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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Macropneuma (talk | contribs) at 02:41, 20 May 2015 (→‎Criteria for the upload project of Naturalis Biodiversity Center?: Yay! Blumea ±full issues full text online! Thanks Lavateraguy!). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Additional information about Hydnocarpus wightiana

Hi; Last spring, I was searching about Hydnocarpus wightiana and found some additional info about the plant (some alternative names, and uses against both a sort of beetle and a skin infection). I typed them on Talk:Hydnocarpus wightiana. As I don’t know much about botanic nor about the English Wikipedia standards, I didn’t add anything on the article though. Are these new pieces of content relevant and how would we add them on the article if so? Thanks! Nclm (talk) 18:19, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Should be "wrightianus," not "-a." Masculine generic name requires a masculine specific epithet. Otherwise, I do not see much problem.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 19:55, 18 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Unless this is one of the cases where "botanical tradition" differs from what would seem to make sense. It is often argued that trees with genus names ending with -us are to be treated as feminine (Quercus petraea, Fagus sylvatica, etc.). This seems like a silly rule to me, but it is certainly a widely held botanical tradition. The IUCN, for instance, uses feminine endings for all the Hydnocarpus species it includes, and there are plenty of other sources that do the same. I couldn't say whether -us or -a is the best suffix to use in our article; it could be either. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:25, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting. The relevant adjectival epithets for accepted names in the genus given in the Plant List here are all masculine -us, but many of the synonyms listed have -a. In terms of the ICN it seems to rest on whether "Hydnocarpus" can be regarded as a classical name for a tree. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:25, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, The Plant List has a mixture of -a and -us, but the small sample of accepted names only include -us. I'd have to check the code to be sure, but I think that compounds of -carpus are masculine. I'd have to check a classical Latin dictionary to be sure, but I think that the feminine nature of Populus, Fagus etc comes from classical Latin. Lavateraguy (talk) 08:51, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
It does seem that, whatever the code says, H. wightiana is much more frequently referred to as "wightiana" than "wightianus". It doesn't follow that the same would be true for all the other species ("odoratus" might be more common than "odorata", for instance). Might this be an instance where we overrule WP:NC in order to promote consistency between/within articles, and treat the genus as masculine in line with the more purely nomenclatural sources? We can't very well treat it as variably masculine and feminine in a list of species. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:11, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Re-reading the relevant part of the Code, -carpus genera are explicitly given as an example of genera that are masculine regardless of the author's original intention. In this case, Gaertner erected it as a feminine genus (containing "Hydnocarpus venenata"), but that choice of gender is to be overturned. I can see why there was confusion in the field, and it does appear that the ICN and WP:NC are in conflict. The correct name under the code is masculine, while the most frequent name in otherwise reliable sources is feminine. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:24, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
However, there are many other cases where the most frequently used name is wrong in apparently reliable sources. As an example, Rhodochiton atrosanguineum and Rhodochiton atrosanguineus are about equally common in Google ngrams for this century, horticultural sources mostly use the neuter, and the neuter was used both in WCSP and on the RHS website until I pointed out the error earlier this year and it was corrected (actually, Stemonitis, it was you who first reminded me that -ων is a masculine ending in Greek). When reliable sources are clearly wrong, frequency of use should not matter to us. Note also that WCSP (and hence TPL) only give accepted names in the masculine. So we should use the masculine. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:33, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The only WCSP (via TPL) accepted Hydnocarpus I see is wightianus (which does help with the original question). However, TPL's Hydnocarpus list is machine generated garbage and is not necessarily reliable. Any genus on TPL that is a mix of "unresolved" names sourced to WCSP and "accepted" names sourced to Tropicos hasn't been checked by humans, and this pattern (unresolved WCSP/accepted Tropicos) should be a big red flag for reliability.
TPL often defaults to "accepted" for Tropicos records as long as Tropicos doesn't have an explicit source for synonymy (obscure and poorly sourced names on Tropicos that are almost certainly synonyms may end up as "accepted" on TPL). In the case of Hydnocarpus, the accepted Tropicos names do seem to be legit. On Tropicos, they're sourced to Flora of China, and the TPL algorithm interprets FoC as a "good" source (the TPL algorithm has something stronger than "accept by default" in this case); of course, TPL also interprets Flora of North America as a "good" source, which led to a problem with Berberis and Mahonia listings when FNA and FoC disagreed. Plantdrew (talk) 17:32, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I guess that youall want to move the article (redirect from orthographic variant?) Lavateraguy (talk) 18:10, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I had forgotten about the "female tree" rule when I made my previous remarks. I think Linnaeus had been overindulging in good Swedish Yultide wassail when he came up with that one. Two points: 1) The so-called "authoritative sources" such as TPL and WCSPF and Tropicos are riddled with thousands of errors on this sort of thing. The computers have not read the ICN and they understand the various computer languages but generally not Latin. 2) We refer to these as "scientific names," which implies that we are using the names that scientists would use. Every botanist on the planet recognizes the ICN as the arbiter on what the rules are concerning the spelling and acceptance of these names. Spelling "Hydnocarpus" as "Hidnokarrpuss" would be equivalent to saying that 2 + 2 = 37. It is wrong regardless of how many publications have used the misspelling. Now we here on Wikipedia can record variations of spelling and mistakes that have found their way into print, we should not to be afraid to point out which of the options is regarded by scientists as correct and which ones are considered errors.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 19:36, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I looked up a few tree genus names in -us in Lewis and Short and they are feminine, so it seems that it's not Linnaeus in particular that is to blame. How this is to be reconciled with the widespread statement that 2nd declension nouns are masculine (-us) or neuter (-um) so far escapes me, but the Greek second declension has masculine (-os), feminine (-os) and neuter (-on) nouns. (The Wikipedia article on Latin declension says "The second declension is a large group of nouns consisting of mostly masculine nouns like equus, equī ("horse") and puer, puerī ("boy") and neuter nouns like castellum, castellī ("fort"). There are several small groups of feminine exceptions, including names of gemstones, plants, trees, and some towns and cities.") Lavateraguy (talk) 22:59, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The feminine tree rule is a modern invention, unknown to the ancients. Pliny the Elder would have said "Quercus albus" instead of "Quercus alba." Botanical Latin is not Classical Latin, but Latin altered to fit more recent concepts, in this case 18th Centuries concepts of gender. Whether or not Linnaeus invented the idea I'm not sure, but he adopted it and others followed his lead.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 23:48, 19 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The existence of Classical, Medieval and Botanical Latin confuses things (Vulgar Latin abandoned most of the case endings, so it's not relevant), as works on Latin Grammar tend to not be specific as to which version they apply to. However I find a Grammar of Classical Latin which states that trees in -us are feminine. Can you offer a reliable source to the contrary? Lavateraguy (talk) 00:15, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm responding to a request for comment from a Latinist's perspective. I'm not really a linguistic expert; my specialty is names and things relating to them. But that's pretty much what this is about, and it helps that I actually know a lot of tree names, and was able to look them up in one of my Latin dictionaries (I'm using Cassell's right now). But I also have a little perspective from a purely linguistic standpoint. Just because a particular declension is usually associated with masculine or feminine nouns doesn't mean that there's a rule. Most first declension nouns are feminine, but there are some important and notable exceptions (I always remember nauta, pirata, agricola, Agrippa, and Poplicola). Most second declension nouns are masculine or neuter (don't forget those neuters!), but there are feminine ones. Tellus is the only non-tree I can remember, Venus being third declension (and another example of a general rule with exceptions; all third declension nouns ending in -us are neuter except for Venus, which is necessarily feminine).
This gives us an important clue, however. The gender of a word isn't determined by its declension, but by the thing it refers to. It's true that there's often a correspondence, but the actual gender of a particular thing trumps the general rule when it comes to declensions. Earth, for example, is feminine whether you refer to it as terra or tellus. Rivers are nearly always masculine (and personified by river gods), but there are a few exceptions (Styx, Lethe, Tyche, and Neda being the ones I recall). Streams are feminine, however. And every tree I can think of of that the Romans would have known perfectly well is feminine, except for maple, which for some reason is neuter. Some of them, by the way, are fourth declension nouns, which means that they look like second declension nouns in the nominative, but the genitive also ends in -us. Quercus is an example of that. Most fourth declension nouns are feminine. A few trees can be either second or fourth declension, but they're always feminine.
Here's a list I've been making as I typed my response:
  • 1st declension feminine: acacia, armeniaca, betula, castanea, olea or oliva, palma, picea, rosa, tilia
  • 2nd declension feminine: aesculus, alnus, amygdalus, arbutus, buxus, cedrus, cerasus, citrus, corylus, fagus, fraxinus, juniperus, laurus, malus, morus, ornus, persicus, pirus, platanus, pomus, populus, prinus, prunus, sambucus, sorbus or sorvus, taxus, ulmus
  • 2nd declension neuter: cinnamomum or cinnamum, viburnum
  • 3rd declension neuter: acer, siler
  • 3rd declension feminine: abies, ilex, juglans, larix, salix
  • 4th declension feminine: quercus
  • 1st or 3rd declension feminine: myrica or myrice
  • 2nd or 4th declension feminine: cornus, cupressus, ficus, myrtus, pinus
Notes: Cassell's makes citrus masculine; Bantam's says it's feminine.
So the answer seems to be that in Latin, no matter what the era, trees are nearly always feminine; one type came up neuter, and none masculine. There could be some more neuter trees, or even some masculine ones, that I didn't think of. But feminine seems to be the rule. P Aculeius (talk) 02:58, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
See wikt:Category:Latin feminine nouns in the second declension and wikt:Category:la:Trees.
—Wavelength (talk) 03:14, 20 December 2014 (UTC) and 03:16, 20 December 2014 (UTC) and 03:43, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
See wikt:robur ("a kind of hard oak", neuter) and "siler" ("willow", neuter, synonym of "salix" [feminine]).
—Wavelength (talk) 03:45, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Perfectly right about siler, which Cassell's describes as the brook-willow. Seems to belong to the same class as acer. But robur simply means "hard wood," with a note saying that it applies particularly to oak. I suspect that the species name quercus robur is modern. If you take it as an adjective, which I think may be the case, it's feminine because quercus is feminine, irrespective of whether it would be neuter as a stand-alone noun. There's a related adjective, roboreus -a -um which shows that, whatever gender of the thing from which the adjective is derived, it has to agree with the noun it describes. P Aculeius (talk) 04:32, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever the history is here, the point remains that scientific names have grammatical gender. This is a linguistic phenomenon common to most European languages, and does not have to be logical (In French, the moon is feminine and the sun is masculine, while in German exactly the opposite is true). So if you see a list of the species in a given genus, some of the epithets having masculine endings and others having feminine, that is a clue that something is wrong.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 12:52, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
That's perfectly true. But bear in mind that botanists aren't all fluent in Latin and Greek, and may not be aware that nearly all trees are feminine, even if their names are second declension nouns (or look like them). Grammatical gender seems to be one reason why so many taxonomic names are changed from time to time. Adjectives don't have a natural gender, but take their endings based on the gender of the noun or pronoun described; in the case of first and second declension adjectives, they take first declension endings if feminine, second if masculine or neuter. Irrespective of the declension used by the genus, the species has to belong to the same gender. And trees, with very few exceptions, are feminine, even though the majority belong to the second declension; so the adjectives used as species names have to be feminine, too. In the case of first and second declension adjectives, that means taking first declension endings. P Aculeius (talk) 14:00, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like I forgot an important exception. Plants with species names in the genitive (i.e. "of Smith, of Linnaeus, of Larson") will have genitive forms appropriate to the person whose name is being used. A way to remember this is to think of genitives as adjectives describing the person referred to. Looks like "Smith" is treated as an i-stem noun, so smithii rather than smithi, no matter what kind of tree Smithius discovered. This only applies to genitives; if the name's not in the genitive, it still has to agree with the genus, so ficus forsythia rather than forsythius, but ficus forsythii if it's not the Forsyth fig, but Forsyth's fig. P Aculeius (talk) 14:17, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Triple posting here... some of the confusion seems to come from sources on botanical names written by authors who don't have a background in Latin. In Plant Systematics by Michael George Simpson, the author speaks of names that have masculine endings but are treated as feminine in Latin. But the endings aren't masculine at all, and the names aren't "treated as" feminine. The ending doesn't determine the gender, and second declension nouns other than obvious neuters may be either masculine or feminine (and apparently a few are also neuter). I found this helpful explanation of feminine second declension nouns at thelatinlibrary.com:
"The following nouns of the second declension are feminine:
1) Most cities, countries, and islands: Corinthus, Aegyptus, Rhodus, etc.
2) Most trees and plants: fagus, beech, ficus, fig tree, etc.
3) The following: alvus, belly carbasus, linen; humus, ground; and a few others.
And the following are neuter: virus, poison; pelagus, sea; vulgus, crowd, rabble. (These have no plural, except pelagus)."
Of course, novel coinages can't be expected to follow normal rules; if somebody makes up a generic name for a type of tree, they could treat it as masculine or neuter on a whim (or out of ignorance). And then later botanists could try to correct that (or hypercorrect it, if the original name was meant to be feminine, and they're trying to treat it as masculine because it "looks" masculine). Hence some of the confusion. Perhaps the best way to deal with the situation is to know that most plants are feminine, irrespective of their declension, because the declension doesn't determine the gender of a noun. P Aculeius (talk) 14:52, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Very certainly not all botanists have studied Latin. I saw one author state in the protologue that he was naming a species after his wife, yet he used the masculine "-ii" ending. That is how these mistakes originate, and very often the errors get copied by secondary sources. But the names are still covered by the ICN whether the botanists are fluent in Latin or not. Subsequent botanists who do know Latin will find these errors and correct them. Indeed, the ICN has provisions for correcting the errors. The question before us at Wikipedia is whether we follow the misuse of the grammatical endings or follow the provisions of the ICN.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 17:13, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The simple answer is that there's no easy answer! On the one hand, Wikipedia is supposed to be accessible to everyone, so common usage is entitled to some deference. But that would mean listing plants under their common names (even when there's considerable variation), which isn't how plant articles are usually titled. At the same time, Wikipedia articles can be as detailed and comprehensive as the authors can make them, which is part of what makes Wikipedia so useful; while coverage in some areas is lacking or dubious, countless matters that wouldn't be covered in depth by most encyclopedias are very well covered. While most authors I know strive for accuracy, it's hard to tell what that means when a widely-recognized authority appears to have endorsed a mistake. Does the ICN create truth or have the power to make new exceptions to Latin grammar? Of course not. It's there to help standardize taxonomy. But that's still important, as most writers feel obliged to follow its recommendations, even if they don't make sense.
My suggestion would be to use the correct grammar first, whatever the current ICN designation is, and list alternative forms (synonyms, common names) in the lead paragraph. If there's a conflict between good grammar and current ICN usage, place a footnote after the ICN designation and explain the difference. Since most Wikipedia articles use Arabic numerals for sources, I usually use either the {{efn}} or the {{efn-lr}} template for footnotes. The first format gives you "[note 1]", and the second uses small Roman numerals. Place the explanatory note after a pipe in the template, and place a notes or footnotes section before the citations or references, with {{notelist}} or {{notelist-lr}} in it. I'd write something like, "Because the genus Blahnus is grammatically feminine, the synonym Blahnus blasia is technically correct. However, the current ICN designation is Blahnus blasius." Or something along those lines. P Aculeius (talk) 18:51, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
My WWW search (not necessarily a Google search) for "International Code of Nomenclature" Latin errors mistakes found some web pages which might be useful for this discussion. I started to select some for mention here, but then I decided to leave that for other editors.
—Wavelength (talk) 20:01, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
This looks important: from the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, Chapter VII, Orthography and Gender of Names:
Ex. 3. Compound generic names in which the termination of the last word is altered: Stenocarpus R. Br., Dipterocarpus C. F. Gaertn., and all other compounds ending in the Greek masculine -carpos (or -carpus), e.g. Hymenocarpos Savi, are masculine; those in -carpa or -carpaea, however, are feminine, e.g. Callicarpa L. and Polycarpaea Lam.; and those in -carpon, -carpum, or -carpium are neuter, e.g. Polycarpon L., Ormocarpum P. Beauv., and Pisocarpium Link.
I believe this answers the question on this specific issue. Greek -carpos (Latinized -carpus) is masculine. So if it ends in -carpus, rather than -carpa/carpaea or carpon/carpium, it's masculine, and the species name should be too, unless it falls under the genitive exception or another exception I ran into, apposition (where the species name doesn't describe the type of thing, but is itself a specific thing; the example cited was Panthera leo, where leo (masculine) is a specific thing, not "just" a description of a particular panthera (feminine). P Aculeius (talk) 22:53, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
The question was asked "Does the ICN create truth or have the power to make new exceptions to Latin grammar?" What do you mean "exceptions?" The rules in the ICN concerning gender agreement is explaining Latin grammar, i.e. Botanical Latin Grammar, not making exceptions to it. Adjectives must have the same gender as nouns, in Latin just as in French, Spanish, or German. If I say "una rosa rojo" in Spanish, I have made a grammatical error. It should be "una rosa roja." It is exactly the same thing in Latin. The ICN needs to present rules on determining what gender the nouns are.Joseph Laferriere (talk) 23:20, 20 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure where this is going. All I was saying is that the ICN can't simply declare that feminine nouns must be treated as masculine because they look masculine. Or rather, it could declare it all it wants, but that wouldn't make it alright for anybody to do it, even if people chose to accept the ICN's authority and ignore the rules of grammar. But that's not what's happening here, because the question is whether a genus ending in -carpus is masculine or feminine. We've established that the names of most plants are feminine in Latin (the examples I used were trees, but the rule seems to pertain to plants in general), even if they belong to the second declension (as most do). The fact that they end in -us is irrelevant. However, -carpus is from Greek, and the form tells us the gender; if the same plant were feminine, it would end in -carpa, and if it were neuter it would end in -carpum.
Superficially this resembles the usual pattern of Latin nouns of the first and second declension, and indeed it would be the case with adjectives, which have no natural gender. But you cannot determine the gender of a first or second declension noun merely from its ending, because there are important exceptions (such as plants, countries, names for earth). The Greek element -carpus, however, is diagnostic, and tells us that the plant is masculine, and requires a masculine adjective, if the species name is to be based on an adjective. So, notwithstanding the fact that most trees are feminine in Latin, Hydnocarpus is masculine.
There are three ways the name could be formed: feminine Hydnocarpa wightiana; masculine Hydnocarpus wightianus; or with a genetive ending, Hydnocarpus wightii, in which the species name doesn't depend on the gender of the genus. Note that Robert Wight shows all three forms in the abbreviated list of plants named after him (as well as one instance of neuter wightianum). Since the genus isn't likely to change just for consistency with a species name, that leaves the latter two options. According to the rules of botanical nomenclature, one of those has to be the correct form of the name, even if the ICN currently recognizes a form that's gramatically incorrect. And that's where you'd put the explanatory note in the lead paragraph. I'd suggest moving the article to Hydnocarpus wightianus and then explaining that wightiana is commonly used despite the fact that Hydnocarpus is masculine, and that the confusion probably arose because most other trees ending in -us are feminine. P Aculeius (talk) 01:41, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
To summarise
  • In spite of the school boy Latin belief that 2nd declension nouns ending in -us as masculine, nearly all plant genera which are adopted from Latin plant names are feminine.
  • Plant genera which are compound words in which the last element is a masculine noun ending in -us are masculine; however due to hypercorrection based on the previous point they have often been erroneously treated as feminine.
  • Botanical Latin does not differ from Classical Latin here.
Euonymus (masc.) looks like an exception, but it turns out to be a compound (borrowed from the Greek - see wikt:Euonymus.
My thanks to the Latinists for their assistance. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:57, 21 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I've moved the article. Someone who knows the categories can add the appropriate one. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:08, 22 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I'm another Latinist referred from Wikipedia:WikiProject Latin. The topic of declensions and genders of Latin plant names has been exhausted, but I'll add another fact and some speculation: the Latin word for "tree", arbor, is third-declension feminine. A close association between this word and tree names could be a reason why so many of them are feminine. (In some cases adjectives modifying nouns of a particular gender in Latin or Greek can be adopted on their own as a noun, retaining the gender of the noun they formerly modified, but I don't know of any tree names that are adjectives.) At the very least, association with this noun might help reinforce feminine gender for nouns of a declension that is usually masculine. — Eru·tuon 05:00, 24 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's so much the word arbor as it is the fact that trees and plants were (usually) considered feminine by the Latins (and perhaps other peoples of Italy). Or, put another way, the word arbor is feminine for the same reason that most names of trees are, but it's not the reason itself. As for adjectives, I believe that what we were talking about wasn't the use of adjectives for tree names by the Romans, but the use of adjectives to differentiate species in botanical names. For example, the Romans may not have had separate words for the red blah and the white blah, but we refer to them as Blahnus rubra and Blahnus alba. In this case, rubra and alba are adjectives describing a type of tree belonging to the genus Blahnus. So while Blahnus rubra would be considered a compound noun, the compound consists of a noun and an adjective. The same would be true for Fuller's blah, Blahnus nattae, in which the species name describes a particular tree, but not for the Wally blah, Blahnus wallius, in which the species name is a noun, and doesn't have to agree with the gender of the generic name. I believe this is referred to as "apposition." P Aculeius (talk) 23:19, 24 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I should clarify: my mention of adjectives was not a misunderstanding of the original question (why the adjective wightiana is feminine rather than masculine), but rather a speculation that the names of trees (pirus, quercus) might be feminine because they were originally adjectives modifying arbor, as, for example, Ancient Greek ὀξεῖα "acute (accent)" is a nominalized adjective, feminine because it derives by abbreviation from the adjective-noun phrase ὀξεῖα προσῳδία, in which it modifies a feminine noun. (I can't think of any Latin examples at the moment.) However, as I said, I don't know that pirus, quercus, or any of the other tree names were once adjectives, so it's just empty speculation. — Eru·tuon 02:13, 25 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't see this brought up anywhere in the discussion, but it might prove useful for understanding. Latin names of trees are considered feminine in part because dryads (tree spirits) were feminine in Greek and Roman mythology. Since the spirits of the trees were feminine, so were the names of the trees, Even in Classical Latin, most of these were treated as feminine, as you can verify from the Oxford Latin Dictionary (I've double-checked fagus, quercus, and ulmus just now to be certain).

So the feminine gender of trees whose name ends in -us is not purely a feature of Botanical Latin; the gender was also present in the Classical language, and was reinforced by mythological connections. It is not all that unusual for a feminine noun in Latin to end in -us, or for a masculine noun to end in -a (e.g. agricola, lanista, nauta, poeta, etc.). There were certainly exceptions to the norm, as in any language. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:40, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I would say it is unusual, but not extraordinary, and tends to take place in isolated classes (trees is one). Likewise masculine nouns in -a occur in special classes (Greek loan words; compounds with -cola "inhabitant"). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:42, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A comment turned up on my talk page suggesting that something be added about gender to botanical name (in which case nouns in apposition should also be explicated). Lavateraguy (talk) 11:01, 23 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Ridiculous crop-production maps

Could someone with knowledge of procedures at commons.wikimedia.org please advise what is the best way to proceed to clean up some misleading maps that were uploaded in 2010, and have been used on a few wikipedias. The person who uploaded them has not been active since 2010, it has been pointed out (here) that three of them are ridiculous, and I think that all of them are probably vandalism and should be deleted. There are 72 files in all, listed here. I'm not sure where a discussion of a proposed mass deletion like this is supposed to take place. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:12, 29 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A map by the same user which has been questioned at Talk:Okra. What I've noticed, but not commented, about that map is the lack of production shown for the US, which may only be a minor producer, but surely a bigger producer than Britain. Lavateraguy (talk) 07:56, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt that Kola is produced in Turkey and California, and Blueberry production in Chile seems to be missing. Lavateraguy (talk) 08:04, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Bambara groundnut map bears no resemblance to reality. It is possibly informed by a report that once showed that large areas of Australia might be able to produce the crop, but it shows little resemblance to the maps in that report. This looks like random data to me, perhaps slightly cleaned up afterwards to remove some obviously unlikely patches. The tomato map disagrees grossly with this, notably by the blank areas in India and Egypt. I think all the maps are spoofs. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:03, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think that the source data is here (but the format may be somewhat inaccessible).
The maps contain a mixture of plausible distributions, with missing areas, and implausible additional areas. That could be a result of errors in creating one map using a second as the base. Lavateraguy (talk) 22:55, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I can't get the data into a readable format either. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:19, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I must admit, I have always found the content of these maps surprising, but lacked the knowledge to properly assess their veracity. It seems now that they are entirely unreliable; there may be some truth in them, but we can never know where. I think we are all agreed that they should not be used on articles, and that's something that we can start on immediately. It would be easier to do that if there were replacement images to be used instead (otherwise, well-meaning editors may resist the removal), but they may not be easy to produce. In any case, the original question was how to delete them from the Commons. It seems that the appropriate page is Commons:Deletion requests/Mass deletion request. There will have to be a discussion, during which all the evidence for the maps' failings can be presented. If the user who produced them is no longer active, then there may not be much resistance. Let's hope this can all be cleared up cleanly. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:13, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. The inline link above doesn't work, but Commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/Mass_deletion_request does. Unfortunately, it is not possible to use the link there because it tries to create a page that is protected against re-creation. That means that only an admin on Commons could work with it. I guess the hoi polloi such as myself will have to nominate each of the pages individually. Sigh. (maybe later.) Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:26, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Apologies for the incorrect link. I find that when I complete the box from "Commons:Deletion requests/" to "Commons:Deletion requests/Files of User:AndrewMT", the resulting page is not protected, and could be created. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:47, 1 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, thanks, that explains it. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:19, 3 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Mandrake

We have a situation at Talk:Mandragora officinarum#Requested_move_2015 concerning organization and scope of articles concerning Mandragora (genus), so some additional input would be welcome. No such user (talk) 19:13, 30 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Created Article Stub that Could Use Some Work

Eggert's Sunflower --Iankap99 (talk) 22:36, 31 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Strandzha Nature Park

has a bunch of species redlinks in it if anyone's keen to make some stubs....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:09, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

However, note that the sourcing of this article is poor – mostly to the Park's own website, which is not a reliable source of botanically accurate information. Some of the redlinked species names are not accepted by The Plant List (Saponaria stranjensis, for example, is considered to be a subspecies of Saponaria sicula). Peter coxhead (talk) 08:50, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise, "Galium bulgaricum" is Galium paschale and "Anthemis jordanovii" is Anthemis cretica subsp. tenuiloba. "Lepidotrichum uechtrizianum" is accepted as Aurinia uechtritziana, and Verbascum bugulifolium, Veronica turrilliana, Pyrus bulgarica and Oenanthe millefolia are all accepted by TPL as given. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:46, 6 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Adding Planting tips?

Hi. As shown to the title, should we add a section of every plants a Planting tips/information? This is to inform people about how to plant them and possibly even add what are its companion plants and attracted beneficial insects etc. Thanks :) Typhoon2013 (talk) 08:43, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

We can add (appropriately sourced) information about how such plants are used in various gardens, and any ecological interactions, but we cannot give advice. (See WP:NOTHOWTO.) --Stemonitis (talk) 09:14, 10 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We normally provide that information under Cultivation, but not as tips. It is not 'advice' if properly sourced and verified, but terms like 'should' should be avoided! Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:24, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Recent edits to Angiosperm Phylogeny Group

I am in danger of getting into an edit war over the addition of the section Angiosperm Phylogeny Group#Caveats and limits of APG, which I think is about the system(s), not the group, and also expresses unsourced opinions. The only relevant reference added so far was a blog by a homeopathy practitioner. I'd be grateful if someone else could decide whether I am being reasonable in my objections. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:50, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your objections are absolutely justified. I removed the section and warned the user about edit warring, encouraging them to discuss the material they would like to add on the talk page. I'll post my thoughts there. Rkitko (talk) 17:20, 11 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

looking for english term

Hello, i'm looking for the best english term for different pictures like the ones above, showing naturally occuring masses of flowering plants, which dominate larger areas or even landscapes for a certain (usually short) time. In german i know the term "Blühaspekt" (~flowering aspect) and some others, but there is not the "one and only" term. Translation tools suggest that in English also various terms are used to describe such phenomena (eg. natural flower carpets). Now i want to create a new Commons category for this and therefore need a clear and correct english term (possibly scientific, if existing); it can also be a longer descriptive wording, but it should be unambiguous.

Please notice that i am not looking for flower beds (in gardening, including floral clocks), flower fields (commercial flower/seed/bulb production in agriculture or horticulture), field flowers (wildflowers/weeds growing in fields), flower meadows (meadow in the sense of mown grasslands; although the Commons category is currently pretty mixed-up), or flower carpets (decorative elements either made of natural or artificial flowers, or textile carpets with flower motifs).

At the moment we have only Category:Landscapes with flowers, but this is a very unspecific broad name, and it quickly becomes unusable due to too many random images put into it (like pictures of mountains with only one or two flowers in the foreground, or pictures of rapeseed fields etc). Your help and ideas are really welcome! Holger1959 (talk) 09:26, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Drift is in the right semantic area. (Unfortunately Drift is a name for a group of ground cover roses, with the result that googling for flower drift brings up those, rather than drifts of wild - or naturalised - flowers.) Lavateraguy (talk) 09:50, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
But I don't think that it would be used for heather or gorse, even though those flower en masse in suitable habitats. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:53, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that although "Flower drifts" would work, it's not really quite right; "drifts" can also be used for cultivated plants in borders, for example. I'm not sure there is a general English term for what you want. It would be a useful category though, and it's easy to add more examples of the kind of landscape covered by your examples, although as the density of plants diminishes, I'm not sure where to draw the line. Also heather moorland is dominated by the flowers for a limited period, but the plants dominate permanently.
  • Trilliums
    Trilliums
  • Snowdrops
    Snowdrops
  • Anemone nemorosa
    Anemone nemorosa
  • Buttercups
    Buttercups
  • Even dandelions!
    Even dandelions!
  • Heather, but permanently dominant as a plant
    Heather, but permanently dominant as a plant
  • Sufficient Erythronium grandiflorum here?
    Sufficient Erythronium grandiflorum here?
  • But Anacamptis morio doesn't dominate here even though this would be described as an "orchid meadow"
    But Anacamptis morio doesn't dominate here even though this would be described as an "orchid meadow"
Probing the semantic field, Eriophorum visually dominates when in fruit, rather than when in flower. And the same sort of landscape dominance can be achieved by the autumn colour of bracken or some deciduous trees. Lavateraguy (talk) 10:29, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure quite what you are looking for, but we do use the word "carpeted" in English, as in "The wood is carpeted in bluebells". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:15, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that Wikipedia is already using the category flower carpets for what is also known more specifically as carpet bedding. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:57, 12 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the first comments! seems complicated. maybe i should make it more clear. i'm specifically looking for a Category:___ name for images of:
a) dominant aspects of flowers/flowering plants in bloom (not of autumn leaves, fruits, grasses etc), and
b) naturally occuring flowers, i.e. in non-agricultural areas – not meadows/pastures with buttercups/dandelions, not anthropogenic heaths (cultural landscapes only existing when grazed/burned), not planted gardens etc. [other/better categories exist already]
I never read the "Flower drifts" term before, sounds interesting, but image searches in fact show a lot of unrelated images, so it might be too ambigous. Even the large amount of geograph.org.uk photos on Commons include only a few using this term (like for drifts of daisies).
"Category:Flower carpets (nature)" may work, but i don't know if "flower carpets" or "carpeted" is also used in AE, and if it is clear enough. (what will be assumed to belong to such a category?)
Could you think of a describing term which can be used as category name, and which both BE and AE people understand? i think "Category:Masses/Large amounts of flowering plants in bloom in nature" or similar is a bit long, but it could work well (though i am not sure it is correct English).
Holger1959 (talk) 09:08, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
You could have "Wildflower meadows", "Wildflower expanses", "Wildflower landscapes" or simply "Wildflowers". Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:12, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
It isn't clear to me why this category should exclude 'carpets' of flowers in human-modified landscapes (e.g. heaths). I suspect that such a definition, with the associated difficulties of image placement (many seemingly "natural" landscapes have been modified to some extent), is perhaps contributing to the difficulty in coining a suitable category name. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 19:09, 13 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with terms like "Wildflower landscapes", etc. is that they don't indicate that the kinds of landscape in question are dominated by one species/taxon, which seems to be what is intended. In the UK, at least, if I talk about a "bluebell wood", a "snowdrop wood", an "orchid meadow" or a "buttercup field" there is a clear sense of "domination" by the first noun, at least for some period of time. But I don't think there is an over-arching term. (But then we don't have an English term for Schadenfreude, so perhaps we could adopt Blühaspekt.) Peter coxhead (talk) 17:07, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone have access to the Melbourne Code, Appendix III?

If so, please see Talk:Zephyranthes atamasco, where the issue is whether the article should be changed to Z. atamasca, and support for this name is said to be in the Melbourne Code, Appendix IIIA, which doesn't seem to be online.

No, I don't believe it is online or available for purchase on paper yet. The fact that it is mentioned in the GRIN entry might mean that the volume is about to appear, and the mention will apparently be on page 333 (which is beyond the volume issued so far). This has been a fraught case, but those databases, the plant list, tropicos, IPNI have been out of date for a while. I have not the slightest doubt that the reason for the difficulty is that article 60 of the code had changed, and that article has caused such a lot of problems that it was more than once referred to the editorial committee rather than have the congress try to hash it out, which would have required some weeks with hundreds of people present.
This is the type species of the genus, and is mentioned in Appendix III E2 of the Vienna code and also in ING's entry for the genus. The original epithet comes from Amaryllis atamasca or Amaryllis atamasco. Proposals and Disposals gives a neat summary: the first mention in the code was in 1935, on page 132. Later mentions are 1952: 93; 1956: 228 (sp. atamasco); 1961: 244 (sp. atamasco, typ. cons.); 1966: 271; 1972: 288; 1978: 314; 1983: 328 (sp. atamasca); 1988: 178; 1994: 203; 2000: 259; 2006: 285; 2012: 333
So to summarized, since the 1983 code, the spelling has been atamasca.
I would further comment that when John Wiersema puts an explanatory comment into GRIN, I would be very surprised if it were ever wrong. GRIN may be a bit behind in the mundane updates, but the nomenclatural opinions are spot-on. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:59, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, great work, Sminthopsis84! I've queried the use of the spelling atamasco with IPNI; we'll see what view is taken there, but here I'm sure we should move the article to Zephyranthes atamasca. Can some admin please fix this? Peter coxhead (talk) 09:20, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why Appendix III needs to be referred to. Article 62.4 spells it out: "Generic names ending in -anthes....are treated as feminine". Plantdrew (talk) 21:55, 14 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Plantdrew: Ah, that's not the issue. If atamasco is a noun in apposition, then no agreement by gender is required. "Atamosco" was originally a genus name, not an epithet (sources suggest it was a vernacular name).
Linnaeus wrote "Atamasca" with a capital "A" in Species Plantarum (see here), showing that it was intended as a noun in apposition, not an adjective. (Sources suggest that it was a vernacular name.) He later changed the spelling (second edition, here); also Adanson later used the spelling Atamosco as a genus name. When Herbert transferred the species to Zephyranthes (the type species) he used the spelling atamasco. Both the genus Zephryanthes and the type species with the spelling Z. atamasca are explicitly conserved in the ICN, as GRIN notes and as Sminthopsis84 helpfully explained above. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:56, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, that's a good summary, I think, Peter. We have moved away from de Candolle's style where elegant Latin is used by scholarly people, to a style that owes more to Otto Kuntze, where rules are followed exactly, but this case has been particularly problematic because Linnaeus wanted to correct the spelling, but he was too late, the juggernaut of botanical nomenclature was already in motion. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 18:05, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Stemonitis has now moved the article; I've written up the taxonomy as I understand it at Zephryanthes atamasca § Taxonomy. More could be said, but this is probably enough for the general reader. Taxonomic experts please check! Peter coxhead (talk) 13:13, 15 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Out of mild curiosity, if this is the type species of Zephyranthes, why doesn't Atamosco Adans. (1763) have priority over Zephyranthes Herb. (1821)? Lavateraguy (talk) 11:31, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It would, but Zephyranthes is conserved. [1] --Stemonitis (talk) 11:49, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Stemonitis's link is to the Vienna Code; you can (supposedly) see that the Melbourne Code says the same by going here and putting in "Zephryanthes" and choosing "Code Appendices" before using "Submit".
There is a remaining question, which is whether the fact that Zephyranthes atamasca is a conserved type necessarily means that it is a conserved name? This is one for Code lawyers; I have queried the issue with IPNI. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:50, 16 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

James L Reveal

I would just like to pause for a moment and give tribute to the work of Dr James Reveal who died earlier this year. His taxonomic work, described as 'Herculean' by the APG (APG I) has contributed much to these pages. Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:30, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. That is a nice thought, Michael. Should we perhaps have a category for botanical nomenclaturists to mark that rather unusual specialty that is so important to sorting out what is what among plants? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:13, 17 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
On the other hand there seems to be some concern here amongst our colleagues about overer-categorisation - so we would need to justify how this would help.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 12:12, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Inconsistency

Wikipedia retains the genus Anagallis, sunk by a recentish paper in Lysimachia, but the articles for some species are placed under Lysimachia. Lavateraguy (talk) 15:15, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm... I have a couple of comments. The first, and much more pedantic one is that just because names have been made available, that does not mean that they have to be used. There are now combinations for these species in Lysimachia, just as there are already combinations in Anagallis (and elsewhere; Asterolinon, Pelletiera and Trientalis also turn out to be derived from within Lysimachia s.l.). If, however, we continue to consider these genera separate, then the previous combinations continue to be correct. My second point is that Wikipedia is under no obligation to be completely up to date. In his 2010 third edition (i.e. after the Willdenowia paper came out), Stace remarked that "It is likely that Lysimachia, Anagallis and Glaux require reorganisatin, but more data are needed before this can be undertaken". If authoritative sources like that are not ready to take the plunge, then we should also be in no hurry to do so. Certainly the inconsistency is a problem, and I think that, for now, moving the few articles back to Anagallis might be the best option. (They were each moved from an Anagallis title in the last couple of years.) That wouldn't preclude moves later when reliable secondary sources had at least started to switch to the newer system. --Stemonitis (talk) 16:17, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree with moving the articles back to Anagallis - we don't know whether the future consensus will be to enlarge or dismember Lysimachia, so in the meantime stick with the status quo. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:41, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Near-empty taxon categories

Having Fumana on my watchlist, I noticed that User:Stemonitis removed and deleted the (then-empty) Category:Fumana (edit | talk | history | links | watch | logs). Sounds reasonable and by the book on the surface. However, I'd say that taxon categories, at least multiple-taxa ones, might as well be exempted from CSD:C1 – the genus has a dozen red-linked species. Why wasting time on deleting a category that will have to be recreated one day? Anyway, not a big deal, but I'd like to hear some thoughts; maybe it would make sense to eventually amend CSD:C1 to explicitly exempt such "systemic" categories. No such user (talk) 17:02, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, not strictly by the book, but reasonable enough, I thought. Categories are not for the future, they are there to categorise the articles we have now. In that regard, a category for a single article is not generally helpful, because it takes up the same amount of space on the parent category's page. The bigger and less obvious problem is the example it might be seen to set. Every so often, an overzealous categoriser appears on the scene and starts dividing useful categories into many, many tiny ones. I fear that the presence of other tiny categories might falsely lead such editors to believe that to be helpful behaviour. (I actually think that there would be no problem in having all our Cistaceae articles in a single category – a list of 49 pages is not unwieldy – but it's probably too late for that, and it's not worth arguing for.) Categories are for grouping articles together, not separating them, a point which is often overlooked. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:16, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I entirely agree with Stemonitis; there's been far too much over-categorization by taxon, with an apparent belief on the part of some editors that every taxon at every rank should have its own category. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:38, 18 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Over-categorization

Meanwhile our old "friend" Look2See1 carries on blithely over-categorizing plant articles using a personal set of geographical categories. See Dichelostemma capitatum for one of the latest efforts. Is there really any point in trying to categorize correctly? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:34, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As I understand it, Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions has no particular standing as policy, but it does have a broad consensus among those who edit botanical articles here. As such, anyone wilfully not complying with it – and especially if they don't engage with the community when complaints are made – is making themselves open to sanction. In the specific case of Look2See1, the problem has been pointed out to the editor before; I don't think it's a stretch to call their edits "disruptive" given that they go against consensus. I would suggest a stern wording, with a threat of blocking, which will certainly not be an idle threat. It may also be a good idea to make WP:PLANTS/WGSRPD (what an abbreviation!) more prominent on the project page. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:45, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Stemonitis: so are you going to block this user if a warning is disregarded (as it has been so far)? Action has been discussed repeatedly but never implemented sufficiently forcefully to make any difference. Further, because Look2See1 is so prolific in adding categories, undoing all the harm done would be huge task. Would anyone want to tackle it? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:00, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was going to wait a little while (hours rather than days) to confirm that no-one had any truck with WP:PLANTS/WGSRPD – it has been discussed a few times, but there has never been any vote or anything, so I thought it as well to make sure (and I haven't reread the past discussions in enough detail to confirm that everyone agrees with it). After that, I will happily warn anyone contravening it and, if the disruptive editing doesn't stop, I would be prepared to block, yes. Undoing the overcategorisation may be a harder task, but there may be ways of ameliorating it. We presumably know which categories conform and which don't, so it should be possible to request a bot task to remove/replace (as appropriate) all the non-WGSRPD categories. It will need some thought, but I expect we could eliminate much of the donkey work that way. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:07, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Plant categorization is described in a number of places, so I've added some "see also" links at the top of WP:PLANTS#Categorization. I've also added a bullet point linking to WP:PLANTS/WGSRPD. If there's no consensus for using this scheme, then the WGSRPD link and bullet point can be removed. There's perhaps a case for a single page on categorization, which could then be made a tab to the project page, as has recently very usefully been done for the template. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:34, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'm less confident we can now maintain the WGSRPD categories broadly given the recent closing of the first flora by country CfD, which resulted in a merger of all the "Orchids by country" in Europe to "Orchids of Europe" -- see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2015 January 26#Category:Orchids of Austria. If this is used as precedent for other discussions, we may have trouble gaining consensus with the wider community for anything but continent-level categories.
On a related note, if we as a project haven't fully discussed the WGSRPD's implementation here, let's do it now. User:Declangi has been doing great work on these categories recently. Let's create a subsection of this discussion for a recorded !vote among the project members to at least record (and discuss) our preferences for flora distribution categories. Rkitko (talk) 16:25, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Rkitko: I'm sorry I missed this CfD discussion, the outcome was disappointing and lacked consensus. You put the case well, but it seems to have been met with a "many categories invite over-categorization" blanket response from proponents.
  • Regarding WGSRPD implementation, it may be unclear to those not on this project whether it is project policy or not. So a vote might be in order. WIth some 400,000 plant species per Kew (~60,000 so far covered in Wikpedia?), a detailed scheme for their geography is warranted, both now and for the future. I don't know if a domain such as fauna has a widely-accepted scheme like WGSRPD to follow, so analogous upmerges don't seem entirely relevant. As some on the CfD said, Wikipedia should follow the science, not lead.
  • Regarding Look2See1, the issues are not confined to over-categorization of species articles. The user also adds many parent categories to individual category pages thereby creating a very tangled hierarchy. And often buried within such changes is the re-addition of a parent category that was previously removed, a stealth revert of sorts. It happens a lot, the user can be very persistent. If only that energy could be somehow rechanneled...
Thanks Declangi (talk) 11:40, 22 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

African Plants - External links

I have an issue that needs some discussion here. I have been adding a larger number of external links to 'African Plants - a photo guide', which is a photo database / plant identification tool based at the Senckenberg Natural History Museum and Research Institute Frankfurt and which I am curating with a colleague. I have seen these links to the African Plants species pages as a good way to add additional information useful for the reader, mainly photos, but also the species-specific links to further nomenclatural, distributional, plant use resources of a larger network of botanical resources for Africa. Apparently I am not alone with this view as I received some positive feedback on this activity. But this morning, I found a note by User:Stemonitis, having a very different view on these links and starting to revert my edits. Please find a copy of our discussion below and give your opinion and recommendations, whether external links to 'African Plants' are a good idea or not, or only in certain cases and how to proceed:

copied over

I have concerns about the external links you have been adding to a large number of pages. According to WP:EL, a site which "does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article" should not normally be included. Where the African Plants page only contains a few images, that would appear to be the case, and the link should not be included. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:58, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, for most of these species there are not many reliable image sources around and field guides with images (print or online) are often crucial in identifying plants and then, African plants also provides further links to nomenclature, distribution, plant use, other floras... --Marco Schmidt (talk) 08:05, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Nonetheless, I don't think it's an appropriate link, following the guidance at WP:EL. Lists of links to other sites are explicitly discouraged, and a featured article would certainly contain images. Please stop adding them immediately. If you can demonstrate consensus to add them, then things might be different. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:12, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The links are perfectly in line with WP:ELYES, Point 3: "Sites that contain neutral and accurate material that is relevant to an encyclopedic understanding of the subject and cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article due to copyright issues". The criterium "does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article" (I must admit, that I did not know about this) may well be a point for better-known species, but for the majority of species from tropical areas, would you ever expect articles to reach featured-article level? Would you please stop being destructive by reverting all this??? --Marco Schmidt (talk) 08:41, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

All the links I've checked contained only a few photos, and no other information. Photographs can be easily incorporated into Wikipedia articles, so that argument does not apply. The fact that almost all your edits have been to add this particular external link suggests that you are here more to promote that website than to build a generalist encyclopaedia. Where resources are already available (esp. Commons), such links are not at all helpful. You cannot really argue that particular criteria do not apply to particular articles; they apply just as much to African plants as to any others. Please do not continue to add these external links until you can demonstrate consensus to do so. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:22, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As an author of the linked work you have a conflict of interest in this issue and should not be directly editing the articles yourself. Instead, you are strongly advised to restrict yourself to making suggestions on the article talk pages. If you are really here to improve the encyclpaedia rather than promote your own work then you could upload images for which you own the copyright to Commons: where they can be used in the articles directly. SpinningSpark 09:59, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the WP:COI article, it clearly says under WP:CURATOR:"Museum curators, librarians, archivists, and similar are encouraged to help improve Wikipedia, or to share their information in the form of links to their resources. If a link cannot be used as a reliable source, it may be placed under further reading or external links if it complies with the external links guideline. Bear in mind that Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files." (I am well aware of the last part, which is why I don't place links, where they don't provide any useful additional information.) Concerning the Commons option, many photographers (including me) are fine with non-profit or educational use of their photos, but since Wiki Commons won't let you choose CC-NC licences, that is in many cases not an option. --Marco Schmidt (talk) 10:29, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, I had not realised that you are acting in the role of a curator. Nevertheless, I think you would be wise to gain consensus for your actions before proceeding, as Stemonitis has already suggested. Those who come here to do nothing else but add links are always treated with great suspicion. A good place to raise the issue would be at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants. Most, if not all, the articles you have edited are within the scope of that Wikiproject and I believe Stemonitis is active within it. As for the licencing issue, the whole foundation of Wikimedia is that it is free content. If you don't want to play by those rules, that's fine, we respect that, but you cannot then expect Wikipedia to help drive traffic to the place where you do want to play. SpinningSpark 15:05, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for contributing to this discussion! --Marco Schmidt (talk) 20:52, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have welcomed the addition of the African Plants external links to some articles I've worked on (and also helped to improve the template used to add the link). However the issue must always be whether an external link adds valuable information. Where Commons does not have images or has ones of doubtful identity, the link is useful, and I think it should not be removed. However it shouldn't be added routinely just because the species has an African Plants entry. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:00, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Adding links only, where there are no suitable Commons images sounds like a reasonable guideline to me. Stemonitis, what is your opinion? --Marco Schmidt (talk) 13:44, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's pretty much what I had been doing until now, as it happens. I did not remove all the links you added recently, only those which added nothing new to the articles, although that was still quite a high proportion. The issue of the conflict of interest remains (especially given that many of the photos are your own), so it may be best to avoid adding such links yourself. You clearly have a lot of knowledge of the African flora, and there are many ways that could be used to benefit the encyclopaedia. Trying to use Wikipedia to drive traffic to a particular external website is probably not one of them. If there is no commercial intent behind your site, then I would strongly encourage you to consider making as many images as possible available under a free licence. They could then be uploaded to the Commons and used directly in articles. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:11, 24 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Saffron FAR

I have nominated Saffron for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:09, 21 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say that quite a bit of work is needed to disentangle the page from Crocus sativus which as a species page within the purview of this project should not be deleted. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:16, 23 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New Essay

There is a new essay, "Identifying primary and secondary sources for biology articles", you are invited to comment on.DrChrissy (talk) 12:13, 27 April 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Georg Forster FAR

I have nominated Georg Forster for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:59, 8 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for plant article template re - regional flora lists

Please comment here - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants/Template#Proposal_for_regional_flora_list_articles FloraWilde (talk) 01:45, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for plant article template re structure for regional flora articles

Please comment here - Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants/Template#Proposal_for_regional_flora_article_structure. FloraWilde (talk) 01:47, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A few CfDs for your attention

Hi, all: Here are links to a few CfDs that may interest you. I know we've talked here at least once before about the North/Northern and South/Southern America difference. Please participate if you're so inclined.

Cheers, Rkitko (talk) 02:56, 11 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Archiving

Is there a problem with the archiving of this page, or at least their retrieval? The Archive box goes to April 2013 - Archive 61, yet there are at least 65 pages of archives.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 14:18, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There's no problem with the bot archiving stuff off the talk page and creating new archive pages once the "current" one reaches a certain size. However, the bot doesn't take care of updating the archive box; that needs to be done manually. I'll look into it (unless somebody else wants to take it on; the hard part for me is determining which threads are important enough to list in the box). Plantdrew (talk) 15:58, 14 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Criteria for the upload project of Naturalis Biodiversity Center?

Naturalis at Leiden, The Netherlands, has lately scanned millions of biological specimens (say 5 million herbarium sheets and three million other biohistorical photographs, art works, documents etc., quite a bounty). They intend to donate a selection to Wikimedia Commons. I am a temporary wikipedian in residence and looking for selection criteria. I would like to find out the expert opinion of the Plants community.

  • Are you interested in herbarium sheets (examples)? If so, an option could be to upload for every plant species one (or two) images of recent (because best condition) herbarium sheets - Naturalis has them for 400.000 plant species.
  • Would you (also) appreciate holotypes - but they tend to be old and so in lesser condition -, (extra) images of endangered/extinct species etc.?
  • What extra biological image material is NOT wanted on Commons, because....?

Perhaps you know better selection schemes and considerations.
Please comment. Remarks, suggestions, wishes and criticism are most welcome, thanks Hansmuller (talk) 08:32, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. We've not used them often but maybe there'd be value in the type specimens....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:38, 15 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, interesting. Just seen this; I’ll spend more time thinking this over, before replying.
On the side of this topic, Hansmuller i have long searched for online access to all those Blumea journal issues prior to those available in Ingenta (here.) As really significant scientific literature for botany generally, and including significant reference sources here in plants articles in WP, eg. Sapindaceae family genera and species articles, hopefully they have been digitised and have become available—please where are they? --Macropneuma 00:28, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'll inquire about Blumea <2003. Thanks, Hansmuller (talk) 07:13, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I found what looked like a full run of Blumea at Naturalis a little while ago. Lavateraguy (talk) 11:40, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yay! Lavateraguy, that looks like it, yes like a full run of issues and including the longer monographic(?) supplement issues, eg. this important one. Excellent literature searching result. Many to catch up with reading and using out in Bama Country (the Wet Tropics of NE. Qld) now! As well as continuing using them as sources and updating citations with fulltext links here in WP. --Macropneuma 02:41, 20 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects for common name referring to multiple species

The same plant common name often refers to multiple species, often unrelated and in entirely different plant families. E.g., greasewood. Often editors who are familiar with local flora binomial names and technical information, may not be aware of other areas in the world in which the same common name refers to an entirely different species. Using "#Genus species" instead of "#RedirectGenus species" starts a numbered list. Does anyone have any comments pro, or con, for starting a list (which may or may not have more than one species in it), instead of doing the basic redirect? FloraWilde (talk) 17:01, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that's called a set index article, and editors here certainly have been setting them up more or less as you describe. Choess (talk) 23:04, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Is pygmy poppy one of the common names you have in mind? By all means, start a list for that one (I'll get to it soon myself if you don't). It's a good idea to run the common name through a search engine; the common name by itself, and in conjunction each of the scientific names concerned. If the common name is overwhelmingly associated with one scientific name, it may be better to have it as a redirect to the taxon with a hatnote for the less commonly used meaning. But in many cases you'll find usage pretty well split and you should start a list. Sarching "pygmy poppy" I get hits for both Eschcholzia and Canbya in the first page of results, and doing searches for "pygmy poppy"+Escholzia and "pygmy poppy"+Canbya gives me a similar numbr of results for each search.
Use {{Plant common name}} at the bottom of the list. I think bulleted lists are preferable to numbered (which tend to imply a complete enumeration); for similar reasons, I prefer to say "Foo is a common name for several plants" rather than "common name for two plants". Many of the common name set index articles are bare lists of scientific names, but if you can include additional information to distinguish the taxa please do (greasewood is one of the best developed set indices). Family, flower color, growth habit, range, habitat can be good distinguishing characteristics to mention; and include photos if any are available. Plantdrew (talk) 23:50, 16 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, and sources presenting common names may attempt to make them unique with details in formatting that are unintuitive to the average reader. "Pygmypoppy" and "pygmy-poppy" pretty much exclusively refer to Canbya. However, I question whether anybody searching for a common name will find any meaning in the absence of a space or presence of a hyphen. I usually redirect minor variants like these to the set index article. Plantdrew (talk) 00:07, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, Plantdrew. You really do think while you edit. Pygmy poppy is exactly the place I got concerned that in writing list of Mojave flora, I should check where the common name links take us, rather than just combing the list for dead links and redirecting the red linked common names to the species. Last year, I heard rumors of a massive number of new tiny Eschscholzia species that were recently described, and about to be published, all of which used to be called pygmy poppy.
Possible source of rumour - http://search.proquest.com/docview/872863242 Lavateraguy (talk) 11:02, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to Lavateraguy. :) FloraWilde (talk) 11:11, 17 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Botanist Matthieu Bonafous

Hello. I have just created a stub about French botanist Matthieu Bonafous, best known for his book on maize/corn, has a plant named after him...I would appreciate it if some of you wanted to expand the page with in-line referenced info. Thank you.Zigzig20s (talk) 02:04, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Jepson eFlora version of Jepson Manual 2nd ed (2012) is now online for use as a ref at Wiki

I have had lots of talk page discussions with editors who said they did not have access the 2nd ed (2012) Jepson Manual to verify things. The latest CNPS Santa Monica Chapter Newsletter[2] says it is now online - "An important advance in systematics of California plants: The Jepson eFlora is now on line. The Jepson eFlora initially parallels the second edition of The Jepson Manual, Vascular Plants of California, which is the work of 300 authors and editors being published by the University of California Press. The eFlora includes all of the taxonomic treatments of the print Manual and has in addition treatments for taxa that were excluded from the print Manual because of doubts about naturalization status. Interactive distribution maps linked to specimen data from the Consortium of California Herbaria are included. Words that were abbreviated to save space in the print Manual have been expanded. Keys are linked to the treatments to which they refer. Accepted names and synonyms can be searched for. The eFlora is linked to the Jepson Online Interchange, and from there to numerous electronic tools. The Jepson Herbarium will work with the treatment authors and users to keep the eFlora in sync with advances in California botanical knowledge." FloraWilde (talk) 14:37, 19 May 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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