Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants

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Trees and things: How do people feel about the categories

There are a lot of things like Category:Trees of Borneo, Category:Angiosperms of Australia and so forth. How do people feel about them? Should we add them religiously to the plant pages, or... Brunswicknic (talk) 09:15, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

• I loathe these cross-concept categories. They completely mess up any attempt to produce a coherent category system. Consider the "Angiosperms of X" categories. If for every "Flora of X" category there was an "Angiosperms of X" category, there would be parallel category trees, which is fine. But there isn't, and shouldn't be where "Flora of X" is already small. Since they can't be used consistently, they aren't used consistently, so you have no idea whether an angiosperm native to X will be found in "Flora of X" or "Angiosperms of X". "Trees of X" is even worse, because in addition there's no clear botanical definition of "tree". I never add them to articles, but I don't remove them. DexDor has done some good work trying to clean up categories. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:12, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
• I'm now firmly against these intersectional categories. For some reason, they have attracted a lot of disruptive editing down the years. A mea culpa though, I created a few "Trees of" categories in my early days. But now I believe that only "Flora of" categories should be used. I would certainly add no articles to intersectional categories and if I see an overcategorised article, I'm happy to upmerge to "Flora of" categories. Peter has done excellent work on implementing the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions and, in my opinion, anything beyond that is superfluous. Declangi (talk) 23:40, 11 February 2021 (UTC)
• I'm not fond of these either, but I got the impression (maybe working with some of the Australian categories?) that they had been created to diffuse "Flora of location" categories which were perceived to have too many members. I don't think there's any policy or guideline that would mandate doing so, however. Choess (talk) 01:28, 12 February 2021 (UTC)
• I've occasionally added these, but only because I thought people liked them. Ridiculously fine-grained ones like Category:Trees of New Brunswick should be eliminated. Abductive (reasoning) 00:54, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

I can see that there is good reasons not to use these categories, that people do use them and that some people use them because of dissatisfaction with World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. At the moment I can see the reason for ignoring the Trees categories and will not use or maintain its use, but I suspect the Angiosperms, &c., have some rational rationale (sorry, couldn't resist), and will respect their use. Thank you all for your discussion and your ongoing improvement of WP. Brunswicknic (talk) 10:42, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

As Choess notes, there can be good reasons to diffuse a few over-large categories, and if this is done in a well defined way (e.g. splitting off angiosperms), it may well be justified, although given that only some geographical units will be worth diffusing, it does create issues for editors in finding out which category to use. I see the main problem to be ill-defined categorization concepts like "tree" or "bunch-grass" (or even "grass", where there have been arguments over whether bamboos are included). Peter coxhead (talk) 10:58, 18 February 2021 (UTC)

• I'd prefer they all be upmerged to "Category:Flora of X". —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 20:50, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Short descriptions

Hi All, Just added the importing short description tool and have starting doing a few imports on plant articles. Most plant species on wikidata seem to have the short description "Species of Plant". Before continuing I thought it might be worthwhile asking opinions of others as what would make a good short description for plants. For arguments sake what would be a good short description for a species of Corymbia?

• Species of plant
• Species of tree (assuming it is a tree)
• Species of Corymbia
• Species of Corymbia native to Australia
• or Something else.

Penny for your thoughts. Hughesdarren (talk) 05:33, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

I have been following the formula "Species of plant [or tree or shrub if appropriate] in the [Parent Taxa] from [description of range, i.e. Southeast Asia to India or Cambodia & Vietnam]". At present the protocol as I understand it is that we ignore introduced/naturalised range, and so native is redundant. Thanks for the short description work, it makes a lot of sense, and I presume that it helps in the machinery of WP. Brunswicknic (talk) 10:25, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

OK that sounds reasonable, given that no-one else seems interested, I'll go with your formula @Brunswicknic:. Regards. Hughesdarren (talk) 02:26, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

I realise that I need to clarify: by Parent taxa I mean Family, I haven't done any SD higher than genus level. Brunswicknic (talk) 06:57, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

My formula is the same as yours @Brunswicknic: except that I don't include the range, keeping in mind that the guidelines for short description ask us to keep it below 40 characters where appropriate. Given that it's only used as a very quick summary of an article in search results, I think that's enough for the searcher to decide if this is the article they are looking for.  Junglenut | talk  01:25, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks User:Junglenut for this, I had had a scan of short description explanations and couldn't find a limit, and this I thought the 2 main things I usually want to know is family and where so... Brunswicknic (talk) 10:40, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Brunswicknic:, you'll find it on this page WP:SHORTDESC, under the "formating" subheading.  Junglenut | talk  19:44, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Ta @Junglenut:, got it. It does say "be brief: aim for no more than about 40 characters (but this can be exceeded when necessary)." "Plant in the Myrtaceae family" is 29 characters, other families are longer, tree, vine, herb, and so on save one character. Hmm, I still would like range, some of these families are huge, I suggest that if the plant has a noteworthy range (cosmopolitan, endemic, or notably disjunctive) then we should stretch the short desc., otherwise such is life. Brunswicknic (talk) 09:40, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

I take your point @Brunswicknic:. I guess it will be dependant on the particular species (or genus or whatever) in question. What considerations should we take when deciding to expand beyond ~40 characters? The cut-off for the length of the SD on different devices would be one (I've no idea what they are at this point, or indeed if there even is a cut-off); endemicity, yes, if the state/country/region can be summarised in one or two words; but that's about as far as I would recommend.  Junglenut | talk  10:11, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

@Junglenut: I assume the 40 limit is there for a reason, the short desc. project looks good to me, so at present I would only add geography if that is noteworthy, which for most people I assume is endemism, and I would include the extreme disjunctive as well (say Microseris or Adansonia. Brunswicknic (talk) 10:22, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

@Brunswicknic: Ah, I missed your mention of disjunctive in your earlier post. Yes, that too. —  Junglenut | talk  11:35, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

The Plant List, vers1.1, now states "this is superseded, see World Flora Online"

fyi: "⚠ Version 1.1 of The Plant List has been superseded and should no longer be used.

The new version is available at http://www.worldfloraonline.org. The new version is enhanced, using more data sources including Taxonomic Expert Networks and will be more frequently updated."

So I presume we take it off the taxonbar now. Brunswicknic (talk) 06:53, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

User:Starzoner blocked indef

It looks like User:Starzoner has been blocked indef for his/her habit of making stubs too hastily and overwriting existing articles. Abductive (reasoning) 21:45, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Nah, they were blocked for being found out as a sockpuppet of a well-known serial offender. Huh. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:08, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Their offense was the way they created stubs. Sockpuppetry itself is not against the rules. Abductive (reasoning) 23:25, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Who the what now? Sockpuppetry by a blocked user IS against the rules, and that is clearly why Starzoner was blocked. Creating sourced stubs, on the other hand, is perfectly fine... - But, whatever. I'm actually more concerned by the distinct possibility that many hundreds of perfectly valid species stubs may now get G5'd, if that is how these cases are normally handled. That would seem like a net loss for process' sake :/ --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 23:43, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

Now they are deleting all his/her stubs. It is unfortunate, but s/he was abusively creating them. The reason s/he was blocked before is the reason their new account was caught. If they had created the stubs in a different manner, it would not have led to this. Users who reform their methods are not treated this way, even if they evade a block. Abductive (reasoning) 01:11, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

That is not how it works, and I have never seen a positive-outcome SPI that did not end in the block of all socks. But there's no benefit in continuing to argue about this. --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 01:57, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I have seen great variation in outcomes. Blocking is the least of them. Abductive (reasoning) 02:02, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Not specifically about Starzoner, but the policy now adopted of automatically deleting pages created by blocked/banned users, is causing havoc when taxonomy templates get deleted. Yesterday there were over 20 pages in the taxobox error-tracking categories because two genus taxonomy templates were deleted without the admin concerned checking for transclusions. I find this irritating, unnecessary and time-wasting. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:44, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Considering the sheer volume created and the lack of adequate content in most of the stubs created, not just irritating, unnecessary and time-wasting, sheer xxxx to have allowed the editor to do what he got away with - surely the volume of such creations should have been truncated somehow, in some projects there are various 'reviews' of status of articles, the guess is that this project has not the will, or the numbers to implement some form of new creation checking system? JarrahTree 10:59, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, there are different views about stubs, provided, of course, that they have at least one reliable secondary reference. I agree that it's irritating and time-wasting to leave stubs without key features, such as taxonbars, categories, talk page Wikiproject assessments, etc., and expect other editors to supply these. Thus I'm unhappy with Estopedist1's response at User talk:Estopedist1#Some improvements. But on the other hand, Estopedist1 has created stubs that are based solidly on Plants of the World Online. So complete stubs seem ok to me.

I don't think we have the number of active editors now to check all new creations, although Plantdrew does sterling work. If they have bad taxoboxes, then I will eventually catch them, but I don't have the time for other monitoring (more truthfully, I don't really have the time for the monitoring I do do!) Peter coxhead (talk) 11:09, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Having cleaned up a whole bunch of Starzoner's orchid stubs over the last holiday, I see essentially zero value in what Starzoner was and Estopedist1 is doing. Having run across various *Pleurothallis* stubs created years before, creating stubs doesn't seem to catalyze improvement to start-class or above in any meaningful way. If we can't offer anything more than what POWO does to the user, it's not clear why we should be manually mirroring it here, and in addition, any errors in POWO are being replicated by these mass creations. I'm not sure what "some form of new creation checking system" would amount to. I'm pretty sure that both of these users have been personally asked to try creating stubs of somewhat higher quality, with little result. In my experience, the community at large holds that creating large numbers of sub-stubs is a constructive activity. Unless their error rate is overwhelming, there will be no appetite for sanctions or attempting to raise quality through coercion. Choess (talk) 15:30, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

@Choess: yes, there's a difference between a "sub-stub" and what I called above a "complete stub", and I agree that creating sub-stubs is not productive, unless there's a clear intention to come back later and work on them. But there doesn't seem to be a consensus to stop this activity, so attempting to persuade seems to be all we can do. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:40, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Bonplandia

One of Estopedist1's pages (a dab page) is up for speedy deletion. It doesn't seem like a slam dunk to me. Any opinions? Lavateraguy (talk) 19:56, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I guess the argument will be that there are only two actual articles, so hatnotes will suffice. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:17, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

What is the protocol on getting "stubs" that we have worked on back? From scratch, or can we get access to text and recreate? Brunswicknic (talk) 09:40, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

WP:REFUND? Or ask here, there's probably a few of us with admin bits that can do it for you ad hoc. Choess (talk) 14:00, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

What is it called?

What is the correct name for these abbreviated botanical citations such as "Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 19: 154 (1894)" or "Suppl. Pl.: 208 (1781)" and is there a code or manual for them like the ICNCP? Abductive (reasoning) 19:24, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not sure there's a term for them, but IPNI incorporates standardized abbreviations for publications. Searching there will usually yield results. Choess (talk) 19:29, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Yeah but for example, for Alnus nitida, IPNI has it as "Gen. Pl. [Endlicher] Suppl. 4(2): 20 (1848).", PoWO has "Gen. Pl., Suppl. 4(2): 20 (1847)", WCSP has "Gen. Pl., Suppl. 4(2): 20 (1847).", and Tropicos has "Genera Plantarum (Endlicher) Suppl. 4(2): 20. 1847[1848]. (Aug-Oct 1848) (Gen. Pl.)". These are all different, and seem to be reading from a forgotten playbook. Abductive (reasoning) 19:42, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

The starting point is likely to be the abbreviations used in the volumes of Taxonomic Literature (TL), with variations decided on independently. The date differences do have some logic. IPNI, in order to determine priority, is interested in the actual date on which the publication appeared, as opposed to the date given on the title page. Other sources use the printed bibliographic date. Tropicos here shows both. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:13, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

So, which is preferred here? By the way, I have been putting the PoWO version in as its own citation in my articles, for example, in Sempervivum pittonii, but maybe there is a better place for it? Perhaps as a quote within the PoWO citation? Or maybe it could be made to appear in the taxonbar? Abductive (reasoning) 23:28, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

None of them should appear in the English Wikipedia. If the source of the protologue is used as a reference, it should be given in an accepted citation style, and none of these include abbreviated titles. Note that the original description can never be a reference for the validity of the name, since it doesn't demonstrate that it is acceptable under the ICNafp; you need a secondary reference for that. The original can be used for the description of the taxon or the etymology of the name, if discussed. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:53, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants

Hi all. For those of you who are interested in Australian rainforest flora, you will more than likely be familiar with the superb "Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants" identification tool (RFK), and how it has undergone a number of revised editions over the past decade or so.

One of those editions (Ed. 6, I believe) was hosted at the URL "trin.org.au" (hereon refered to as TRIN) in the form "http://keys.trin.org.au:8080/key-server/data/0e0f0504-0103-430d-8004-060d07080d04/media/Html/[page name]". At some point in 2020, the TRIN domain name was deregistered as it was no longer needed, as the latest edition of RFK is being hosted at https://apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest/text/intro/index.html.

In late February this year I discovered that someone had re-registered the TRIN domain and was using it for online gambling. "So what?" you might ask, but the problem is that there are literally hundreds of articles on Wikipedia that still use the old version of RFK in references, and I'm sure you'll agree that the new incarnation of TRIN is not the kind of site that Wikipedia should be linking to.

At the time I discovered this, there were more than 560 articles linking to TRIN. I have whittled it down, one article at a time, to around 480 by replacing the old RFK references with ones that refer to the latest edition of RFK. But it's a long road and I would be grateful if others would help out.

You can find articles linking to TRIN with this search. You can also see what I've already done by browsing through my contributions Cheers  Junglenut | talk  09:11, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Following up on the discussion at User_talk:Plantdrew#Australian_Rainforest_Key, should the {{RFK6.1}}template be updated to use the sandbox version? This will provide a fix for many of the citations by replacing the links with the new version 8 site (although archive.org links might be more appropriate). Then you could focus on the cite web citations. I was going to look at a new template with some version control, but haven't had time yet. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:43, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Hi @Jts1882: Looking back at that now I don't think it will be good enough as it still claims the source to be RFK6 but it links to RFK8. If there was some magic way of redirecting the links to the new site, that would be awesome. A possible solution may lie in the fact that the final section of the URL (i.e. the part of the URL following the last forward slash) for both versions are exactly the same except for the capitalisation of the genus name, but case in URLs are irrelevant and all letter characters are treated as lower case. That would work for almost all of the links, but there are some species names that have been changed between the two versions and we would be left with a "404 page not found" error.  Junglenut | talk  10:40, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, the versioning is an issue, which is why I mentioned that a link to archive.org might be more appropriate for the main link. Then a link to the new site could be added with appropriate comment. Ideally we want to link to the source used and provide the reader direction to the new site. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:53, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

Here is a template you can use for the new version. It can be used in two ways:

(1) use |genus= and |species= parameters (with an optional {{para|authority) parameter

{{BioRef|ATRP|genus=Buckinghamia |species=celsissima|access-date=23 March 2021}}

• Zich, F. A.; Hyland, B. P. M.; Whiffin, T.; Kerrigan, R.A. (2020). "Buckinghamia celsissima". Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants. Edition 8. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Retrieved 23 March 2021.

{{BioRef|ATRP|genus=Buckinghamia |species=celsissima|authority=F.Muell.  |access-date=23 March 2021}}

• Zich, F. A.; Hyland, B. P. M.; Whiffin, T.; Kerrigan, R.A. (2020). "Buckinghamia celsissima F.Muell." Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants. Edition 8. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). Retrieved 23 March 2021.

(2) use |title= and |url=

{{BioRef|ATRP|title=''Buckinghamia celsissima'' F.Muell. |url=https://apps.lucidcentral.org/rainforest/text/entities/buckinghamia_celsissima.htm |display-authors=3 |mode=cs2|access-date=23 March 2021}}

• Zich, F. A.; Hyland, B. P. M.; Whiffin, T.; et al. (2020), "Buckinghamia celsissima F.Muell.", Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants, Edition 8, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), retrieved 23 March 2021

The author list was taken from the old template so probably needs updating (and is all that stuff in publisher wanted?). The author list can be truncated with |display-authors=3 or use |mode=cs2, as in the last example, and can take any parameters in the CS1/CS2 template suite as it is (or tries to be) fully compliant with the CS1/CS2 system.

This can be used to create a {{ATRP}} template or used from the general {{BioRef}} template, as above. Other options can easily be added, e.g if there are pages for higher taxa (family, genus, etc). Let me know what you want. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:47, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

That still leaves us with a "one article at a time" scenario. I was hoping that there would be a way to re-write the references automatically. But if that's how it is, so be it.

"and is all that stuff in publisher wanted?" - IMO, no. Using this page as a guide, I have been using this format for my updates to the pages:

<ref name="RFK8">{{cite web |access-date=blah |title=blah |url=blah |author=F.A. Zich |author2=B.P.M Hyland |author3=T. Whiffen |author4=R.A. Kerrigan |website=[[Australian Tropical Rainforest Plants]], Edition 8 |year=2020 |publisher=[[Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation]] (CSIRO) }}</ref>

 Junglenut | talk  11:21, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

@Jts1882: When I said that I hoped there was some way to re-write all the references automacially, I was hoping that someone could design a bot that would do the job. Maybe that's too pie-in-the-sky?

Mystery Euphorbia

I was given for my birthday a "desert candle cactus" labelled Euphorbia acruensis. Online I find various outlets selling the plant and just four results from searching on Google Scholar. This one doesn't give an authority but has a picture of a plant that looks like mine. It states that the plant is "found in Africa, America and parts of South East Asia". Wikipedia does not have an article for it nor is it included on the page List of Euphorbia species. Wikipedia does have an article Euphorbia abyssinica, which according to The Plant List has a synonym Euphorbia acrurensis (note the extra "r"), so I have started expanding it. But E. abyssinica is restricted to the Horn of Africa. So, do the Google Scholar results for E. acruensis refer to the same plant? One of the results refers to its use in the green synthesis of silver nanoparticles, which I would add to the Euphorbia abyssinica article if I was confident it was the same plant. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:20, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

@Cwmhiraeth: The original description of Euphorbia acrurensis here is worth looking at. It seems there was confusion over the identity and relationship with Euphorbia abyssinica from the beginning. N. E. Brown distinguished E. acrurensis from E. abyssinica largely by its having 7-angled rather than 4-angled stems, which doesn't seem very satisfactory. Jacobsen's A Handbook of Succulent Plants (original in German 1954, English translation 1960) [the 'bible' for succulents], Vol. 1, has photos under both names on pp. 404–405, but the one labelled Euphorbia abyssinica has at least 6-angled stems, whereas the one labelled Euphorbia acrurensis has 4-angled stems, and Jacobsen's descriptions fit the photos, with E. abyssinica said to have stems with up to 8 angles and E. acrurensis to have 4-angled stems, which is the opposite of Brown's description. The distribution Jacobsen gives for E. abyssinica is wider and includes the distribution he gives for E. acrurensis. Jacobsen says of E. acrurensis "this species is distributed in gardens under the name Euphorbia abyssinica". If they are distinct species, the photo you linked to looks like Jacobsen's E. acrurensis.

I would go with the Plants of the World Online entry, including the distribution. But whether your plant is the same species is another matter! I grow quite a number of cacti and other succulents, and have learnt by experience to be very sceptical of the names used in commerce. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:58, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

OK, thank you. I think I will give a miss to the silver nanoparticles; I thought it strange that the Kaushik Roy article didn't give an authority for the plant he was researching, which seems a glaring omission, especially as he had spelt the specific name incorrectly. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:34, 23 March 2021 (UTC)

Rule of thumb - don't rely on scientific papers for facts not directly related to their subject. (I find it shocking what gets through peer review.) The paper here doesn't give a citation for the implausible distribution, and gives an invalid citation for the presence and constituents of the latex.

The taxonomic and floristic literature gives authorities for IC(B)N names. I have the impression that the horticultural, phytochemical and pharmacological literature is rather less rigorous on this point. Lavateraguy (talk) 08:01, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

If you interpret South East Asia as an error for South West Asia the distribution would be less implausible - I expect that several of the African stem-succulent spurges do extend into South West Asia, and it's not beyond the bounds of imagination that a species could be naturalised in the American southwest. (However FNA says that none of them have.) So even with that reintepretation the origin of the statement of the distribution baffles me. Lavateraguy (talk) 08:16, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

@Lavateraguy: I'm pretty sure the paper is based entirely on plants in cultivation. It's worth noting that in general the taxonomy of stem succulents is notoriously difficult; they don't preserve well in herbaria, and identifications and classifications were based often on morphological features that are frequently more variable than the authors realized. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:55, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

There is a slight complication over the name Euphorbia abyssinica. IPNI and PoWO have Euphorbia abyssinica J.F.Gmel. The protologue here relies on illustrations in Bruce trav. There appear to be versions of this work under slightly different titles with varying divisions into volumes and pages, because sources give different volumes and page numbers. The images in BHL are on successive pages here – Dublin edition, vol. 6, following p. 50. Jacobsen uses the name Euphorbia abyssinica Raeusch. This name isn't in IPNI, but its entry for Euphorbia abyssinica J.F.Gmel. has a note at the bottom referring to "A. Rich. Tent. Fl. Abyss. 2: 239", which is here, and shows the two names are based on the same illustrations. (Räuschel's work is little more than a listing of names; compare this with this.) It would probably be useful if IPNI explicitly contained Euphorbia abyssinica Raeusch. explaining its status. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:39, 24 March 2021 (UTC)

Cycads and Cycadales

We currently have two separate articles on Cycads and Cycadales. The only difference between them according to the taxobox is apparently Cycads also include the seed fern group Medullosales. As far as I can tell, Medullosales are one of many enigmatic incertae sedis extinct plant groups without any clear association to any living seed plant group, and both articles almost exclusively talk about modern cycads. Having two very similar articles effectively covering the exact same topic is confusing to readers. In my reading of the paleobotanical literature, "Cycadales" is universally used to mean the group containing all modern cycads. In my opinion one of the articles should be redirected into the other, and any useful content should be merged in. Thoughts? Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:19, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

No source is given for placing Medullosales in Cycadopsida in the cycad article. Most modern phylogenetic studies of cycads are molecular; I can only find quite old sources for extinct groups. Taylor, Taylor & Krings (2009) put Medullosales in the paraphyletic Pteridospermophyta (their orthography), which has support in other oldish sources. Molecular studies put cycads close to or in gymnosperms, which Medullosales is pretty clearly not. So I support removing Medullosales from the cycad article, and merging. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:51, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

From my reading of the paleobotanical literaure, Pteridospermophyta and the equivalent term "seed fern" is a wastebasket taxon used to refer collectively refer to a number of extinct gymnosperm (sensu lato, the earliest plants that produced seeds appeared in the Late Devonian) groups with fern-like foliage, though some of these so called "seed ferns" such as Caytoniales have foliage like Sagenopteris that is pretty unfernlike. I presume that Cycad is the article that should be merged into, per the discussion at Talk:Conifer? Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:07, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Well, "paraphyletic" sounds better than "wastebasket", but in the case of pteridosperms amounts much the same thing. Yes, merge to "Cycad" in my view. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:58, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Done, the cycadales was twice the size of cycad, but much of the text was uncited and I don't think it was worth saving. Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:39, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Cycad cleanup

The cycad article gets around 500 views per day, but is in a pretty sorry state, massive amounts of uncited text, anyone interested in cleaning this up? Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:39, 28 March 2021 (UTC) Hemiauchenia (talk) 13:27, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

References

Usage of Category:Taxa named by ...

When adding the Taxa named by ... categories to articles, how do we take into account revising authors? So, for example, (Pall.) Link., does the article need both Category:Taxa named by Peter Simon Pallas and Category:Taxa named by Johann Heinrich Friedrich Link? Or only the one? Which one? What about ex, such as Korth. ex Miq.? I did a random survey of plant articles, and all combinations can be found in roughly equal numbers. I have searched various pages in the Wikiproject, and there is no guidance. (There was guidance on Plants described in year categorization.) Abductive (reasoning) 21:04, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

There's no guidance because this WikiProject was not consulted (so far as I know) about the creation of the "Taxa named by ..." categories, which I would personally have opposed. One real problem is that "Taxa named by" is unclear between "Taxa whose name was first given by ... (but not necessarily published)" and "Taxa whose name was first (validly) published by ..." Only the latter works if ICNafp and ICZN names are to be put in the same category. It would be better for the categories to be called "Taxa first published by ..."

If names under the ICZN as well as names under the ICNafp are to be put in these categories, only the first describer should be used, since the ICZN ignores the transferring author. This also ensures that the criteria match "TAXA described in YEAR" categories, since these are for species by the year of first description.

"Ex" authorities are always an issue; IPNI and other sources are inconsistent in their use of "ex", partly because they have combined data from different sources that handled "ex" differently. Given that "Korth. ex Miq." should mean that Korthals thought up the name but didn't (validly) publish it, so it was first published by Miquel but attributed to Korthals, then it could be argued that Korthals should be the author used in a "named by" category. However, again, there's an issue of consistency with the ICZN, which doesn't use the same "ex" approach, so for an animal Miquel would be the only option.

The other difficulty arises with a nomen novum. The taxon (species) was first named by the author(s) who published the name that needs to be replaced. Consider Persicaria maculosa. It was first named as Polygonum persicaria by Linnaeus. But the currently accepted name is Persicaria maculosa, the name given to it by Gray. Do you put the article "Persicaria maculosa" in the category "Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus" even though this isn't his name?

Basically, these categories are a poorly thought through mess, which I deliberately ignore. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:22, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

By the way, there's another whole can of worms if taxa higher than species are included. For example, the subtribe Echinocereinae was first named by Britton and Rose in 1922 (but as "Echinocereanae", not with the modern standard subtribe ending). In 1958, Buxbaum published the tribe name Echinocereeae (as "Echinocereae", which is a misspelling as it is based on Echinocereus). Buxbaum wrote "trib. nov.", but explicitly referred to Britton and Rose's subtribe, so he was effectively raising the subtribe to a tribe. Some sources use the authority "Buxb.", others (fewer) use "(Britton & Rose) Buxb[.|aum]". So what category should Echinocereeae be placed in? Was it named by Britton and Rose or by Buxbaum? Does it depend on what the majority of sources say? In my experience, sources are very inconsistent about the authority for higher taxa that are changed in rank. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:54, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

I see. And named is not the same thing as described. I have only been adding Category:Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus to articles, and ignoring all others. I suppose I will continue doing so. Thanks. Abductive (reasoning) 15:35, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that answer. I have been meaning to ask a similar question for some time, as the ambiguities described above have bothered me. Ignoring them for the time being seems healthy. We could discuss how to revamp the category system in a way that's more carefully grounded on the ICN, although the inconsistency of "ex" handling, for instance, suggests that some parts of the taxon attribution are not WP:DEFINING. Choess (talk) 15:43, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

List of plant genus names

Has no-one seen List of plant genus names (A–C) and the other three articles that complete this alphabetical list? Now, I don't edit plant articles and I have no background in botany, but this looks like complete and utter foolishness. Who would want to compile and maintain an alphabetical list of all plant genera? The work of some over-enthusiastic 15-year-old newbie, which would quickly be swept away at AfD, I would assume. But no: created by an experienced Wikipedian, they have all been nominated for featured list status, and – surreally – all passed with flying colours.

Are the lists complete? Obviously they can't be – with under 2,500 entries in total between the four lists, they represent a fraction of the plant genera on Wikipedia. There must be something I'm missing here? If not, then these articles need to be either sent to AfD, or replaced with pointers to some automatically generated list of plant genera that will actually be complete.

The lists' main sources appear to be Stearn's Dictionary of Plant Names for Gardeners and Plants of the World, which could explain the selectiveness of the coverage. If these lists are kept, then at least their titles would need to be changed and the text clarified to make it clear the lists are incomplete and biased towards plants of interest to gardeners. – Uanfala (talk) 21:54, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Agree these lists are not manageable, and are already missing all extinct genera, eg Dillhoffia and Langeria @Dank:, what is your end goal for these lists, what is the scope, who do you feel will be maintaining them, with new taxa described monthly.--Kevmin § 22:04, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

Let's tackle one thing at a time. Are there any objections to adding "Stearn's" to the name of these four lists? Would that help? - Dank (push to talk) 22:50, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

O-kay, since there's no discussion here, let's continue this at WT:FLC#Renaming the plant lists. - Dank (push to talk) 13:26, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree, lists of all flowering plant genera are not maintainable due to conflicts between different authorities and the constant reassigning and description of new genera. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:07, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm aware that botanists won't ever settle on a master list of plant genera. All I'm interested in, and all I'm doing, is researching etymologies of genus names from high-quality sources. It's completely up to you guys which genus names I should be working on and where those names come from, as I've said, several times now. If you want more Featured Lists (and there are some advantages to going the Featured List route), then it's important to have stable sources ... they love books, for instance ... which is why I've relied heavily on Plants of the World (2017) for "accepted" genera, and almost entirely on books for etymologies (and Burkhardt, which at least has an ISBN). (And my current Featured List candidate relies on POWO to avoid some obvious mistakes in PotW, but I'd be perfectly happy to toss POWO.) But I'm not even wedded to the Featured List process ... if you guys prefer sources that wouldn't be accepted at WP:FLC, that's fine, tell me now, I'd rather have lists the project can get behind than have Featured Lists. All I ask is that you not jerk me around ... if people have strong feelings about what I should include or not include, I need to know now, not after another year's worth of work. - Dank (push to talk) 03:13, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

And, just to be clear, even though the current Stearn-based list is titled "List of plant genus names" (a title that wasn't my c14,-hoice, and will soon change), this is not and was never intended as a list of all plant genera. It's a list of entries from Stearn, with high-quality etymological information from several reliable sources, with outdated genus names trimmed by consulting PotW. - Dank (push to talk) 12:14, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

My suggestion for the rename is either "List of accepted plant genera from Stearn" or "List of plant genus etymologies from Stearn". (The second is a little misleading since the etymologies come from several sources, but it might be necessary to get the word "etymologies" in there somewhere to avoid trouble.) - Dank (push to talk) 12:42, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm thinking about the inclusion criteria. Would you accept additional genera in the lists if they weren't in Stearn but accepted by POWO and had reliably-sourced etymologies? Choess (talk) 13:00, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Something like that is exactly where I'm headed ... but I think people are underestimating the job. It will take years, and has to be done piecemeal ... you can't just beaver away at a list of around 14,000 entries and then present people with it and expect everything to go well. What I've got up at FLC right now is List of plant genera named for people (A–C) ... that list is the intersection of accepted genera from POWO with the best etymological sources I could find. It comes close to covering all the genera in POWO named for people ... we're way beyond Stearn at this point. (Again, I'm aware of problems with POWO, but I'm taking advantage of the fact that POWO is close to PotW, and FLC people like PotW, so if the list needs to change, I'm hoping not too much needs to change.) If all goes well with this new list series and I stop taking flak for the Stearn series, then I'd be willing to start on a long alphabetical list after that. And collaborators would be nice, too, of course ... but the books are expensive, the job is hard, the rewards are few, and you can expect to take flak for a variety of reasons and non-reasons. - Dank (push to talk) 13:14, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I might just go with "List of accepted plant genera with etymologies". I understand why you're principally using Stearn, but it seems weird to me, from an encyclopedic perspective, to make that a formal criterion for a list. Piling up 14,000 genera is a monumental task, but I'm not sure maintenance is as impossible as it sounds. I'm not a python coder, but it looks, superficially, like it might be possible to use the "modified" and "added" fields in the POWO API to keep tabs on newly accepted genera added there. So I'm not convinced that a more or less complete list would necessarily be unmaintainable. Choess (talk) 13:42, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

I think that is a good name for the list article title. The title should be as simple as possible while explaining the content in a general way. The principal source and criteria can be explained in the lede paragraph. This will probably change with time and you don't want to keep moving the page.

I'll add that I appreciate that such list require a lot of effort that there will be naysayers. It's a niche subject. Don't get discouraged. —  Jts1882 | talk  14:37, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks much, always appreciated. Are we talking about "List of accepted plant genera with etymologies" for the longer list or for the 4 Stearn pages? - Dank (push to talk) 15:58, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Im going to be honest, these list feel very wp:crufty to me. The etymologies should be covered in the respective genus articles, rather than in 4 long lists that are likely to be looked at as info dumps from Sterns.-Kevmin § 16:19, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

There has to be some kind of division of labor here. I'm doing this in lists for my protection and for yours. (One of the worst things any wikiproject has to deal with is new people making rapid changes to a lot of pages). Anyone can transfer the information from the lists into articles if they want to (and if you do, please leave me out of it, I've got my hands full with the lists). For the other question, we're probably trying to deal with too much at once as it is, I'll save that for later. - Dank (push to talk) 16:34, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

To clarify, if this gave the wrong impression: if someone decides to transfer information from one of these lists to, say, a genus article, and that provokes a response or a question, I'll be happy to help with research and discussion, and make an edit if necessary ... to the list. And then if someone else wants to make a corresponding edit to the genus page, fine. Everyone is responsible for their own edits. It's like the old joke: "Hey, Doc, it hurts when I do this!" "So don't do that!" If you're pulling info from these lists into genus articles ... heck, if you're pulling information from anywhere into genus articles ... and it seems to be causing problems, then it might make sense to stop doing that. We can't please everyone. - Dank (push to talk) 23:42, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Protecting me from what? I'm a paleobotany and paleoentomology editor. These lists are not at all in my direct area of editing. This information should only be at the genus articles. There is no rational need for them to exist, if I'm being blunt. I will note that the plant terminlology glossery is actually far into the realm of original research and synth, thus they would likley not survive any challenge at aft.--Kevmin § 18:08, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Protecting you plural, the wikiproject, from an editor who's relatively new to botany (me) making rapid-fire changes to many articles at once. Everyone who has ever felt connection to a wikiproject knows how difficult it can be to deal with new, eager, rapid-fire editors. And of course, I'm a volunteer, and I can set limits on how many different people and different issues I'm willing to deal with at the same time ... and I can confidently say that I'm not willing to deal with 14,000 pages and all the associated editors at once. Not going to happen. - Dank (push to talk) 18:25, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

Again though, protecting from what? if you were adding the information with acceptable referencing then there isn't an issue to start with. If "dealing with people" is the rational, just make sure to unwatch the pages edited. As these lists stand they are a content fork/dump from an outdated and highly pov restricted source. They do not merit F L status.--Kevmin § 19:30, 30 March 2021 (UTC)

This seems overly negative to me. You're welcome to nominate the lists to get de-featured by following the directions at WP:FLRC ... anyone is ... and that might be a better forum to deal with questions like these. But I don't take offense, and there are a host of things that might be causing the problem here ... I tried to take a reasonable guess what the problem is here, and I responded on your talk page. - Dank (push to talk) 23:42, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm not as exercised by this, but I think Somatochlora hit the basic issue at FLC talk: "is the genus in Stearn?" is a fairly arbitrary criterion for inclusion, maybe scraping up against WP:LISTN. If that criterion is lifted, the lists are very much incomplete and it would be premature to take them to FLC. So they're either very arbitrary or very unfinished.

I'm more sanguine about maintenance prospects for a really comprehensive list. Yes, change is continuous, but GLOVAP→POWO and similar projects exist because it is more or less possible to keep track of current genera, so I wouldn't consider it an impossibility. If others find lists with just name and etymology really objectionable, they could always be pages in projectspace here, used to update individual genera articles as they get written. If you're researching etymology and etymology only, there's much less friction in having a central page to add to (articlespace or not), rather than having to create thousands of stubs (with taxoboxes?) in course of work. Choess (talk) 00:30, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I'm going to try "radical honesty" on your talk page ... that is, I'll just dump everything that comes to mind and trust that you'll be able to sort it out. I've seen you work and I trust your judgment. Whatever we come up with, we can bring it back here. - Dank (push to talk) 00:52, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Some people are saying that they'd like a list that's similar to the current 4-page list but different in some ways ... perhaps a list of genera that were in cultivation back then, or are in cultivation now, along with their etymologies. This should be doable, but if that's the goal, then the last thing you want to do is blow up the Stearn lists, because getting lists through WP:FLC is time-consuming, and reviewers don't like it when you make extra work for them. A full or selected list of plants in cultivation would probably have enough overlap with the Stearn list to allow us to add rows to the Stearn list and then get the result through FLC much faster, without putting a burden on reviewers ... but if I'm going to help with this, then I need to be able to look at a discussion that makes me think that people want this and they've come up with a list of sources that I could defend at FLC. There's no rush ... I'll be busy with writing for two or three weeks. - Dank (push to talk) 13:21, 2 April 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, I think remaking the Stearn lists into "List of cultivated genera" or some title like that is the best way to go in the future. "Is the name in Stearn's?" strikes me as an odd list criterion, but I don't think we have to rush in to tear it down as it's clearly a good nucleus for an expanded list. Since you're taking an active interest in it, I don't think it would be profitable to delete it or whatever. I think it's OK to be particular about the sourcing in deeming a genus "cultivated" (using catalogs of cultivated plants like Stearn's rather than individual primary and secondary reports of cultivation), which makes the task more viable. I'm not very much a hort person: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening is in theory a good place to ask for sources, but in practice it looks pretty dead. Choess (talk) 00:30, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Goodenia arenicola

Hello, WikiProject Plants,

This article has a red link category, Category:Nature Conservation Act extinct biota. I don't know what it means so can't create it to fit into the existing Wikipedia category structure. And it seems to be tied into some template so it can not be removed from the article without altering other information.

If anyone is either a) familiar with this act and so you can create the category or b) can see that the red link category is in error and there is a way to remove it, your help would be most welcome. Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:29, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

P.S. In the course of the past week, I've visited probably 8 WikiProject talk pages and I just wanted to say how lovely is it is to see an active WikiProject where there is talk page discussion. Many existing WikiProjects have moved to semi-active or inactive status. Nice to see this one humming along. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:34, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks Liz. Why is that, do you think? Covid? - Dank (push to talk) 03:21, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Hey Liz. Being an extinct species from Queensland (Australian state), the category likely refers to the Nature Conservation Act 1992 for that state. The article linked gives a pretty good explanation but the act itself is also cited in the references should you need, hopefully that helps. Cheers Helrasincke (talk) 08:28, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

It looks like the category is being auto-generated by the taxobox (speciesbox), specifically the "Conservation status" portion. The category in question would belong to the category tree under Category:Biota of Queensland by Nature Conservation Act status. This source says its status was changed to "Extinct", but this system only has an "Extinct in the wild" and not an "Extinct" status. See, e.g., the legend in the most recent changes, or our article on Nature Conservation Act 1992. I've changed the parameter in the taxobox to "EW" for "Extinct in the wild"; I don't know if the speciesbox code for conservation status needs to be changed or if parsing "EX" as "Extinct" for any system is intended behavior (which it could well be). Choess (talk) 15:29, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

@Gderrin: has pointed out that "Extinct" does, in fact, exist under that system, so I've filled out the category tree appropriately. Choess (talk) 21:20, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Ooops! I should have had this page on my watchlist. Thanks to @Choess: for clearing this up. Gderrin (talk) 21:37, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Pennisetum clandestinum to Cenchrus clandestinus?

Hello everyone at WikiProject Plants!

I've just started a horticultural course this year and was doing some research for a project, during which I noticed that Plants of the World Online has Pennisetum clandestium listed as a (presumably superseded?) synonym for Cenchrus clandestinus. I don't know enough about the world of botany or wikipedia editing to know for certain whether that means this is the currently accepted one (although POWO would surely be an authority), and in that case how best to update the relevant article here to reflect that change. At the risk of seeming overly cautious, what is the best way to proceed? Cheers Helrasincke (talk) 08:25, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

If you look at Pennisetum, you'll see that PoWO has merged the entire genus into Cenchrus. Whether this is justified or not, I don't know. However, I do know that PoWO has recently taken a "lumping" stand in other areas of plant taxonomy (e.g. ferns), which we aren't obliged to follow if other sources don't. However, if you look at what GrassBase (another Kew database) describes in the introduction as "Index of all accepted grass names" at Generic Index, it includes both Cenchrus and Pennisetum, so the two databases seem to be out of step. Personally, I wouldn't go with PoWO at present. There are issues about updates to all the Kew databases, because staff have been furloughed as part of Covid-19 restrictions.

But I don't keep up with grass taxonomy; maybe there's someone here who does? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:53, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Florabase provides this note on the current name (of what is locally an invasive): "Pennisetum clandestinum Chiov. is more recently known as Cenchrus clandestinus (Chiov.) Morrone / Reason: See M.A. Chemisquy et al. in Ann.Bot.106:127(2010)" ~ cygnis insignis 10:38, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

See, perhaps, the abstract here: [1] "Recent molecular research has confirmed that Cenchrus and Pennisetum (Gramineae) should be united. For nomenclatural, not practical, reasons, Cenchrus is accepted as the correct name." [2] is recent and suggests that the question is still unsettled, although I find their abstract hard to parse. Choess (talk) 15:14, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

The abstract is opaque, but the final sentence of the conclusion is definitive enough: "Our study supported monophyly of Cenchrus and Pennisetum species". The NJ tree shows six clusters: one for Bothriochloa, Dichanthium and Panicum species" (all apomictic), one for sexual Cenchrus, one for apomictic Cenchrus, one for sexual Pennisetum, and two for apomictic Pennisetum species. The three apomictic Cenchrus and Pennisetum clusters group together, as do the two sexual Cenchrus and Pennisetum clusters, so in days past when NJ analysis was more widespread they would be considered clades. But authors seem to take the observation that there is no mixing of species within any of the clusters as evidence of monophyly for the two genera. Regardless of the merit of this conclusion, the issue is clearly still being debated. —  Jts1882 | talk  16:58, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Reviewing new plants

I have been trying to share the burden and look at new plant articles. I have come across one and would like to seek advice. Cladonia squamosa, a type of lichen. I had a look at the sites on the taxonbar, the first four give a different authority to the one the article uses, there is no ref for synonyms, though I have not looked at all the taxonbar sites. What advice? Do I ask the editor to rewrite, do I rewrite it myself, what do you do? Brunswicknic (talk) 11:43, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

The taxonbar entries are Cladonia subsquamosa. According to the ITIS entry on Cladonia, Cladonia squamosa (Scop.) Hoffm. and Cladonia subsquamosa (Nyl. ex Leight.) Cromb are different species. Mycobank has Cladonia squamosa (Scop.) Hoffm. and both Cladonia subsquamosa Kremp. and Cladonia subsquamosa (Nyl. ex Leight.) Cromb. as legitimate. The article Cladonia squamosa seems to be linked to the wrong Wikidata item (Cladonia subsquamosa (Q3678943)), when it should be Cladonia squamosa (Q22114140). All a bit muddled. —  Jts1882 | talk  14:48, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

I change the Wikidata record and the taxonbar makes more sense. The Mycobank record has numerous varieties and forms including Cladonia squamosa var. subsquamosa, which is confusing if Cladonia subsquamosa is also a species. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:08, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

A bain: page does and does not exist

Wurfbainia elegans, but title says Wurfbania elegans (ban not bain, but it is being a bain). Title is wrong, so I tried to move it to Wurbainia elegans, can't, page already exists, request uncontroversial move, can't Wurfbania elegans does not exist. So how do I change this wrong title? Brunswicknic (talk) 09:41, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

It may need admin rights since the redirect already had a page history? I've moved it and cleaned up the redirects. Choess (talk) 13:41, 31 March 2021 (UTC)

Solanum violaceum

When was the description for Solanum violaceum Ortega published? All that PoWO and IPNI say is, Nov. Rar. Pl. Descr. Dec.: 56 and Nov. Rar. Pl. Descr. Dec. 56; Jacq. Fragm. 82. Abductive (reasoning) 01:17, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Possibly 1798, at least that's the date on the title page of Novarum, aut Rariorum Plantarum Horti Reg. Botan. Matrit. Descriptionum Decades, cum Nonnullarum Iconibus that includes the description of S. violaceum. Gderrin (talk) 01:56, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Looks like it's Novarum, aut rariorum plantarum, etc., v. 5, p. 56, published 1798. Jacquin's Fragmenta Botanica, p. 82 cites Ortega for the name and postdates him. Sometimes I see entries like these in IPNI; I think they're carried over from the original Index Kewensis, and may just indicate that the second reference modified the diagnosis. (Ortega describes the species as a series of characters, rather than a single block of Latin prose like Jacquin.) As far as I know, Ortega's description would still represent the first effective publication of the name. Choess (talk) 01:57, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Okay, so how is it senior to Solanum indicum L. if Linnaeus died in 1778? Abductive (reasoning) 02:08, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

The answer seems to be that Solanum indicum L. is a name of uncertain and perhaps indeterminable application and has been formally rejected ("nom. rej.") in IPNI. Some discussion here towards the end. Choess (talk) 03:15, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Interesting, thanks. Abductive (reasoning) 03:31, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

@Abductive: if you're curious, the rejection was published in Taxon, 32(2):279. doi:10.2307/1221981 (which also includes bibliographic info about the proposal). It looks kind of an odd case looking back: nowadays we'd conserve the type if this came up today, but I believe that procedure wasn't in the code at the time. Interestingly enough, the briefly mentioned name Solanum ferox was also subsequently rejected (proposal: Taxon 60:1782-1783; rejected: Taxon 61:1116). Circéus (talk) 13:36, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

It sure is odd. I stiil don't see why there is no year on the abbreviated citation above. Abductive (reasoning) 14:50, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

@Abductive: see this entry, which does have a date. There is, I believe, a long term plan to reconcile the different entries for the same name in IPNI, which represent inputs from different sources, some of which, as Choess notes above, included mentions and discussions as well as new namings. However, this is labour intensive and so costly. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:56, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I have switched the entries on Wikidata. I hope that is okay. Abductive (reasoning) 03:04, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

@Abductive: good idea! Peter coxhead (talk) 19:14, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Commons photos identification

Anyone have any idea what the first three photos at commons:category:Nematanthus fritschii 3 photos named "Nematanthus fritschii" at commons:Category:Specimens in the Botanischer Garten, Berlin-Dahlem are? Clearly not what they are labelled. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:23, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

Salvia? Lavateraguy (talk) 10:17, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

That was my first thought, too. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:44, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

I moved the three to commons:Category:Specimens in the Botanischer Garten, Berlin-Dahlem and modified the descriptions. Anyone else have a view? Plantsurfer? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:18, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

Salvia splendens perhaps? There are plenty of images on Commons. Plantsurfer 19:39, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

PlantNet Identify gives Salvia splendens, followed by unconvincing lower probability alternatives, but I'm not convinced that it's Salvia splendens or Salvia microphylla, so I'd be looking for an obscurer red-flowered Salvia. (The shape of the flowers reminds me Salvia patens - Salvia splendens is "coarser".) Lavateraguy (talk) 19:59, 6 April 2021 (UTC)

The flowers have only a smallish opening and the lower lobe is not large and obvious, which rules out many of the "Mexican salvias" in cultivation. The nearest flower shape I've seen online is some images identified as "Salvia holwayi", but it's not an exact match. There are many red-flowered salvias! Peter coxhead (talk) 09:00, 7 April 2021 (UTC)

Flora of Australia Online template is down

While translating Persoonia teminalis in french, I noticed that Template:Flora of Australia Online links to this 404 page. The page I was looking for has been moved here since February 2020. It seems that the whole catalogue has been moved.

Any way to fix this? Do we keep the template or remplace it by regular citations altogether? J. N. Squire (talk) 14:13, 7 April 2021 (UTC)