Talk:Papaver somniferum

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: page moved: 4:2 majority after 16 days, last discussion was 7 days ago. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 16:05, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

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Opium poppy → Papaver somniferum – Papaver somniferum should be the title (name) of this article with "Opium Poppy" used as a redirect, not the other way around.

Why is it that almost every plant is listed by it's binomial name and this one gets special treatment? Cannabis sativa doesn't have it's title set to "Marijuana Cannabis" or "THC Cannabis".

Adding vernacular names as titles (especially ones that have drug references in them), seems to encourage vandalism and useless edits. Opium has it's own page. Poppy seed has it's own page. Poppyseed oil has it's own page. Every Papaver species has it's name listed by binomial nomenclature, except poor old P. somniferum. Can we leave Opium out of the title & be a bit more scientifically accurate/botanist minded about the article?

In addition, P. somniferum is grown more for pharmaceuticals, culinary purposes and ornamental purposes in most countries. The cultivation of P. somniferum for opium is somewhat minimal in present-day. As stated in the formal move request, small amounts of opiates have been found in other Papaver species, "Opium Poppy" could refer to these species as well, making the current article title inaccurate and over-encompassing, though the article itself is specific to P. somniferum . "Morphine poppy" would be more appropriate, as Papaver somniferum's notoriety for it's high morphine content is it's only distinguishing characteristic from non-somniferum Papaver species containing opiates. Thus, making the article seem either slightly obsolete, or encouraging education of the raw-form drug's existence beyond the precedents set by other, similar Wikipedia articles about plants that contain psychoactive alkaloids and compounds. (e.g. Lactuca virosa's title isn't "Opium Lettuce"...) relisted --Mike Cline (talk) 17:05, 21 May 2012 (UTC) FrostyCee (talk) 08:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Support per WP:TITLE "the ideal article title will resemble titles for similar articles". 89.100.207.51 (talk) 16:49, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

Support per Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(flora)#Scientific_versus_common_names Naming conventions on flora: "For example, it is acceptable to have separate articles on a grape (an edible fruit) and Vitis vinifera (the plant species that most commonly yields grapes). When a decision is made to treat them separately, the taxon article should use the scientific name." Opium has a separate page, so the decsion to treat them separate has already been done. 216.69.46.40 (talk) 16:20, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose, per Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(flora)#Scientific_versus_common_names: "Scientific names are to be used as article titles in all cases except when a plant has an agricultural, horticultural, economic or cultural use that makes it more prominent in some other field than in botany; e.g. Rose, Coffee, Rice. These exceptions are determined on a case-by-case basis through discussion towards consensus." I submit that this plant has major political, agricultural, and economic presences, and therefore should reside at the common name. ENeville (talk) 22:13, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support, per the paragraph directly after what (ENeville) quoted at Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(flora)#Scientific_versus_common_names: "Note that it is often possible to distinguish between plant taxon and plant product, and in those cases it is not necessary to treat both in a single article." I submit that this plant's major uses are already represented in the Opium and Morphine articles and therefore Opium Poppy should indeed be changed to Papaver somniferum. "Opium poppy" should redirect to the same article. 74.128.192.155 (talk) 22:53, 17 May 2012 (UTC)
  • I don't think that in this case the separation of the topic of the product splits off all the social significance of the plant. The plant is grown ornamentally, for example. Also, the article has a section on the presence of the topic in popular culture, as a plant growing naturally and from seed, not just as a product. Furthermore, there is a significant section on the legality of growing the plant, separate from possessing the product. These argue for the social significance of the plant itself, separately from the product. You can plant Papaver somniferum, but wind up with a whole bunch of consequences imposed on you because it's an opium poppy to the neighbors, the courts, the local warlords, and so on. ENeville (talk) 19:35, 18 May 2012 (UTC)
    • If that is your position, then I would reason that this article needs to be split into two articles. One based on the cultural significance, and one specifically for the taxon. Per #2 @ Plant article naming conventions. "(A) separate page(s) with the botanical description(s) of the taxa involved, using the scientific name, is preferred."FrostyCee (talk) 20:45, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
• Oppose per ENeville. The opium poppy -- the plant, not the product -- has far more global significance than as just another taxon.

Powers ^T 02:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support Comparing the common name's signifigance to "just another taxon" is irrelevant, as the Wikipedia standard says we should only compare to uses "in some other field than in botany". This plant mainly has notable uses outside botany that can be covered in the Opium article. Excluding all info that can-be/has-been separated out into the Opium article, what's left if is predominately botany, including ornamental growing. It's already been split per the WP standard and so this article must be at its scientific name. --Tom Hulse (talk) 09:13, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

File:Papaver flower.jpg to appear as POTD soon

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Papaver flower.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on June 10, 2012. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2012-06-10. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page so Wikipedia doesn't look bad. :) Thanks! —howcheng {chat} 21:52, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

Picture of the day

The flower of an opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) in three stages of development. From left to right, the bud, the flower, and finally the seed capsule. The plant is used to derive opium and poppy seeds. The Latin botanical name means the "sleep-bringing poppy", referring to the sedative properties of some of the opiates—narcotics derived from opium.Photo: Joaquim Alves Gaspar

Growing conditions

I'm not seeing anything about its ordinary growing conditions. My guess is semi-arid, but I haven't found any source that says one way or another. Dismalscholar (talk) 08:05, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Growth habit

There is no mention in this article as to whether this plant is annual, perennial or biennial (it is annual, apparently). Perhaps too much effort has been spent trying to maintain neutrality concerning the narcotic alkaloids present than on actually describing the species. Shouldn't a description of the plant the primary focus of the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.131.101.107 (talk) 04:30, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

External links modified

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• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090729120251/http://www.regional.org.au:80/au/asa/2001/news.htm to http://www.regional.org.au/au/asa/2001/news.htm#P54_6133

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Laudanum

The article needs a link to Laudanum somewhere.

Apparently bogus source removed

The claim that most available cultivars are high in opium seems very questionable. Worse yet, the source that was cited seems very dubious. The link is dead and was archived twice in 2015 by the Internet Archive. See for yourself how dubious this information appears to be based on the low quality of the source. The source's information, which is presented as assorted vague supposition, is also very old (2006).

https://web.archive.org/web/20150402164716/http://www.opiumpoppies.org/faq/introduction/how-potent-are-the-major-culinary-spicerack-varieties-such-as-mccormick/

Yes, that's a bad source. The sentence on relative morphine content is questionable, having no source. --Zefr (talk) 17:38, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

Destructive reverts, edit warring by Zefr

The Sujata type's lack of latex production was already present in the article. It is not necessary to post additional citations to establish that it does not produce latex. Grammatical improvements, such as the fact that poppyseed is a single word not "poppy seed", poppies plural is poppies not poppy, and "the" needs to be used in English to refer to "the opium poppy" have nothing to do with Zefr's justification for reversion. Zefr needs to prove why inferior grammar must be present in this article. Pidgin-type references to this plant may be common in casual speech but they are not appropriate for an encyclopedic article. The statements about ornamental varieties being able to be cultivated without legal problems related to opium production are already present in the article. The cited concepts underlying the statements related to the problems of identification are also already clearly present elsewhere in the article. Zefr should read the article instead of blithely reverting such changes. One of the worst aspects of Wikipedia is the arbitrary nature of reversion-happy editors. One will put a great deal of effort into articles and find that that effort sticks and, if merely unlucky, find everything blithely reverted in others — or even in the same article. It all depends upon chance. That is not the basis for creating and maintaining a high-quality product. It's easier to destroy than to create and, unfortunately, many who "contribute" to Wikipedia get their jollies from power plays involving the destruction of quality content. It makes people less and less willing to invest their time and energy into the Wikipedia product.

Beginning here, you made several content changes, adding seemingly authoritative edit summaries, without once citing a source, a case of original research as defined by WP:OR: "original research" (OR) is used on Wikipedia to refer to material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published sources exist." I mentioned OR in my edit summary. You made an issue of changing "poppy seed" to "poppyseed", but poppy seed is the Wikipedia article; other grammatical changes were minor, in my opinion. The article has been further improved since by this edit. --Zefr (talk) 23:32, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

"other grammatical changes were minor, in my opinion". That doesn't justify their reversion. You made the effort to revert just for one grammar change before. Now, you're claiming the many changes I made to improve the grammar since then are so unimportant that it was okay for you to wipe them all out, without trying to justify it? How convenient. Poppyseed is just one of the changes to the grammar, too. Poppy is referred to erroneously in the singular multiple times, as in casual speech. The article "the" is missing multiple times as well. These are not minor issues. They make the article seem poorer in quality because they are not prestige English. Wikipedia is not supposed to be written in vernacular. As for sourcing, the sources of many of the changes are in this very article. Should you read it and comprehend it you would see that. The Sujata poppy's lack of latex is right there in the article, for instance. It makes no sense to claim that it's an "allegation" or "original research" to point out that it's not possible to produce drugs from that variety. It's not possible because the latex is the source of the alkaloids. Perhaps you might take some time to learn about this subject before trying to manage it.