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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 155.68.110.247 (talk) at 20:24, 5 December 2006 (Bermuda cedar). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

==Elm== Many thanks for rationalizing the categorization, too may cooks.... I'd started, using the genus rather than the family, but no matter. Little else to offer now as all references exhausted, but will be receiving new, as yet unidentified, Italian hybrids this winter. Off to France next month, during which time we'll collect the new VADA elm hybrid from the Lemonnier nursery to add to our trials. Best wishes, Ptelea 12:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Omigosh it's Saturday 16 November 2024 !!

Why isn't it yesterday??

My useful copy & paste notes

  • To make special characters show: add <nowiki> before and </nowiki> after
  • {{inuse}}
  • {{British-English|"colour"}}
  • {{Commonwealth-English|"colour"}}
  • {{notorphan|Page pic linked from}} - pics that are referred to but only indirectly linked
  • {{Copyvio|url=http://www.(etc)}} - copyvio note with url copied from
  • {{PD-USGov}} - US Gov copyright-free pics notice
  • {{PD-USGov-USDA-FS}} - ditto, USDAFS
  • {{PD-USGov-USDA-ARS}} - ditto, USDA
  • & nbsp; - non-breaking space (rm space!!)
  • <!-- invisible text -->
  • <br clear="all"> - to make sure tables etc don't overlap
  • ;Bold :Indented next line

The standard [[Binomial nomenclature#Authorship in scientific names|botanical author abbreviation]] '''.''' is applied to plants he described.

[[Category:Botanists|, ]]

{{bio-stub}}

Some important interwiki positionings to watch for
  • et: (Eesti) comes before es: (Español)
  • es: (Español) comes before eo: (Esperanto)
  • ko: (Hangugeo)
  • he: (Ivrit) comes after it: (Italian)
  • ja: (Nihongo) comes after nl: (Nederlands)
  • fi: (Suomi) comes just before sv: (Svenska)
Taxobox for a plant species
{{Taxobox
| color = lightgreen
| name =
| status = 
| image = FILENAME.JPG
| image_width = 240px 
| image_caption =
| regnum = [[Plant]]ae
| divisio = [[ophyta]]
| classis = [[opsida]]
| ordo = [[ales]]
| familia = [[aceae]]
| genus = ''[[G]]''
| species = '''''G. s'''''
| binomial =
| binomial_authority =
}}
Taxobox for a higher plant group
{{Taxobox
| color = lightgreen
| name =
| image = FILENAME.JPG
| image_width = 240px 
| image_caption =
| regnum = [[Plant]]ae
| divisio = [[ophyta]]
| classis = [[opsida]]
| ordo = [[ales]]
| familia = [[aceae]]
| genus = ''[[G]]''
| genus_authority =
| subdivision_ranks =
| subdivsion =
taxon1 <br/>
taxon2 <br/>
taxon3
}}
Columns
{|
|- valign=top
|

|

|}
Image layouts

horizontal: 

{| 
|-
| [[Image:|center]] || [[Image:|center]] || [[Image:|center]]
|-
|}

vertical: 

{| border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" align="right"
| [[Image:|thumb|]]
|- 
| [[Image:|thumb|]]
|- 
| [[Image:|thumb|]]
|- 
| [[Image:|thumb|]]
|}

Archive

Old stuff up to Apr 2005 Old stuff up to June 2005 Old stuff up to Nov 2005 Old stuff up to March 2005

Welcome

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.

  • If you ever think a page or image should be deleted, please list it at the votes for deletion page. There is also a votes for undeletion page if you want to retrieve something that you think should not have been deleted.

Wanted to add my welcome, also. Thank you for all your effort on various pine species. You are obviously an expert. Feel free to say as much or as little about yourself as you wish at User:MPF -- hike395 22:58, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started the Free the Rambot Articles Project which has the goals of getting users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to...

  1. ...all U.S. state, county, and city articles...
  2. ...all articles...

using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) version 1.0 and 2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to the GFDL (which every contribution made to Wikipedia is licensed under), but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles (See the Multi-licensing Guide for more information). Since you are among the top 1000 most active Wikipedians, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles.

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} template (or {{MultiLicensePD}} for public domain) into their user page, but there are other templates for other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

OR

Option 2
I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:
{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace {{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}} with {{MultiLicensePD}}. If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know at my talk page what you think. -- Ram-Man 20:23, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

With regards to what you said on my talk page, I will put this in a simple fashion. Anyone using the GFDL can use Wikipedia's articles in their own project. But other open/free projects (WikiTravel for example) use a different, incompatible license, so we can't share with those projects and they can't share with us. What many of us feel is that the license that they use is better and that it's more important that more people be able to use our articles than it is that we keep them from always being able to be used at Wikipedia. Does that help to explain it? (Please reply at my talk page) -- Ram-Man 20:54, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

The commons namespace

Just thought I'd let you know: Wikimedia Commons is covered by the interwiki map. To make a link, use [[commons|(pagename)]]. Alphax τεχ 00:03, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)

Carapa

If memory serves me Carapa is not monotypic - the other species may have been synonymised (don't have any reference handy) but I remember mention of other species. Guettarda 23:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar

An Award
I, Saikiri, award this Barnstar to MPF for being a tireless, knowledgable and generally awesome contributor, author of many fine edits!
Indeed, yes! Thank you. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 14:28, 22 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Alnus spp.

Hi! I'm really less than an amateur in this field, so I defer to you on the decission. The book is a bit old and it's very possible that these are two different species, but here it says:

There is considerable confusion in the taxonomy of Alnus acuminata. Furlow (1977) reported the species as Alnus acuminata H.B.K., but in his last revision (1979) he classified it as Alnus acuminata ssp. arguta. The species also has been described as Alnus jorullensis H.B.K. by Carlson and Dawson (1985). Holdridge (1951) concluded that if subspecies populations exist they apparently intergrade into each other and because of similarities in wood and silvicultural characteristics they may be considered as a single species, at least from a forestry viewpoint.

Alnus acuminata is native to the American continent ranging from Mexico to Northern Argentina in elevations between 1,200 and 3,200 m.a.s.l. where annual rainfall is 1,000 to 3,000 mm or more.

Libro del Árbol says Alnus jorullensis H.B.K. var. spachii (Regel). I've found the same problem in the classification of other related species; in some cases they were catalogued 150 years ago and then nobody researched them further with modern tools (e. g. genetic analyses). Andean Alder and Mexican Alder should refer to each other quite profusely. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 21:29, 16 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Be my guest. Make sure you upload it to Commons, not to Wikipedia. --Pablo D. Flores (Talk) 16:22, 17 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Congratulations!

Congratulations! It's my pleasure to let you know that, consensus being reached, you are now an administrator. You should read the relevant policies and other pages linked to from the administrators' reading list before carrying out tasks like deletion, protection, banning users, and editing protected pages such as the Main Page. Most of what you do is easily reversible by other sysops, apart from page history merges and image deletion, so please be especially careful with those. You might find the new administrators' how-to guide helpful. Cheers! -- Cecropia 22:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, congratulations indeed! If you ever have any questions regarding your newfound tools, please do not hesitate to ask me or another administrator. We're here to help! Best regards, Hall Monitor 22:30, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Congratulations. And about time! :) Guettarda 22:35, 31 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Congrats. It's about time! --DanielCD 00:31, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Likewise; that was a very smooth RfA. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 01:15, 1 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Many thanks all for your support! I must admit I was surprised at the level of support, I thought it would be something more like 3:2 or 2:1 in favour, not 74:1!

Congratulations. I didn't see your nomination, or I'd have been the first to sign it. I know you'll be an even greater asset to the project with your new tools. Cheers, -Will Beback 06:28, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Redirects from plant species to genus/family

Hi. I found quite a few such redirects. Here's a list: bogdan 15:38, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I just found a whole bunch more of these... replace with stubs? SB Johnny 13:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Barnstar award

The Barnstar of Diligence
In appreciation of MPF's extraordinary scrutiny, precision and community service. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:56, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Amen! - UtherSRG (talk) 17:00, 24 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I concur completely. JoJan 14:06, 25 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

{{cite journal2}}

It should be fairly easy to integrate that option into Cite journal itself, using a yes/no parameter. Circeus 17:55, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just finished it. "quotes=no" will remove the quotes in {{cite journal}}. Do you mind if I put the template for deletion? Marking it as deprecated doesn't seem pertinent. Circeus 18:13, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure it's a a good idea. I preferred to make the change as unintrusive as possible, because the sudden "disappearance" of quote risk upsetting people. Maybe you could discuss it on the talk page while it's not used? Circeus 18:20, 26 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Phylogeny diagram

Did you produce the phylogenetic diagram that is reproduced in the Plant article? First, if this is your own diagram, I suspect it borders on "original research"; second, if presented in an article, it needs to be labeled more explicitly within the article as to the source. A glance at the diagram shows that it by no means presents a consensus view of plant phylogeny, so it needs to be made clear that this phylogeny represents the results of one particular publication. MrDarwin 14:07, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've deleted the diagram from the Plant article because, as Curtis Clark points out in Talk:Spermatophyte, the diagram does not represent the results of the reference it purports to represent. Can't we reproduce an actual diagram from a published reference as "fair use" as long as we properly label & attribute it? MrDarwin 14:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Drat, I thought I'd got it to match the deep green tree. The diagram is easily edited though, if you can let me know what to change (and/or make duplicates for different phylogenies from other sources). I fear using actual published diagrams would be outside of the fair use criteria, which are very strict (see Wikipedia:Fair use criteria) - MPF 14:53, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Especially with such a contentious topic, where different analyses using different types of data have come up with very different phylogenies, I would suggest showing two or more such phylogenies, each linked to a specific reference and specific citation (preferably published literature, which I'm assuming the Deep Green website is derived from in the first place). This would help visualize the different phylogenies that are discussed in the text, and difficult for users (especially8 those without a background in botany or cladistics) to visualize in the abstract. MrDarwin 17:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Please MrDarwin, will be in peace, me no longer I bear so much conflict! Berton 14:35, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Berton, I think (I hope!) that MPF knows that my critical comments are constructive, and not destructive. MrDarwin 17:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I hope too.Berton 17:58, 20 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Geographical categories

I proposed some language to be added to WP:TOL regarding geographical categories. I borrowed heavily from your comments at Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion/Log/2006_October_13#Category:Fauna_of_the_United_States_by_state_and_its_subcategories. I hope I didn't do too much injury to them. Feel free to correct and comment. I'm sure that others will do the same. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 17:21, 29 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Elms

Suggest elm cultivar listings are restricted to their respective species pages. There are literally dozens of cultivars, notably of American, Siberian and Chinese Elms, and if they're all featured on the main page, it will be overwhelmed. Thanks for the tidying, long overdue. Ptelea 10:20, 2 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Promontory Point (Chicago)

I cleaned it up so that I don't think it needs the {{advert}} anymore. Please re-add the tag if you disagree. —Chowbok ☠ 16:57, 9 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Article about Wikipedia Users

Hello,

Wikipedia user David Badagnani directed me to your user page. I am a freelance writer working on an article about the wide array of people who make Wikipedia their life, their passion, their pastime. Wikipedia “addicts” if you will. I’m looking for people just willing to tell their story of how they got sucked into the intellectual whirlwind that is Wikipedia; how you got started editing, how the obsession grew, and what you spend your time focusing on these days? Do you write articles from scratch? Is your main push toward one particular type of article? Do you patrol for typos and errors, or spend your time diligently fixing vandalism? Do you take part in the “social aspects” of Wikipedia; engaging in animated discussions or decorating your user page with all sorts of internet memes? Have you ever forced yourself to take a “Wikipedia break”? If so, what’s your 20/20 hindsight on the obsession? Basically I’m just trying to get an idea of what it’s like for various Wikipedia “addicts.” If you are interested in participating, please email me at *****@gmail.com

If anybody else, other than this user is interested in participating, feel free to email me as well. This article is intended to be a light informational piece, nothing too heavy or controversial, just merely introducing readers to a subculture that they likely had no idea existed. So please don’t email me with your conspiracy theories, or your grudge against the Wikipedia hierarchy… unless it directly applies to your overall experience with the site. This article is about the USERS, not about the pros and cons of the site itself.

Thanks,

Brian68.39.158.205 01:35, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Jacarandas

You seem to be a fairly knowledgeable person with it comes to botany. I've placed a {{disputed}} tag on the Jacaranda article as there's some questionable material there re: where the genus is native to. My sources tell me that no species of Jacaranda is native to Australia or Africa. Maybe you'd know for a fact and could update the article accordingly? Peter1968 08:37, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Long-billed Murrelet

Hi, well done - must have been a long haul down from Northumberland for you. I finally got to Dawlish on Monday, having gone to Lincs on Sunday for the Black Kite, my first in the UK in 20 years of birding. Two British lifers in two days! Have you seen the crowd pictures on the Dawlish Warren website? Kit Day (linked from Surfbirds) also has some brilliant photos. Best wishes, jimfbleak 18:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Seabirds, which precedes the split mentions four nests, one in Siberia, one in California (?), two on East Amatuli Is. Two nests in trees, two in tundra. it also says elsewhere in the article that eggs have been found on treeless Alaskan islands, presumably the Amatuli records, which suggests that both forms breed in conifers. . good luck with the kite, it's a few miles nearer now. jimfbleak 19:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Class for Stemona

Hi, can you fill in the class for Stemona? Badagnani 09:11, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Gymnosporangium

I just added a mention of eradication programs, which I learned about in a university class but don't have a reference for offhand.

Nice edits, BTW :). --SB_Johnny|talk|books 18:39, 16 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Found one and left it in... just found another today in a book, so I'll add that in too. There were also attempts to control white pine blister rust by eradicating european currants, and a wheat rust by eradicating barberries... I've been reading the Encyclopedia of Plant Pathology lately, so I'll add a bunch more in. No-one will object, I hope, if I don't use that insane {{cite book}} template? --SB_Johnny|talk|books 15:26, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually

I think what I'm going to do is write about it on wikibooks, then transwiki it back to here. Would you be willing to clean out the how-to stuff after I do that? (It has to be transwikied by me, for copyright reasons... unless we do the silly talk-page transwiki note thing). --SB_Johnny|talk|books 15:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, sorry. I mean I'm going to transwiki (import) it to wikibooks, add about 2 pages worth of info there, then transwiki it back. I'm more confortable writing about things like that when I can include the how-to stuff as I'm going along (my interest in plants, plant pests and diseases, etc. is from a horticulturist's point of view, which is neutral but not encyclopedic). It should be ready by Monday or so... you'll understand better when you see the reversion.
The reason I have to do the reverse-transwiki is because wikipedia doesn't have import, so for copyright compliance there would need to be odd accreditations added to the talk page if someone else transwikied it. (All this goes to shit if someone else edits the wikibooks version before I copy it back to wikipedia -- wikibookians tend to be a bit more anal about copyright stuff than wikipedians are -- but I doubt anyone would mess with it, since as far as I know I'm the only person there interested in plant pathology). --SB_Johnny|talk|books 16:11, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Another example...

I didn't get to the rust thing yet... a client's garden has a downy mildew problem, so I'm researching that today. It is a good example of what I'm talking about though: compare Downy mildew with b:A_Wikimanual_of_Gardening/Downy_Mildew (not finished yet, but hopefully done by this evening). If I just removed the templates and the control section, maybe I could just copy the whole thing over and put a {{wikify}} tag on it? --SB_Johnny|talk|books 16:43, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you

Hello MPF! Thank you for the compliment; no one has ever said I took a good picture (on Wikipedia) before. The species, I do not know, I was taking pictures of several palm trees. As for where I took the picture, in the United States, the state of Florida. I am sorry to say that I'm very ignorant when it comes to trees; I searched "Phoenix dactylifera" on the Wikimedia Commons, and on Google, but I can't see how they can all be so different. Perhaps you would know (being a tree expert). | AndonicO Talk | Sign Here 11:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Euonymus fortunei

This is a page for Euonymus fortunei that I started. It needs work; if you (or anyone else reading this) are interested and know much about it. This is a commonly grown plant. --Kalmia 09:20, 18 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for adding to it. --Kalmia 04:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tallest trees

Hi MPF! Why do you think the official web site and register of Tasmanian Giant Trees Consultative Committee is less reliable than a single six years old survey, where only 53 trees are measured? Two of three writers of the article are also members of the Committee.Krasanen 15:04, 21 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wollemia

Fixed. Thanks for your patience. It was a very long 24 hours. Hesperian 03:32, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vandal patrol of botany

Man, I'm getting tired of vandal patrol of Botany, Protist, and Embryophyte. It's never just one edit anymore, but a chain. How come they're never original, entertaining or funny, either? KP Botany 16:33, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, probably enough lately to justify semi-protect, but I would be more satisfied if you could offer me one single creative or unique act of vandalism. Even if you had to do it yourself. KP Botany 16:43, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Question about commercial references

I noticed that you just removed the "commercial references" from the Apple article, one of them just added by myself. Unfortunately, these are useful links to pages with non-commercial formation. The site that I added, Apple Journal, is not strictly a commercial site but a not-for-profit site. What is the official Wikipedia policy concerning such links? What rules are you using to determine a commercial site? I would really appreciate it if you would reevaluate your decisions and put these links back.

Thanks very much. NickP 11:09, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is a "me too" with respect to the above. The fact that aluminum Christmas trees were made by dozens of manufacturers thirty to fifty years ago is IMO of general interest to people who remember them, and in no way promotes a commercial interest. The page I linked to, in order to cite a source for my facts, is a museum which does not sell the trees. Heck, I didn't even mention that the darn things are collectible now. Please restore the deleted text, which I took the time to research and write just last night in an attempt to cover a somewhat underrepresented part of the topic of Christmas trees. Thank you. Karen | Talk | contribs 18:14, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Having sat with this for a few days, I've pretty much decided that what you cut isn't exactly vital after all. And yes - I will conform to prevailing British English in future for articles that employ it. Thanks. Karen | Talk | contribs 01:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
NickP replies to note left at talk:NickP: Very good point. I missed the List of apple cultivars page, but that is the right place for these links. Better yet, is for someone to merge in (non-copyrighted) information on those links into the List of apple cultivars chart, expanding it to include their information. If I get some time, I'll see if I can start doing that. It would be a fairly ambitious project. NickP 10:11, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Cupressus pigmaea

I agree. While I won't oppose a partial revert (because I did take the to sleuth out extra informations such as full author or journal names, issue dates and ISSNs), I can see other solutions:

  • Spreading out the refs.
    Part of the problem is that the Taxonomy paragraph contained so many initial refs. Since the recent updates to <ref> allows the content reference to be located anywhere, they could be easily spread out more evenly and not make #Taxonomy so illegible.
  • Simplifying the referencing
    Instead of naming authors and citing that, we could just say "various authors" and combine the various refs into a single tag.
  • Using shorthand notes and moving the full refs into the reference section.
    I know there's a pair of templates somewhere that allow for linking between shorthand and full references, but I can't remember where I saw them...

Circeus 01:15, 24 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

can you look at the Talk page? User:KP Botany is expressing concern over the chosen taxonomic placement. Circeus 03:08, 26 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Naming protocol

Hi there MPF and thanks for the welcome. I've been meaning to ask for a while but what is the correct Wikipedia protocol for capitalisation of common plant names. I have always worked on the basis that capitals should only be applied if the name contains a 'proper' noun, i.e, Sitka spruce and not Sitka Spruce. Your guidance would be welcome.The Boy that time forgot 00:47, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I can go with that on the grounds of consistancy, much as it grates against my pedantic nature. Your point about knowing whether a non-English word is a proper noun or not is a valid one. Thanks for the comprehensive response.The Boy that time forgot 17:16, 25 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion kicks off again: see below. SiGarb | Talk 19:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

refs and variability

Harvard citations and footnotes (which is what is generated by cites.php) do not work the same way. see the Wikipedia:Footnotes style guideline for explanations. As for the variability, a plant that varies between a normal tree and a pygmy form is pretty variable... Circeus 01:15, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Spellings

Hi HouseOfScandal - can I point out the Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English - when writing topics concerning a locatable topic, the page should use the spelling appropriate to that area, e.g. Irish English (very similar to British English) for the Dún Aengus article, Commonwealth English for Asian trees, etc.; so 'metre', 'neighbouring', and so on - thanks, MPF 01:33, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Maples

Hi again. Thanks for your edits and additions to my Acer articles. I know you are a Pinophyta buff yourself, but I am no less appreciative of having discerning eyes behind my shoulder. Best wishes. ◄HouseOfScandal► 12:29, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why the objection to mentioning the common name "hedge maple" in boldface in the article for A. campstre. I didn't change the article's name out of respect for UK Wikipedians for whom A. campestre is the only native maple. Why not allow the boldface "hedge maple" mention out of respect for the 300+ million people in USA? I consider you very much a colleage and kindred spirit in Wikipedic matters -- let's compromise. ◄HouseOfScandal► House of Scandal 16:43, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This, if you ask me, is a typical example of content that would benefit from being at the scientific name. Besides, the new Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora) mandates latin names (if only for new articles, such as those by User:Anlace that recently appeared on WP:DYK). Circeus 16:54, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Commons FPC:Bryce Canyon Hoodoos

Just wanted you to know I removed the metal cage / fence at the top right of the slope here --Digon3 16:59, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of "Uses" paragraphs from Saw Palmetto article?

Not challenging, just asking: Any idea why somebody removed two of the paragraphs in the "Uses" section on Saw Palmetto? The two paragraphs had a total of seven references (which remain in the article), so it seemed a well-cited and justified bit.

I know I could revert the removal myself, but I'm still "getting my Wikipedia legs", and being pretty cautious.

Thanks. Lumpish Scholar 18:50, 27 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Dracaena (plant)

Hi, MPF. I know you and I disagree on the capitalization issue (and I really do wish we could come to some sort of understanding on that), but why revert all but one of the less controversial edits? i.e. the underscore in the image and one common name for D. fragrans. I still contend that common names of plants should be lower case -- even the Chicago Manual of Style explains it as such. How can we come to an agreement on this? I don't want to have to continue battling over this. Best, Rkitko 02:52, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rkitko - the underscore was accidental, I'd not noticed the change (not really sure it is important either, it doesn't affect the appearance of the saved page). On the common names, mainly because there isn't room to have every recorded option in that situation, as they won't all fit on one line; a species list is best just having the single standard common name (or even none), and put the rest on the species page as/when it gets written. On caps, I'm still waiting for someone to produce some reasoned arguments in favour of the lower-case-except-for-proper-nouns style, rather than blind religious dogma . . . "the chicago mos says so, so therefore you must do so" - reminds me of "the holy bible says so, so therefore you must do so". Conversely, there are plenty of good practical reasons why consistent capitalisation is useful, and plenty of historical precedent for its use, too. - MPF 11:04, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Consistent caps is useful, yes, but not according to Wikipedia style guidelines. Not much is said about in text, but on article titles:
WP:NC#Animals, plants, and other organisms: The capitalization on the common names of species has been hotly debated in the past and remains unresolved. As a matter of truce both capitalized and non-capitalized (except for proper names) are acceptable...
The guideline is similar to those concerning British English and American English spellings. The guideline then directs you to an actual Wikipedia article: Capitalization
A more controversial practice followed by some authors, though few if any style guides, treats the common names of some animal and plant species as proper nouns, and uses initial majuscules for them (e.g., Peregrine Falcon, Red Pine), while not capitalizing others (e.g., horse or person). This is most common for birds and fishes. Botanists generally reject the practice of capitalizing the common names of plants, though individual words of plant names may be capitalized by another rule (e.g., Italian stone pine). See the discussion of official common names under common name for an explanation.
From common name:
Botanists sometimes maintain official common names for plants, although this will vary greatly. Informally, botanists generally do not capitalize any common names; this can be seen as a sign of "professionalism" since the uninitiated may have difficulty in interpreting names such as "the hairy brome" for localities where the Hairy Brome (Bromus ramosus) is not the only member of the genus.
So I begin to understand your point that the practical reasons to use caps in common names is appealing, but I still reject that in the face of the argument for professionalism. Wikipedia may exist for the users and desires to make it easiest for the average user to find information so it can be useful, but that doesn't mean we succumb to those practical reasons at the cost of professionalism (would we, in light of the practical argument, shed our traditional grammar for ease of understanding for the average user if they typically don't understand the word whom, etc.?) And I resent your remark on blind religious dogma--I do not have some odd faith in the Chicago MoS. The reason I brought that up in the first place was that when we were discussing this earlier, the Wikipedia MoS stated that if a specific guideline wasn't spelled out, we were to defer to respected style guides like Chicago and others. I don't have easy access to other guides at the moment, so I chose the one I could get information from. There's also plenty of historical precendent for not using capitalized common names, though if you go back far enough you'll find what I consider egregious capitalization in the 19th century. Well, that's as much as I can put together right now--I've got to get to work. Cheers, Rkitko 18:05, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, MPF. I have to agree with Rkitko, and I seem to recall we had this discussion about a year ago. (Have you deleted the former contents of your talk page? Are you meant to do that without archiving it?) There are very few style guides of any sort these days that recommend initial capitals for common names for plants, except in cases like Indian bean, Japanese azalea etc. I agree it can be difficult, sometimes, when dealing with a common name derived from another language, to know whether it should be capitalised, but even though Spanish Broom is clearly a plant, and Spanish broom might be a brush, the Royal Horticultural Society, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, most publishers, newspapers etc now prefer to reduce the number of capital letters used in referring to animals and plants. I admit there is less of a consensus on birds and animals. Perhaps a good compromise, for Wikipedia purposes, would be to use bold for common names, which would help them to stand out within an article. This would be justifiable if the only common names in the article were those for the species under discussion, but in Chaenomeles, for example, where some of the quinces referred to are Chaenomeles and some are Cydonia, it would be less useful. SiGarb | Talk 19:07, 29 November 2006 (UTC) PS Your changes to Chaenomeles (where you recently reverted my decapitalisation of common names, and my deitalicisation of hybrid ×s, which appear in italics in certain browsers if kept within the double quote marks) were hardly a "minor edit".[reply]
Hi SiGarb - as to caps, please remember both are acceptable on wikipedia (as well as being used by most field guides) - your change removing the caps was contrary to the history of the page. Also why have you removed the italicisation of the hybrid signs? The hybrid sign is part of the name, and therefore should be in italics, like the rest of the name (unlike the hybrid sign in a formula, which is between two species, and so not italicised). And yes, the previous discussion is archived somewhere (though that is not a requirement). - MPF 19:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, MPF, both Initial Caps and non-cap styling are found on Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is an ongoing project and much of the editing on Wikipedia consists of correcting earlier mistakes or out-of-date material. If the wide consensus is tending towards one style, it seems retrograde for Wikipedia to take the opposite tack. As for field guides, my Wild Flowers of the Mediterranean (Blamey & Grey-Wilson, 2004) follows the style also used by Oleg Polunin's Flowers of Europe (1997) of using capitals for the entire name, which neatly dodges the problem. As for more populist tomes, I seem to recall noticing shortly after our last discussion that the Readers Digest Wild Flowers of Britain (or whatever) adopts the current no capitals style. And I'm sure you are wrong about the italicisation of the hybrid × where it forms part of a binomial name. No book I can find has italicised ×s. And what do you mean, my changes were "contrary to the history of the article"? Whatever happened to the Wikipedia motto "Be Bold"? Any changes, except the most minor, or reverts, could be said to be "contrary to the history" of an article. SiGarb | Talk 20:23, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
On your point "what do you mean, my changes were "contrary to the history of the article"? Whatever happened to the Wikipedia motto "Be Bold"? Any changes, except the most minor, or reverts, could be said to be "contrary to the history" of an article" - because it is an changing an accepted style, like changing a British English article to American English. Which is considered revertable, or only changeable for a very good reason (like I changed UK spellings in Oenothera to US a while back, as it is an almost entirely US-native genus). Using SMALLCAPS is a nice idea (the New RHS Dictionary is another example that does so), though it is very tedious in formatting as there isn't a wiki shortcut, in the same way that there is for many other html formattings like italics and bold (if one were to be created, I'd be happy to go with it as a policy). Of some that use capitalised names (as in e.g. Pedunculate Oak), my parents' old copy of the Observer's Book of Trees (1937 / revised ed. 1960); Bean's Trees & Shrubs 8th ed revised (to be exact, large-capitalised SMALLCAPS LIKE THIS); Blamey & Grey-Wilson's The Illustrated Flora of Britain and Northern Europe; Rushforth's Trees of Britain and Europe; Mitchell's Alan Mitchell's Trees of Britain; and for an American example, Preston's North American Trees. And for (my) local interest, Swan's Flora of Northumberland does so too. It is so common (and what I have been brought up with) that I find (contrary to what Rkitko says), that not using capitals looks unprofessional, and very untidy to boot. On "No book I can find has italicised ×s" - I don't see how it is possible to tell, as in most fonts plain × and italic × don't differ (interestingly, they do differ slightly in my computer's browser, with the italic × more closely resembling the × I see in books). - MPF 21:34, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
As I've said before, I agree with most of your points on a sentimental and aesthetic basis, but it seems to be going against the grain of currently accepted practice. See, for example, RBG Kew's website where butterflies are styled with caps but their food plants are without. Also see English Nature/Natural England, Countryside Council for Wales etc, and as for the US and elsewhere, try ITIS, USDA/NRCS PLANTS Database, and HortiPlex...
On hybrid ×s: as you say, "in most fonts plain × and italic × don't differ". Because the hybrid × is a multiplication sign (not an X or an x) in typesetting it does not always follow the styling of the font it forms part of. For example, it rarely has serifs, even when it is part of a serif font, though it usually varies in weight to match the host font. In many fonts (though not all, I admit) it is not italicised, even in the italic version of the font, I suspect because this makes it less easy to confuse with a lowercase X. It tends to be scripts and other less formal fonts that italicise it. In almost all the dozen books I have just checked (from my ancient Keble Martin onwards) the × is a fine cross, larger than the lowercase x but usually not as large or bold as the capital X. There was only one that differed (RHS Encyclopaedia of Garden Plants); that made it bolder to match the italic font, but without slanting it. I haven't time to look into it further at present.
Thanks for the full and frank exchange of views! BTW, I tried out my suggestion of emboldening the common names at Broom (shrub). I think it looks quite clear (though it could be overdone. I think the first mention of a common name in a section or paragraph could be in bold, with subsequent occurrences left plain) what do you think? SiGarb | Talk 23:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is so common (and what I have been brought up with) that I find (contrary to what Rkitko says), that not using capitals looks unprofessional, and very untidy to boot. As I've pointed out before, speaking from that kind of experience should probably be avoided as it could be viewed as a POV. And again, Wikipedia is not a field guide, so I think we should only be loosely guided by the styles that they use (interestingly, I have equal numbers of guides now that use the three different styles--SMALL CAPS, With Caps, and without caps). The styles employed by field guides and journal articles vary so widely most likely because of each editor or publisher's own specific rules. If we did a thorough investigation of a good sized sampling of all the field guides, I bet we'd find about a 33.33 : 33.33 : 33.33 ratio of styles, or close to it. Choosing one style from the field guides would most certainly be a POV choice. That's why I prefer to stick with my alleged religious faith in the Chicago MoS. Rkitko 05:25, 30 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Identification request

I've uploaded the following photos to the Commons. They were made on a trip passing through Sines, a coastal town in southern Portugal (birthplace of Vasco da Gama). I'm not sure what species this pine is, perhaps Pinus nigra laricio or Pinus strobus, but I could be completely wrong The leaves are all pointing upwards, giving it a surprising habit. Commons:Image:Sines07.jpg, Commons:Image:Sines08.jpg, Commons:Image:Sines09.jpg, and Commons:Image:Sines10.jpg JoJan 18:52, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That was fast ! No wonder, I didn't recognize these trees, my book "Trees of Britain and Europe" (Hamlyn guide) only mentions Araucaria araucana (Monkey Puzzle). I'll change the captions of these images in the Commons. JoJan 19:11, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Box Elder

All four of the references given with the Acer negundo article list "Box Elder" as its primary common name. When we look at almost any reference, the name Box Elder is given first. Box Elder is, by far, the name most used for this species...and I know that you know this. Please justify this Manitoba Maple business. ◄HouseOfScandal► 22:26, 1 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

You helped choose Cactus as this week's WP:AID winner

 Thank you for your support of the Article Improvement Drive.
This week Cactus was selected to be improved to featured article status.
Hope you can help.

MER-C 03:22, 3 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

revert

Mind explaining why you reverted my change on leaf? I failed to see any whitespace issues generated by it. Of course, I define whitespace only as vertical, and whitespace between text and the vertical sides of the screen doesn't count for me.

My change fixed,as the summary clearly stated, bunched up links caused by the three images. Also, it allowed the second image to be in a section where it was actually relevant. Circeus 15:19, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oh dear... Yes, it does create whitespace in IE, but not in firefox. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place. What do you think of removing the autumn leaf image from the article to solve that? It might be nice, but it doesn't seem to do anything useful there (and besides, it,s from commons). Maybe it can be moved to autumn, autumn leaf color or deciduous? Talking about it, I can't, for the life of me, figure a good way to incorporate a link to autumn leaf color in leaf, what do you think? Circeus 16:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, we can keep that third image,but move the placement one right before the list of terms too... Circeus 16:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]
And actually, i figured where to link autumn leaf color too!Circeus 16:31, 4 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

American Black Bear

You moved the article back to American Black Bear, citing WP:TOL, but I see nothing in that page (other than the statement that genera should be capitalized to support the suggestion that the title should be entirely capitalized -- and this is a species, not a genus. Please explain further. --Nlu (talk) 11:45, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Yams

Hi MPF. Great work you are doing here. I am in total agreement on your ideas about improving the treatment of yams here on WP. Steve Dufour 16:43, 5 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Bermuda cedar

I have reverted your confusing edit to Bermuda cedar, as you deleted practical information (common name). Also, your edit to the talk page seems to be utterly meaningless.

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