides familiarity for users)
  • Avoids the redundancy of having the botanic name twice in the taxobox.--Melburnian 02:24, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If "well-accepted common name" weren't so problematic for so many species, I'd agree. But, to take a page from MPF's arguments, a taxobox labeled "Scotch broom" would be puzzling to most people in Britain (and perhaps offensive to some), whereas a California reader might be puzzled by "Common Broom", the official UK name.--Curtis Clark 03:05, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • I think the common name (where it exists, is widespread, yadda yadda yadda) deserves a place in the taxobox, and I prefer to avoid the redundancy of having the scientific name listed not once not twice but thrice for species (name, species, binomial). The inevitable conclusion is that the name parameter should be used for the common name where possible. This is what I ahve been doing, but with some misgiving as I believe it gives it way too much prominence. Hesperian 04:56, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This makes sense to make (where there really is a suitable common name, which as has been pointed out many times is only the case for a small percentage of species, although many of them are the best-known). "Too much prominence" kind of depends on whether it is really a well-known name (like "Oaks" on Quercus), or a semi-well-known name. Of course if it just one of those silly or little-used common names (like plantain lily) we need not put it in the taxobox at all. As for the New Zealand trees, I don't know enough about them to say, but if those common names are reasonably widely used, I'd say they should be the name in the taxobox. Kingdon 12:12, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  1. My general impression is that other infoboxes repeat the article name. AFAICT the biggest resistance to the taxobox doing so is that the scientific name will be repeated in the taxobox. But for species without common names, this will always be true.
  2. I'm concerned that using a common name will re-open Common Name Wars, as in the broom example above. Perhaps the main reason that the broom article is at Cytisus scoparius is the (not unexpected) failure of the editors to agree on a common name. An article can hold a multitude of common names, a taxobox only one.--Curtis Clark 13:32, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Guys, let's not play "dogpile on the rabbit"... most common names will sooner or later prove controversial when given prominence, and while our friend MPF is rather notorious for this, he's certainly not the only one tangoing. Besides, wp isn't paper, there's plenty of room in the articles themselves to list and discuss common names. It took a very long time to reach consensus on the naming conventions for plant articles, but hopefully it can be a relatively easy discussion to just make the taxoboxes fit the article names. --SB_Johnny | PA! 16:35, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not bagging on MPF at all; I agree with his concerns, and only disagree with his solutions.--Curtis Clark 21:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Numerous copyvio pages

Started by User:Vasant Salian contribs, copied and pasted in from a wide variety of webpages (sometimes two or more used on a single page). I've deleted several already, restarted some (e.g. Swietenia mahagoni, Hibiscus schizopetalus), where there had been subsequent gfdl material added, but not bothered with others which were almost pure copyvio. Plenty more to do! I've left the contributor a note. - MPF 11:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Got all the obvious copyvios removed now - MPF 14:10, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There's Dodecatheon pulchellum. Someone reworded a bit of it, but there's plenty of long phrases that would make some copyvio hunters nervous. --Rkitko (talk) 14:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, MPF. Hopefully we can straighten this contributor out, as he has also made constructive edits. Kingdon 16:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I tried several phrases from Dodecatheon pulchellum (as of the relevant historical version) and couldn't pin anything down, so I'm regarding that one as legitimate (as you say, some of his contribs are good!). - MPF 17:04, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Of course Dodecatheon has just been synonymized under Primula and all its species transferred to the latter genus by Mast & Reveal... MrDarwin 13:28, 27 August 2007

(UTC)

Its an attractive monograph http://128.8.90.214/emeritus/reveal/pbio/fna/dodecatheon.html, but I hate to lose Dodecatheon into Primula, its such a nice distinct looking group of plants. Hardyplants 14:52, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, hadn't seen that. Reveal's online monograph includes the Mast & Reveal combinations in Primula, which were made earlier this year, in synonymy under the names in Dodecatheon. So does Reveal accept the union of the two genera or not? One reason why we should treat unpublished material we find on the web with caution... MrDarwin 15:23, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(exdenting) I've added a note about the synonymization in Dodecatheon. I'm all in favor of caution; I don't think we should move articles around and that sort of thing unless/until this move seems to be catching on. Kingdon 18:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Brownea coccinea

User:Stormbay has queried the identity of the photos added at Brownea coccinea. I'm not familiar enough with the genus to confirm the pics or not - can others give them a look over, please? - thanks, MPF 21:55, 24 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of vegetable oils

I have proposed the demotion of List of vegetable oils as I feel it is a bad example to those looking to improve lists on Wikipedia. Plainly put it is badly formatted and inconsistent. See my reasoning at Wikipedia:Featured list removal candidates/List of vegetable oils. ~ JohnnyMrNinja 06:41, 25 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Move help

Is there someone here who can move Geothallus tuberosus to Geothallus (and leave behind a redirect)? It is a monotypic genus, and policy is to put such pages under the name of the genus. Currently the redirect works the wrong way around, and I can't make the move becuase Polbot created the Geothallus article. --EncycloPetey 19:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done --Melburnian 00:51, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! --EncycloPetey 00:42, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Vitis vinifera and other vines

I know Vitis vinifera is only a High for you guys (despite being one of the most economically important of all Plants?), but the Wine Project are trying to do something about our 6 remaining Tops left at Start, of which Vv is one. The main weakness of that article is on the botany, which leaves us drinkers at a bit of a disadvantage. ;-/ I don't suppose one (or more) of you guys fancy doing enough to the botany to get it up to a B?

Whilst I'm here, the articles on the American vines are also pretty stubby, if anyone fancies a go :

TIA - I'll try and make some contributions to some plants articles in return. FlagSteward 20:59, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'll take a look to see if I can do something for Vitis vinifera, but I may not have much to offer with the resources I have at hand. Understand that where our rating is concerned, an article on a single species is not of critical importance to understanding the whole of plant biology...except possibly Arabidopsis thaliana, which is a laboratory model organism. The most vitally important economic plant species would rate "High" at best. A rating of "Top" is for more generally applicable articles underpinning the whole field of Botany, such as photosynthesis, cell wall, and flowering plant. --EncycloPetey 21:11, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some information and snippet facts from V. H. Heywood. 1993. Flowering Plants of the World pages 188-189 (Oxford University Press) ISBN 0-19-521037-9.
  • Vitis vinifera originates from the Orient and northwest India, which means it is not originally native to Europe. (contrary to what the article currently says)
  • "More than 25 million tonnes of wine are made annually"
  • Viticulture is a scientific study.
  • Dried fruits from this species include raisins, sultanas (seedless variety), and currants (Corinthian variety)
  • Because of the vulnerability of this species to attack from the insect Phylloxera, most European vines are now grafted onto rootstocks of American species, which are resistant.
None of this information is in the current article. Further research in Mabberly adds that Phylloxera is the root louse, and was a major pest in 1867, after which time American species of Vitis, especially V. labrusca, were crossed with French species to produce new resistant strains.
You might look at the article on Grape critically; much of the information there supposedly pertains to the genus Vitis, but actually applies only to the species Vitis vinifera. --EncycloPetey 21:21, 26 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yep - Grape was a bit of a shocker, wasn't it? I've done a very crude shuffle of a load of Grape stuff into Vitis (genus) to try and push them in different directions but you're right, really those two plus Vitis vinifera (and arguably the other species articles) need to be worked on as a whole. Don't forget that wine (and hence grapes) is produced commercially from at least 5 different species, so a lot of the grape stuff you were objecting to is more a Vitis thing than a Vv thing. My feeling is to shove a lot of the 'uses' stuff like a summary of raisins into Grape rather than Vv and use Vv to emphasise the plant more - we've got quite good articles on things like the History of wine already, there's the potential for a lot of overlap apart from the botany.
While on the subject of Vitis (genus) - we need an admin to move it to Vitis. I've done a taxobox for it modelled on one of the other genera in the family, and then shoved the species list from grape into it. Looking at that list more closely I see that it includes some of the hybrids like labruscana which have linked articles but probably belong in the body of the article rather than the taxobox? And presumably there are more species to list, if someone wants to add them, although I notice that some taxoboxes don't list all the species in a genus. Would someone mind adjusting it to the house style? FlagSteward 20:57, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll do the move tomorrow if no-one else beats me to it. The currect disambig page at Vitis only has a fairly insignificant Austrian town as the competitor for the name so I'll kick it across to Vitis (disambiguation) - MPF 01:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ta. I'm not sure of the etiquette, but can't you just nuke the disambig and rely on the For.... tags that are now at the top of both articles? FlagSteward 05:23, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done. I think I've got everything sorted, say here if I've missed anything - MPF 11:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I had tried to make the same move previously--see Talk:Vitis (genus)--but was blocked apparently due to "Vitis" previously being an article about the Austrian town (which I had moved to Vitis (town)) and don't have admin privileges. Could you please also move the talk page associated with the article Vitis (genus), which got left behind in the move? MrDarwin 13:29, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done --Melburnian 13:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Monophyly and paraphyly in Sapindaceae

I'm reading Gurcharan Singh's Plant Systematics: An Integrated Approach (2004), and there's one bit stumps me on page 440 because it sounds pretty contradictory:

Sapindaceae is often narrowly circumscribed to exclude Hippocastanaceae and Aceraceae, but their separation leads to paraphyletic Sapindaceae.

This contradicts what is currently said in all three articles, which imply that Hippocastanaceae and Aceraceae can be kept separate without removing monophyly. Right after, this puzzling addition:

Xanthoceras [...] is sister to [the] rest of Sapindaceae, and the genera included in Hippocastanaceae and Aceraceae are monophyletic sister taxa.

So, if I read this correctly, Xanthoceras is sister taxon to the combined "rest of Sapindaceae," Hippocastanaceae and Aceraceae, right?

The first bit is sourced to Judd et al (1994), "Angiosperm Family pairs: Preliminary Cladistic Analyses." Harvard Pap. Bot. 5. The other is from Savolainen et al (2000), "Phylogenetics of flowering plants based on combined analysis of plastid atpB and rbcL sequences." Syst. Bot. Both are APGII papers, I think. I can't look up any of them or the Hutchinson paper for the time being. (I still need to learn my new college's online access system, if any.) Circeus 20:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well....it depends on the level the comparison is made if all the info above is right then Sapindaceae is sister if it encompasses Hippocastanaceae and Aceraceae, But I am always happy to throw Cladists out the door so they land on their ears. Hardyplants 21:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, it might just be that the conclusions of these two sources (Singh and Hutchinson) are contradictory, but I'd like to know which way to swing these articles. Circeus 21:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've mostly reorganized Sapindaceae. A review would be appreciated. Circeus 22:57, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Re "This contradicts what is currently said in all three articles, which imply that Hippocastanaceae and Aceraceae can be kept separate without removing monophyly" - if I remember rightly, it used not to say this, but a certain editor (now banned) changed it to say that - MPF 01:11, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yep [1], [2] - MPF 01:14, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The most recent source I have on had that deals with this issue is Zomlefer's Guide to Flowering Plant Families. The "preliminary" study referenced there (Judd, Sanders, Donoghue, 1994) based on molecular evidence puts the Aceraceae as deeply nested within the Sapindaceae, so that merger looks like a good one. The Hippocastanaceae situation isn't as clear from the information I have. --EncycloPetey 02:35, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with merger these. Eichler, Endlicher, Bessey, Hallier (only Aceraceae), J. Hutchinson (only Aceraceae), Melchior, Wettstein, Engler (F. Pax), Goldberg, Cronquist (1988), Takhtajan (1997), Dahlgren, Reveal, Watson, L. & Dallwitz, M. J. (Delta Website), recognized this families as separated, and the main researcher in this area, Radlkofer in his monographic work Das Pflanzenreich kept them separated as well. After P. F. Stevens (APG Website): "There is no reason other than convention or convenience why any group should not be segregated into several smaller monophyletic groups, or merged to produce a larger unit; we can talk about one large thing, or about several smaller things." Heywood et al. 2007 say: "The only question over the delimitation of the family [Sapindaceae] is wether the Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae should be included or not." Berton 12:54, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I also oppose any merger of these articles, although possibly for very different reasons--Aceraceae and Hippocastaneaceae are historical entities, even if there is eventually a consensus that they are should be absorbed by Sapindaceae. It's not Wikipedia's place to enforce or recommend one circumscription over the other, only to report on the various circumscriptions and the reasons behind them (and tradition has not served us well in plant classification). The Aceraceae and Hippocastaneaceae articles should certainly address the paraphyly of Sapindaceae with respect to these families, and the inclusion of these families in a more broadly defined Sapindaceae in some newer classifications, and likewise the Sapindaceae article should explicitly address the s.s. and s.l. circumscriptions and the reasons for them. MrDarwin 13:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The historical tendency of Taxonomy is to split taxa in units more and more smaller, when advancing the knowledge about them. APG based on "cladogenetic analysis" and in holophyletic concept changed this, lumping all, of anti-taxonomic way. Berton 14:30, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If there is any historical tendency in plant classification, it's one of several alternating periods of splitting and lumping. We seem to be entering a splitting period, and I have no problem with that as I tend to be a splitter myself. But while the APG system engaged in some lumping, it has supported the splitting of numerous well-known "traditional" families such as Liliaceae, Amaryllidaceae, and Scrophulariaceae (even as it supported the monophyly of numerous smaller, better-defined families). I suspect that in the long run the APG system is going to hold up better than many because it is explicitly based on phylogenetic relationships, rather than simplistic morphological definitions of families. The problem is that we are in the middle of a major upheaval in plant classification, and it's hard to predict what consensus will emerge after the dust has settled--probably not for another 5-10 years. In the meantime it's going to be extremely difficult to write family-level articles for Wikipedia, and problems with defining and circumscribing families are going to continue to arise. As I've said before, the research and opinions of the specialists in the various plant groups (rather than the formulators of overarching classification systems) should be given the greatest weight in writing about any particular group. MrDarwin 15:08, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
But I think that in the long run who will prevail is that one to present the most practical system, in other words, in last analysis, with morphological synapomorphies.Berton 15:27, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is a somewhat similar problem when writing an article on the Bryophyta. The group is broadly defined as including mosses, liverworts, and hornworts, or narrowly defined to include only the mosses. In this case, because there are two clear and distinct meanings, the decision was made to have the articles at Bryophyte and Moss. I made Bryophyta into a disambiguation page, and given that there is a strong trend towards three divisions of bryophytes rather than one, I included that information on the Bryophyta page. With a family like Liliaceae, the situation is far more complex, but any good article will include a section to explain and document the various views about circumscription of that group. Likewise for Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae. However, that does not mean that the information must reside on a separate page. If there is strong reason to believe that Aceraceae is a deeply-nested, morphologically-distinct group within the Sapindaceae, it could be treated on the Hippocastanaceae page with a section of its own to discuss the issue. In other words, splitting and lumping are issues of Wikipedia article writing as much as they are of taxonomy. --EncycloPetey 15:34, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
From Wikipedia Neutral point of view: "Wikipedia has a neutral point of view, which means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view". "The taxonomy of many groups is in a state of flux, and it is not always possible to find a single satisfactory classification, and we would be doing a great disservice by pretending otherwise." Aceraceae is fully distinct from Hippocastanaceae and Sapindaceae, thus, it should treated in its own article.Berton 15:45, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
...and that is your point of view. The very nature of article placement subtlely advocates a certain POV, which is my point. --EncycloPetey 15:56, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"As the name suggests, the neutral point of view is a point of view, not the absence or elimination of viewpoints." Berton 16:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Please reread your comment "Aceraceae is fully distinct from Hippocastanaceae and Sapindaceae, thus, it should treated in its own article." This is not NPOV, it is the advocation of one POV over another. The NPOV "means we strive for articles that advocate no single point of view", so the very choice of having a separate taxon article cannot be NPOV ...ever. That is my point. --EncycloPetey 00:33, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
EncycloPetey, I was never against the APG's PoV and any other, I think very important that Wikipedia registers which APG considers correct, because it, is in fact, very important. What I am totally against is that Wikipedia would be transformed into an APG's mirror site, only with its points of view and without considering the other classifications, for this reason I think that each family should have its own article, with the several classifications discussed in each one of them. Note: Harrington et al. also are from APG. Berton 01:01, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think you're reading more into what I'm saying than I'm actually saying. Please read what I wrote above and don't assume anything I didn't explicitly say. --EncycloPetey 01:13, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just coming on this as an outside who knows nothing about the specific case, it strikes me that EP is looking at it the wrong way when he says the very choice of having a separate taxon article cannot be NPOV ...ever. I'd say that if there is reasonable doubt about whether Taxon B is a subgroup of Taxon A or separate, then it is less NPOV to include Taxon B in the Taxon A article than it is to have separate articles about A and B with big disclaimers saying that "B might just be a subgroup". Both express a POV, but keeping them separate for the time being seems like a relatively more NPOV than lumping them together IMO. After all, if people think that it could be a different taxon, B must be reasonably distinct from A and thus possibly merit an article in its own right. Set against that is the convenience of talking about very similar organisms in the same article when you've got so many species stubs to kill ;-/ Of course when there's doubt about whether there's 1 taxon or 2, you have to have a POV whether the current debate is best represented by 1.1 (almost certainly 1 taxon) or 1.9 (almost certainly 2 taxa). In the 'reasonable doubt' cases of 1.5, I'd regard two articles as more NPOV. FlagSteward 14:00, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Zomlefer's book, while excellent, is a bit old for this situation, and even she acknowledges some omissions due to lack of information so early on. KP Botany 03:46, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

So... has anybody actually looked at the references already cited in article, particularly the Harrington et al. reference, to see what they actually say? From the title it sounds like it directly addresses the issues at hand. When in doubt, go to the original sources... MrDarwin 13:51, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
According to Harrington et al. 2005:"Given the possibility of long branch attraction being a confounding force in this placement, the opposite conclusion—that Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae are distinct, monophyletic families easily distinguished from nearly all Sapindaceae – cannot be ruled out on this basis alone. Nevertheless, support for the basal relationships between the constituent main clades in our analyses are much weaker than the overall support for Sapindaceae s.l. ..." Berton 14:04, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Berton left out a couple of key sentences; the full quote provides better context: "The analyses presented here reinforce the close relationship between Aceraceae, Hippocastaneaceae, and Sapindaceae s.s. implicit in the broader taxonomic concept of Sapindaceae s.l. adopted by recent workers. It also provides limited evidence for the inclusion of both within Sapindaceae s.l., but this conclusion relies on the placement of a single taxon (Xanthoceras) among the 112 sampled. Given the possibility of long branch attraction being a confounding force in this placement, the opposite conclusion—that Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae are distinct, monophyletic families easily distinguished from nearly all Sapindaceae – cannot be ruled out on this basis alone. Nevertheless, support for the basal relationships between the constituent main clades in our analyses are much weaker than the overall support for Sapindaceae s.l. ..." At any rate, the authors favor the inclusion of Aceraceae and Hippocastaneaceae in Sapindaceae. Here is the abstract of the paper:
Phylogenetic relationships within Sapindaceae sensu lato are assessed using sequence data from two plastid genes, analyzed separately and together. A total of 46 rbcL sequences (31 of which are new), and 89 matK sequences (75 new) representing 64 genera were subjected to parsimony and Bayesian analysis. The results support three major lineages, relationships between which are only weakly supported. Xanthoceras sorbifolium is not clearly a member of any of these lineages, and there is some support for it being the first lineage to diverge within the entire assemblage. Support for a broadly defined Sapindaceae incorporating Aceraceae, Hippocastanaceae, and Xanthoceras is very robust. A division into four subfamilies is proposed: Sapindoideae (including Koelreuteria and Ungnadia); Hippocastanoideae (including taxa previously referred to Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae, plus Handeliodendron); a more narrowly defined Dodonaeoideae; and a monotypic Xanthoceroideae. Tribal groupings are critically evaluated in light of the analyses. Although many of the current tribes appear paraphyletic or polyphyletic, there is support for the monophyly of some core groups of genera that suggest realignments of tribal concepts that would render them more informative of relationships. MrDarwin 14:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Bootstrap values for these groups (Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae) after Harrington et al. are > 98%, then strong support for "monophyly", the question is about leaving Sapindaceae s. l. paraphyletic, this is not a taxonomic (evolutionary) question, but cladogenetic one. Berton 14:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Fork in plant sexuality

Would someone familiar with this area look at Monoicous and see whether anything there is worth merging into Plant sexuality? There seems to be a lot of redirect cleanup needed in this area. Dioecious → Monoicous, but Monoecious → Plant sexuality... Circeus 21:50, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Should these term be more fully described in plant sexuality and redirected to that page? it seems that some of them are used outside of plant science too. Expanding the defs of mon, di and tri-oicous would not be hard to do in plant sexuality if that is were the definitions should be that other pages link too. Right now plant sexuality just lists basic definitions for those terms, assuming that the other pages would over time expand. Hardyplants 23:06, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Keep in mind that there are many, many more terms besides. (See for example List of plant morphology terms#Bryophyte gametangium terms). Also keep in mind that monoicous is not the same as monoecious, and the distinction between the two generally doesn't occur in other groups of organisms besides plants. All sexual animals are diploid, so they are never monoicous or dioicous. Someone at one point did try to organize all the plant sexuality pages, but he received little support, so the project fell apart. Personally, I think the information could and should all be covered at Plant sexuality, with appropriately condensed versions in key locations (such as the pages for Bryophyte, Fern, and Seed plant). I'm of the opinion that to make such an attempt work, we need an outline of major topics to be covered laid out in advance. Otherwise, it will be a tangled mish-mash not much better than the current situation. --EncycloPetey 23:30, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with plant sexuality right now is that in covers mostly seed plants and ignores none seed plants, I agree that an outline would be very helpful and there is plenty of ground that needs to yet be covered in plant sexuality- I have been adding to the page in small amounts here and there, mostly since I am clueless as to the how the page will finely be organized. Hardyplants 23:57, 27 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The article itself says "monoecious or monoicous", so my confusion is an honest one. Circeus 00:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Which article? I don't find the term monoicous doing a search of the Plant sexuality article. --EncycloPetey 00:41, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Monoicous. Circeus 01:25, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I see what you mean. The article tries to show the similarity between the concepts before explaining the differences. --EncycloPetey 02:28, 28 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Stub expansion for Passiflora tarminina

I thought I'd have a go at expanding some of the stub articles since a few of them are species I'm familiar with. I've had a first go at Passiflora tarminiana (that's the "banana poka" of Hawai'i). It is probably a pretty low importance species but it is one I know and have access to most of the references so it seemed as good a place as any to start.


The expanded article is sitting in my sandbox at the moment. I'd welcome any feedback or edits to improve it. Specifically, I'm really not sure about the way I've done the references. I'm used to writing things where everything is referenced like this but it may not be appropriate here. It looks a bit messy anyway.


My worldwide distribution is a bit incomplete and I'm still working on sources for that. I'm trying to avoid adding anything where I haven't seen a reasonable original source for the presence of this species. Unfortunately, the literature is a bit of a mess for this particular species because of the previous taxonomic confusion. In many cases, references to P. mollissima actually refer to P. tarminiana, but sometimes they don't. So I'm not assuming that a reference to P. mollissima is P. tarminiana unless I see a picture associated with the name.


The original stub translates the Hawai'ian name as "offal banana" but I haven't been able to confirm this and have found sources contradicting it.


Link to the article in my sandbox: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Solanum_dulcamara/Sandbox#Description

Solanum dulcamara 11:15, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Good work! I think you're well and truly ready to incorporate your sandbox text into the main article space. It's probably best that others don't edit in your sandbox as the GFDL could be compromised by subsequent cutting and pasting of the work of multiple editors into the main article space. Also discussion of the article can then be centralised on the article talk page. --Melburnian 12:32, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Looks very nice. Your level of referencing is good. I know it may look messy, but future editors who contribute to the article will find it helpful (and wikipedia doesn't yet have a mechanism to show/hide references or the like). My only comment is a small one: link to cultigen. I'd say move it to the main article as soon as you want. Kingdon 14:16, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks, I've put the article on to the main page for Passiflora tarminiana so anyone with feedback or who wants to edit it can do so there. Solanum dulcamara 00:22, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bot archiving of this page

Knowing how you guys like your bots ;-/ I was wondering if there was any merit in getting this page automatically archived by Miszabot? It's one less thing to worry about doing manually, and it's easy to set up, see User:MiszaBot/Archive_HowTo. FWIW our settings on the Wine Project page are : |maxarchivesize = 130K |counter = 5 |algo = old(9d) |archive = Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wine/Archive %(counter)d They are probably a bit aggressive - 15 or 22 days would probably be better, and the way you guys ramble on you probably need bigger archive pages ;-/ (or do date-based archiving). FlagSteward 12:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've thought about bringing that to this page, but the bot couldn't determine which conversations are still on-going. We can also have some dryer periods in discussion here, thus standard archiving would be quite messy. The archiving as it's currently set up also requires a short list of some of the more important discussions in that archive, so it'd require human attention anyway. --Rkitko (talk) 13:42, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It's reasonable intelligent, as long as people timestamp their posts and use headings - it would leave the #Top_priority_stubs thread for instance as that's had recent activity, whilst leaving the Template thread that was started afterwards but hasn't been added to since. The one thing it doesn't do is detect activity that isn't timestamped (for instance crossing off killed stubs in that thread), but people here are fairly good about that. I just figured that even semi-automatic has to be better than completely manual ;-/ and (slightly) more frequent archiving might make the 'active' threads more apparent to everyone - me and EP are probably the only ones watching that Stubs thread for instance, as it's buried deep in the 200kb of this page. ;-/ As for the 'messy' charge, you can archive by size of archive rather than just date. FlagSteward 15:24, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
There is also a "Sinebot" [sic] that I've seen active, which auto-signs for people who forget to sign their posts. If it's a diligent bot, then all the posts should get a time-stamp. It might be worthwhile to have the High/Top Stub lists on a regular project page. If we did that then archiving that discussion wouldn't present a problem. --EncycloPetey 21:52, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I'd not thought about adding Sinebot to Mizlabot, nice combo. But in practice it doesn't seem to be a problem (in 6 months I don't think we've ever had a thread where the last post wasn't signed), and it allows you to do minor edits like just scratching out a stub. Another idea for tarting this joint up a bit - should I add the stats table to the front page, like most Projects do? Or would that get too depressing? :-)) There's some code to transclude it, but the originals are at Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Plant_articles_by_quality_statistics - you can look at the history to see how many stubs Polbot has added in the last few weeks - it was about 8000 in the week to 26th August ;-/ FlagSteward 12:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I didn't know the bot could do that. Thanks for the info. I suppose the page is a bit long, but I don't mind manually archiving it, since it does require a description in our archive navigation box. I usually waiting until near the end of a month to archive the previous month's discussions, but I suppose I could archive along the way (there are already August threads that could be cut into an archive). Instead of telling the bot how many days to place in one archive, can you tell it to archive by month? I prefer this as it makes the archive description in the navigation box above easier than dates such as 2007-08-02 - 2007-09-04. --Rkitko (talk) 22:59, 29 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think you've quite understood how it works - the 'days' thing only applies to the decision to send to the archives, it archives any thread where the last edit was >x days ago. The way the archives are organised is a separate decision, you can have either by month or by size. So you might have "if the current archive is >200kb, set up a new one and dump in there all new threads I get sent by the thread-grabber" or whatever, and it might get labelled "March-May 2007". I guess the one thing that might be a minor problem is the way the archive list is presented, I'm not sure how much flexibility there is on that - I suppose you could have Mizla surrender the list on this page to your manual control.FlagSteward 12:30, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yet more plant stub types

Several plant stub types are oversized again (extremely so, for the main plant-stub); usual reason. I've proposed a number of new taxon-based types to deal with this; some of these may need scrutiny from someone who knows what they're talking about, due to large numbers of stubs using taxonomies including orders and families that appear to be deprecated, according to the WP article on same; usual reason. Proposals are here and in the following three sections. Alai 01:14, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hormones

A few years ago I has a series of essays deleted which were theories on hormonal action based on this site from this user. He seems to be actively editing plant hormone articles again adding material based on his synthesis of scientific literature; these articles are in pretty bad shape regardless so it would be nice if some interested editors could help make these article more reliable. The Arabidopsis book is a pretty good place to find current information on the known biological function of all the major plant hormones. Thanks --Peta 03:01, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He is partially cleaning up some of the messes he made previously. But totally agreed that this area could use attention and better sourcing. Kingdon 17:19, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nectar disk

Any opinion as to whether Nectar disk should be an independent stub or something under nectar or flower? The concept is anatomically important, but not mentioned yet anywhere in Wikipedia. Circeus 20:27, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My first reaction is that nectar is the right place (Floral Nectaries and Extrafloral Nectaries are already there), and that it is easier to split it out later, if desired, than to manage articles-in-progress when related topics are spread across many articles. I guess the main advantage to having a separate article for every concept is that it make it easier to link to Nectar disk (as opposed to Nectar disk or Nectar disk or some such). But that has the tendency to skate close to WP:DICT and make it hard for readers to see related concepts in context with each other. I don't know, I'm not thinking of any really strong arguments one way or the other. Kingdon 22:03, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You can just redirect Nectar disk to nectar. I would do it myself, but there's nothign about it at nectar (which is a poor article, too. I just assessed it as High Stub). Circeus 22:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sisyrinchium montanum

Can someone look over this article? Could be problems. I dont have time right now. KP Botany 23:38, 30 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I attempted to rewrite it in a more accessible fashion, but the FNA account and what was there were so jargonic that they could have been written in Ancient Greek, so my writeup can probably apply to just about any species of the genus. Circeus 00:25, 31 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've done a bit more, with info sourced from Atlas of the Plants of British Columbia (a very good website, if anyone is ever seeking info, provided the species occurs in BC). I have also (please note!!) taken out the naturenorth.com ref/link; while the info in it is good enough, it is a commercial ext link supported by ads, and a particularly obnoxious one as its ads auto-reload every few seconds: to get out of it I had to click the 'back' button over 40 times. Nasty. I'd strongly recommend that this website be added to the list of banned ext links for this reason. - MPF 20:46, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Plant images

I have recently created Category:Plant images and placed Category:Images of flowers under it and started populating these categories with apropriate images I have found on wikipedia. Plant images will need further subcategories but I haven't figured out what ones would be appropriate. I would like help in my effort to categorize plant images most have no category and if they were placed in an appropriate category they would be easier to find for people working on plant related articles. Irate velociraptor 06:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's already been done through commons:Category:Plants and commons:Category:Plantae, there's no need to duplicate the (huge) effort --Melburnian 09:40, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the images on Wikipedia that can't be uploaded to commons might need categorization, too. I had thought it might be inappropriate to create image-only categories on Wikipedia, but per Help:Image page#Categorizing images, I guess it isn't. So go for it. I think it's useful for the PD-US and fair use images that can't be uploaded to Commons and categorized there. (I have about 35 images from a 1908 monograph which is PD in the US but not in Germany so I can't put them on Commons. I had wondered about categorizing them, so now I'll probably create an image subcat.) --Rkitko (talk) 11:13, 1 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Plant

I've made some structural changes to the Plant article, and think they help to group the page's content into broad themes. Please take a look at these changes and make suggestions, additions, etc. Four major omissions I noticed as a result of doing this: (1) The article only mentions photosynthesis in the introductory paragraph and does not mention the ecological roles of plants as primary producers, oxygen factories, or structural compoenents of biomes, (2) No mention is made of plant cells, cell walls, or plastids, (3) No mention is made of basic plant structural organization: stem, root, leaf, (4) Only a brief mention is made of the alternation of generations or plant reproduction. --EncycloPetey 04:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would order it life processes, or life history, then ecology, then importance. Yes, I would add these sections, first of all, one on the basic plant structural organization, but not stem, root, leaf, because this is discussing all green land plants, not just vascular plants. Yes, it needs a better section on the life cycle. KP Botany 04:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
While vascular botanists gripe that bryophytes don't have "real" stems, roots or leaves, mosses and liverworts have the same basic organization, probably as a result of the same genes. In any case, the leaves of four major lines of vascular plants (lycopod, horsetail, fern, seed plant) evolved independently anyway (and probably twice in the ferns), so "leaf" does not refer to single homologous organ anyway. Bryologists call the structures of a moss "stem" and "leaf". --EncycloPetey 04:40, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've used the {{clade}} template to add a phylogeny of the green plants to the article. --EncycloPetey 16:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

...and have added a diversity table with citations for the number of species in each division. --EncycloPetey 18:54, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

botany literature categorisation

Hi, over on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Academic Journals#CfD nomination there is a proposal to rename some botany related cats. Could we have opinions from this wikiproject please ..., John Vandenberg 12:31, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Botanical author template

May I suggest that the template wording:

The standard author abbreviation Somebody is used to indicate this individual as the author when citing a botanical name.

be changed to something less stilted e.g. The standard abbreviation Somebody is used for this botanical author. and perhaps not be bounded by two lines. Whether the template is justified at all is another moot point, my feeling being that the abbreviation could readily be included in the body of the text. It's not an excessively important bit of information, though the present treatment seems to make it appear so. Raasgat 19:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The template allows for immediate categorization, linking, and standardization, which is highly desirable when dealing with a large number of pages that must contain the same information. Your suggested rewording also has some problems. The author is not botanical, and the abbreviation is only used when it appears following a scientific name, never in other circumstances. --EncycloPetey 20:01, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Having been a botanist for the last 68 years, I'm aware of the appropriate places to use an author abbreviation. Perhaps I failed to lucidly explain my reservations. Being a botanist does indeed make an author 'botanical' in the same sense that one has 'botanical painters' or 'botanical people'. However, the main problem is the appearance and positioning of the template, which I feel can do with a lot of improvement to make it blend in, and failing that, be put at the very bottom of the article where it would give least offence. Cheers, Raasgat 13:30, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am not following your argument completely, but would like to add that the author names are important, because a number of same names are used for different taxons and often the only way to know which group of plants are being referred to, is by the author name given. I have run into this problem a few times on Wikipedia. Hardyplants 20:08, 3 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Striped French marigold

Bunch of problems with this article (for one thing, it's native to Mexico, not Europe)... no time this morning, but the articles on that genus as a whole are a bit thin if not counterfactual (don't have time to do more than leave a note this morning). All sorts of strange redirects too, so probably needs someone with admin tools to properly clean it up. --SB_Johnny | PA! 11:09, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the information in that article came from Petula oil (old version here), which was later merged & redirected to "striped french marigold". Have no idea how reliable the information is, and most of it has been stripped out in the latest version. MrDarwin 13:25, 4 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
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