There is currently an edit war going on at ''[[Thuja]]'' about whether or not to include information on its homeopathic uses. It looks like one or two anti-homeopathy editors resent any mention of the homeopathic uses and are removing any such mentions, however neutrally worded. A quick web search turned up plenty of information on Thuja's use in homeopathy (BTW a discipline which I consider quack medicine, so I can hardly be accused of having a pro-homeopathy POV) and this was supported by at least one notable citation within the article itself, so in my opinion it should be at least briefly mentioned in the article. I'm raising the issue here because I imagine this controversy is being played out, or will be played out, at any number of plant articles. Edited to add: a quick check of the editing history of one of the edit warring editors, [[User:ScienceApologist]] reveals that [[User:Hardyplants]] has already been contending with this issue in the [[Aconitum napellus]] article; [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aconitum_napellus&diff=185894898&oldid=185832660 this edit] is representative of what is happening. [[User:MrDarwin|MrDarwin]] ([[User talk:MrDarwin|talk]]) 19:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
There is currently an edit war going on at ''[[Thuja]]'' about whether or not to include information on its homeopathic uses. It looks like one or two anti-homeopathy editors resent any mention of the homeopathic uses and are removing any such mentions, however neutrally worded. A quick web search turned up plenty of information on Thuja's use in homeopathy (BTW a discipline which I consider quack medicine, so I can hardly be accused of having a pro-homeopathy POV) and this was supported by at least one notable citation within the article itself, so in my opinion it should be at least briefly mentioned in the article. I'm raising the issue here because I imagine this controversy is being played out, or will be played out, at any number of plant articles. Edited to add: a quick check of the editing history of one of the edit warring editors, [[User:ScienceApologist]] reveals that [[User:Hardyplants]] has already been contending with this issue in the [[Aconitum napellus]] article; [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aconitum_napellus&diff=185894898&oldid=185832660 this edit] is representative of what is happening. [[User:MrDarwin|MrDarwin]] ([[User talk:MrDarwin|talk]]) 19:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
:More going on at ''[[Arnica montana]]''. In my opinion, what [[User:ScienceApologist]] and [[User:PouponOntoast]] are doing is nothing short of far-reaching vandalism in attempting to delete all homeopathic references, however neutrally worded, from numerous Wikipedia articles. [[User:MrDarwin|MrDarwin]] ([[User talk:MrDarwin|talk]]) 19:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
:More going on at ''[[Arnica montana]]''. In my opinion, what [[User:ScienceApologist]] and [[User:PouponOnToast]] are doing is nothing short of far-reaching vandalism in attempting to delete all homeopathic references, however neutrally worded, from numerous Wikipedia articles. [[User:MrDarwin|MrDarwin]] ([[User talk:MrDarwin|talk]]) 19:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)
This page is within the scope of WikiProject Plants, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of plants and botany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PlantsWikipedia:WikiProject PlantsTemplate:WikiProject Plantsplant articles
template:botanist; plant IDs; tussock grass; Magnoliidae and magnoliids merge; serviceberry; G. species disambiguation; Genisteae; community ban of CarolSpears
Species name conservation; higher taxa taxobox images; Rosidae/rosids redux; species name sorting in genus categories; monotypic genera naming convention
Flora naming convention; Species Plantarum; Flora of Pakistan; Lamiales; Geranium dab; starfruit; Cyatheatae; Paeonia rockii, list of angiosperm families, common name disambiguation
Flora naming convention disruption; botanist template; milk fruit; aestivation; form taxon; flora by country categories; nomina nuda; orphan tags on species stubs; algae at WP:PROD; plant template article; Pilosella; Vandeae; coordinators' working group/assessment working group
Basal angiosperms; golden aster; composite images in taxoboxes; segmentation (biology); subshrub merge; article alerts; Prunus domesticus; herb usage AfD; Category:Species by year of formal description; damned yellow composite
Hsinying Quatal; WikiProject Forestry; tree-stub; thigmonasty; list of natural Orchidaceae genera; Proteaceae fringe theory; common names on dab pages; thorns, spikes, prickles; double fertilization; ICBN and italics
Distribution map how-to guide; G. species dab pages; Rubiaceae expansion; Pteridopsida; Aloe rubra?; Kew's new species link; Drosera regia FAC; Lamiaceae subfamilies
Obsolete taxa with taxoboxes; navbox templates for genera and species; Maloideae; barnstar; Rutaceae and Doronicum; "in popular culture" sections; pronunciation of species
Citrus macroptera; sine descr. lat.; minor subfamilial ranks in taxoboxes; pea bean; vernalization; Quercus vaccinifolia; Category: Prehistoric plants; Venus Flytrap range map
Use of †; montane chaparral; illustrated glossary; list of botanical terms; ranks it taxoboxes; classification for extinct plants; re-drawing figures from scientific works; seed abortion; articles on botanical nomenclature; taxonomic inflation; common names vs. scientific names; Rhaphanidosis
Dryopteris affinis; jstor usage; Amborella; Classification to be used for embryophytes; range maps and rights; vegetative regeneration; evolutionary history of plants; embryophytes; traditional Chinese medicine; unranked vs. clade; cactus; monocotyledon
scope and goals; one article per species; Latin cultivar names; cultivar names and trade designations; parenthetical disambiguators; what counts as a synonym; Scotch thistle common name; dates on taxon names; taxonomy vs. classification; names of Lysichiton species; general structure of articles; hyphenated common names
tree and fruit categories; foreign language common names; photo requests; nom. inval.; proposal for image guideline; taxonomy vs. phylogeny; scientific names of pines; jute vs. Corchorus; bot adding EOL links; what is a synonym?; deletion request of taxon stubs; suggested synonym policy
synonyms; taxon name articles; categorization; Lauraceae; naming articles; disambiguation terms for genus articles; tropical plants; overcategorization of US flora; Phormium/New Zealand flax; italicization of common names
botanical names as common names; oscillant; lists of spring flowers; stub removal; articles on species and products (Annona); plural or singular family names
I thought I had seen some strange mirrorings of WP material, not nothing compares to this one. It appears to be a music site, but turned up while I was searching for information about the compositae genus Oblivia. Weird. --EncycloPetey 00:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Prosopis pallida says: "The kiawe is native to coastal South America, but it is found throughout the Americas." Can anybody add more specific info on the original distribution/biome to the article? Thanks. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 22:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've added some more information based on the article references --Melburnian (talk) 00:47, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello, all. This new page was on the AlexNewArtBot list of new pages. It could use a bit of attention if anyone would like to take a crack at it. --Rkitko(talk) 23:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ick. It is very biased towards "higher plants" and ignores bryophytes, ferns, and algae completely. I really cringed when I got to the statement about the "first report of haploid plants" (which post-dates their actual discovery by Hofmeister by several decades). The article will need a thorough re-write. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Adaptable Range"
Some questions have come up on another discussion board about the "adaptable range" maps in the Sabal minor and Rhapidophyllum hystrix articles. Unfortunately the maps are unattributed, there is no indication of where the information in them comes from, and as they stand they are completely unverifiable. They almost certainly constitute original research. I believe they should be deleted, unless the editor who put them in can provide a clear and verifiable reference for where they came from. Edited to add: a similar map is in the Lagerstroemia article (where it is especially inappropriate as it apparently refers to only one particular species of this genus). These images, and possibly others, have been added by User:Strongbad1982. MrDarwin (talk) 14:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Checking the past history, it turns out I've raised this before (including a comment on the editor's page, inviting him to join the discussion) but dropped the ball--I'm just going to delete the maps without further comment. MrDarwin (talk) 14:27, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, go ahead and nuke them. If I had to guess, I'd say the map in Lagerstroemia refers to all commonly cultivated plants in that genus (two species plus some hybrids, if memory serves), but without sources, who knows? I'd be fine with some way of indicating where these things can be grown but those maps aren't it (as discussed in the above links). Kingdon (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The entry for genus Taraktogenos was generated by Polbot. What what I can find (e.g. [1]), it seems to be a synonyms of Hydnocarpus. However, I am uncertain how we handle such a situation. Should the page for Taraktogenos be converted to a redirect? Do we keep the entry, but describe that it is a synonym, and if so should the page have a taxobox? We keep pages for obsolete famiies, but not for synonymized species. Whta do we do for a genus? --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sometimes I have created redirects and at other times created stub articles for the synonyms. I have tended to do the latter when the genus name has had a long and/or complicated history and/or is a well known name, e.g. Brachysema, to inform readers what happened to the genus. I've tended not to include a taxobox for these articles to avoid giving an appearance of "currency". --Melburnian (talk) 03:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, the only other example which is springing to mind is Eupatoriadelphus which clearly works better as a redirect (as far as I can tell), for a variety of reasons including the small number of species, the rarity of the name Eupatoriadelphus, and the lack of any complexity like different species moving to different genera. If there is a family which has had everything transferred to another family, and the former family doesn't have an ongoing existence as a subfamily or anything like that, I suppose I might advocate a redirect there too. But most families which get rearranged get split up, or something more complicated. There's probably a general rule lurking here, but I'm not sure what it is (or whether family versus genus has anything to do with it). (as for whether Taraktogenos has been synonymized in its entirety, I'm not sure of that either. This paper refers to some of each and ITIS shows a synonym for one species (Taraktogenos kurzii), but I didn't find anything conclusive). Kingdon (talk) 03:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Mabberley in The Plant Book equates them. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:53, 8 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Anybody care to weigh in on the Vine article? The article asserts:
A vine is any plant of genus Vitis (the grape plants) or, by extension, any similar climbing or trailing plant. The word, derived from Latin vīnea, referred to the grape-bearing variety. The modern extended sense is restricted to North American English, which uses grapevine to refer to the grape-bearing Vitis species. (British English tends to use climber to refer to the broader category, including, for example, ivy.)
This article uses the term vine in its broader, North American sense.
Is this accurate, and is the use of the word "vine" really this restricted in British English? MrDarwin (talk) 01:32, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm. This isn't one I've heard before, but the Compact edition OED seems to favor this, since the leading definition is for a particular species of Vitis. You might get better feedback posting this in the Wiktionary Tea Room. That's where niceties of definitions and senses are discussed, particularly US/UK differences. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OED Online gives:
1a. The trailing or climbing plant, Vitis vini-fera, bearing the grapes from which ordinary wine is made (= GRAPE-VINE); also generally, any plant of the genus Vitis.
3b. In other special names, chiefly of non-British plants. (e.g. Burdekin vine, Isle of Wight vine, Bean vine, Indian rubber vine, etc.)
4a. The stem of any trailing or climbing plant
c. (U.S.) A trailing or climbing plant.
I think 3b. suggests that it's not so much an inherent regional difference, but rather the only liana in the UK is Vitis vinifera, whereas there are lots within many genera in North America and elsewhere. The examples they cited above include many non-American, commonwealth plants, and even some within the UK. But then again, it gives the chief use for Vitis specifically and points out the the usage meaning "climber" is American English. Perhaps the best course of action would be to make the article for "Vine" a disambiguation page and put the information under climber (since it is unambiguous and also used in the U.S. to some degree). Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 02:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Err... it isn't. My experience in American botany is that "vine" is the standard (and practically the only) term used. As a botanical term in the US, "climber" is limited to specific kinds of vines that attach by means of tendrils, so ivy is not a climber by US terminology. Also, the word "climber" has non-botanical meanings that we would be impinging on (including a form of shoe), and we'd probably have to end up using Climber (plant) or some such. The advantage of Vine is that we wouldn't be relegated to using parenthetic explanations. There may not be a good article title that avoids regional bias. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:25, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Webster gives "Climber" as "A plant that climbs" without any regional notes, and Wordnet (Princeton) gives "a vine or climbing plant that readily grows up a support or over other plants". I've never heard of any distinction between a plant having tenrils or not, and these two dictionaries don't seem to support that idea, but as far as standard usage you could be correct for all I know. I still feel that using Climber (plant) would be better to avoid a potentially unpleasant regional usage battle and ambiguity. Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 02:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Odd. I checked in Webster's Collegiate to verify about the tendrils, and it specifically mentions them. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Strange indeed. It seems that even the same dictionaries don't agree! But I was using the Webster's definition as given by dictionary.com, which may account for the difference. Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 03:27, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, now I see. After looking again, I see that that dictionary.com was based on Random House, not Webster's. I somehow seem to remember their primary entires coming from Webster's... Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 03:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The reason this came up is that I came across an old edition of Encyclopedia Britannica in my department library today and for some reason was thinking of this term and looked it up. The definition given for "vine" was in the broader sense, without qualification, and did not indicate that it was specific to Vitis species. MrDarwin (talk) 03:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If Britannica is fine with it, then I say we stick with the status quo. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Guess it's 2 against 1 (just don't tell MPF) :p Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 05:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If I'm interpreting MPF's comments correctly on the talk page for that article, he agrees that "vine" is used in the broad sense in England as well as North America. My main quibble is with the rather rigid claim that "The modern extended sense is restricted to North American English", a usage which I suspect is not quite as restrictive as the article asserts. MrDarwin (talk) 17:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I didn't realise that he had commented on it as I hadn't looked at the discussion there, but if it is in common usage in the UK, then it should certainly stay where it is. It seems strange that the OED still lists the usage as American though. We'll have to either trust the dictionary, or trust the vernacular, I suppose, but regardless I think that the OED entries support the fact that "vine" is used other than just for Vitis outside of the US. Perhaps the phrasing in the article is a bit rigid, but as I don't know its usage well enough in the UK, I can't really say one way or the other. In German the word "Wein" (pronounced identically to English) is only used for Vitis, so it makes sense historically, but that hardly helps for modern usage. Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 00:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Just to add a New Zealand opinion - common usage in New Zealand is that a vine is pretty much any climbing plant. But I don't think the word "vine" used in formal botanical texts (but most of my ones are at the office and I'm at home).Solanum dulcamara (talk) 09:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well:
Cronquist (1981) An Integrated System of Classification of Flowering Plants, "Caprifoliaceae", p.1006
Shrubs or more or less woody vines, or sometimes small trees...
If Cronquist's volume doesn't count as a "formal botanical text", then I'm not sure what does. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:38, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Cronquist was an American, and we already know that Americans use "vine" for any "climber". I think Solanum was referring to Kiwi/non-American botanical texts. Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 16:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I see your point. Unfortunately, my personal library contains few botanical references by non-Americans who aren't bryologists, and the bryologists don't write about vines (because bryophytes don't do that sort of thing). I do find a useful tidbit in Dahlgren & Clifford's The Monocotyledons: A comparative Study (Dahlgren was Danish, Clifford Australian):
s.v. Ariflorae (p.26): Mostly rhizomatous herbs, including many tropical climbers,...
s.v. Dioscoreales (p.27): Diosoreales largely consists of terrestrial shade plants as well as climbers and creepers,,...
The second quote leads me to believe that "climber" (at least in Australia) is not synonymous with American "vine", but is limited to those long, slender-stemmed plants that actually climb surrounding vegetation or structures. "Creepers" would be those "vines" that grow horizontally along the ground. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree. Many members of the Dioscoreales, especially those in Dioscoreaceae, are called "vines" in American English, such as the one in the photo to the right. Several species in that genus (Dioscorea) are called "potato vines". Also, Araceae in Ariflorae (now Arales, I believe) includes many plants that would certainly be called vines in American English, such as Monstera and Syngonium, the latter often being called the "arrowhead vine". Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 05:36, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In Wrigley & Fagg's Australian Native Plants (1981) climbers are defined as:
"... usually weak-stemmed plants which occur naturally in forested or shrubby areas and in order to obtain sufficient light to survive and grow, have evolved means of supporting themselves on other plants". --Melburnian (talk) 05:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what part you're disagreeing with. What I noted (in summary) is that Australians seem to distinguish "climbers" from "creepers", but that Americans lump both together under the term "vine". Therefore, "climber" is not synonymous with "vine". The quote you've provided further supports that position. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:56, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I apologise. It seemed to me that you were suggesting that nothing that American English users call "vines" exists in either of those orders. I suppose this topic is tough for me as I've lived in Europe/UK and the US for different lengths of time, so I am used to hearing "vines", "climbers" and "creepers". But creeper is used sometimes in American English to distinguish them from "climbers" or "vines", such as with Virginia creeper. Your example seems rather to reinforce the idea that "vine" has a more restricted usage, at least in those authors' writing. It's seeming more and more to me to be a preference-based choice given the number of conflicting sources. Some authors, perhaps primarily American, use "vine" in a very broad sense, but outside of the U.S. it seems that the usage differs (such as in Encyclopetey's example vs. Melburnians or OED's vs. Webster's). It's a tough call, but I personally would still prefer to see the information under climber. However, I think my opinion is a bit ideological and could constitute WP:OR, so I'll go with the consensus on this one. Interesting debate though! Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 06:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So I suppose I would suggest removing the statement that the use of "vine" meaning "climber" is restricted to North America, as that doesn't seem to be the case, but leave the note about climber being more common in British English, and perhaps bold it in addition to "vine" and have it nearer to the opening sentence. Also, a note concerning how the use of "climber" can differ outside of the UK (e.g. tendrils and/or weak-stems) might be useful.Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 06:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
WP:PLANTS in the Signpost
I've been considering writing something for WP:PLANTS for the WikiProject report feature of the Signpost, and wanted some feedback about what I should mention. I know we aren't too well organized, but that primarily because there are relatively few users working in this area, and it is too humongous for a real strategy to develop. I know a few users have, or are working on, academic degrees (Curtis Clark, Djlayton4, EncycloPetey, I think MPF... probably more). There's something to be said about the subprojects, and how we were relatively late in adopting the article classification scheme... Any ideas? Circeus (talk) 04:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, thanks in large part to Rkitko, our project is probably furthest along in terms of article assessment, with over 26,000 project articles identified so far (and most of them assessed for at least quality). Together we've gotten all (but one) of our "Top"-importance articles to at least "Start" quality, and half of those (but one) are at "B" quality. We've got the still relatively new {{Botany}} template for navigating the core plant articles. The Portal:Plants recently opened. That's quite a lot just off the top of my head right there, and I'm sure others could name additional newsworthy items I didn't recall. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh right. The quality drive. I've been concentrating on non-plants stuff these last few months so I kinda missed on that... Yes, need to mention the Plants portal too (especially since I try to maintain it lol Circeus (talk) 05:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I once corrected an incorrectly identified specimen collected by Albert Radford ;P But seriously, I don't think I've been around long enough or active enough to give any good suggestions. Perhaps we have a high ratio of users with large post counts... Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 05:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
User:Ricardo Carneiro Pires has also been quietly assessing hundreds if not thousands of articles (I think he's responsible for Category:Unassessed-class plant articles having only a few unassessed articles that begin with A and B). You could also mention how we were bombarded by thousands of Polbot articles and are still in the midst of cleaning up. And of course some of our more recent FAs. Rkitko(talk) 16:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"some of our more recent FAs" Well, discounting WP:BANKSIA and WP:CPLANTS stuff, this project technically only managed 2 FAs of its own (actually, I think we can say that in relation to our age, we have one of the worst quality ratio >__>;;). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Circeus (talk • contribs) 16:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
True. WP:BANKSIA is an FA powerhouse (WP:CPLANTS only has the one, brought to FA by User:NoahElhardt). Faced with the enormous wall of work we have, I think many of us prefer to head in the direction of quantity since we have less than 10% of all plant species described. Or at least that's how I've approached many of my contributions. --Rkitko(talk) 17:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Not sure I'd agree with "aren't too well organized". When an issue comes up with a plants article, I feel pretty confident that I can put a note on this talk page and get a relevant response. That doesn't seem to be true of other wikiprojects I've looked in on. Although I'm not sure how/whether to say this in the signpost.
As for "worst quality ratio", at least if the issue is the large number of stub/start class articles, I think we've pretty explicity prioritized quantity (see for example discussion on redlinks or polbot). If the issue is articles which are poorly written, unorganized, unreferenced, etc, that's different, and I wouldn't guess we are doing worse than the average wikiproject (although I don't know how to say for sure). Kingdon (talk) 17:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
When I said organization, I was really thinking an ability to converge coherently on something. For the most part, we have been working separately on our things within the project. Unlike, say, the common work that WP:BIRD manages on its FAs. I did the vast majority of work on Verbascum thapsus, and Djlayton4 on Ailanthus altissima, and plant defense against herbivory was primarily worked on by users who weren't real WP:PLANTS members.Circeus (talk) 17:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A little off topic, but is there something we can do to create some sort of coordination? (I know, since I almost never remember to visit this page, I shouldn't talk). Obviously FAs tend to be lower priority articles that catch someone's fancy, but has anyone thought about maybe a coordinated effort to get the {{botany}} articles up to some minimum standard? There are a lot of B-class articles, but there are also a lot of Starts and two Stubs. While I realise that GAs just aren't worth the trouble, is the aim of having everything on the template up to B class a workable objective? Guettarda (talk) 21:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
...and we've had some recent collaboration on Cell wall, which was MCB's COTM, and three people collaborated on Seed. The two efforts resulted in much fuller articles and nice new illustrations. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Please forgive my cluelessness. Guettarda (talk) 03:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's getting a little bit onto dangerous ground to try to rate how this project is doing vs others; for people involved, it's easy to see the faults and not the strong points. Let's concentrate to the facts of what's being done and what's not. One of the uses of a Signpost article is to let editors in other areas know how the plants project fits into the overall encyclopedia, for instance that we generally expect to create articles for every species (right?), and plan organization according to that expectation. Even very basic facts will still be news to Signpost readers. Another interesting tidbit for this project is that we have pictures of many many more species than we have articles (for instance User:Stan Shebs/Plant taxa is a list of just my own photos, and there are a lot of redlinks) - this is the opposite of most projects, who are perennially image-starved. Stan (talk) 19:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I've made an attempt at User:Circeus/Cornus feel free to edit as much as you want, I'll adjust credits as necessary afterward. Circeus (talk) 20:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi all, what do you think of this page? Would this be a candidate for deletion? Or merge somewhere? But where? If Wikipedia had a page for the NSFArabidopsis 2010 Project (which this was part of) I'd say that would be the place to put it, but there is none. - tameeria (talk) 17:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I did some googling, both in google web and google scholar, and didn't really find much. There's some kind of status report at [2] but even that probably isn't quite a WP:RS, or necessarily going to stick around long-term. Oh, and it was renamed to The Plant Proteome Database (and now includes maize, which doesn't necessarily mean "Arabidopsis 2010 Project" is wrong, but does muddy the waters a bit). I tried the Congressional Record (at http://thomas.loc.gov) but only saw a way to search for the current session, not for all issues they have on-line. One could also try the federal budget, or documents that the agency prepares in support of it. But none of this kind of thing will show it, if the program is part of some larger line item (which seems likely). Even if we could find some sources, I'm not really sure I see the big need for an article. So, seems like deletion is best. It isn't as if there is much material there, so it would be easy to re-create the page if we want to some time in the future. Kingdon (talk) 20:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Plant Proteome Database seems to be the current name--I think it probably is the same project ultimately. I'm moving the article and making at least a stub out of it based on the Cornell site. DGG (talk) 02:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
This is a (belated) announcement that requests are now being taken for illustrations to be created for the Philip Greenspun illustration project (PGIP).
The aim of the project is to create and improve illustrations on Wikimedia projects. You can help by identifying which important articles or concepts are missing illustrations (diagrams) that could make them a lot easier to understand. Requests should be made on this page: Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project/Requests
If there's a topic area you know a lot about or are involved with as a Wikiproject, why not conduct a review to see which illustrations are missing and needed for that topic? Existing content can be checked by using Mayflower to search Wikimedia Commons, or use the Free Image Search Tool to quickly check for images of a given topic in other-language projects.
The community suggestions will be used to shape the final list, which will be finalised to 50 specific requests for Round 1, due to start in January. People will be able to make suggestions for the duration of the project, not just in the lead-up to Round 1.
Hi, all. There is a large number of badly named (grammar and/or capitalization mistakes) lists at this page. I started to do what I could, but for those without common names I don't have the knowledge of proper conventions. I have fixed the grammar of all that I could be sure about, but have not touched the others, to avoid duplicating work when they are fixed properly. Please see a discussion of this on Talk:Larval food plants of Lepidoptera. I'd be grateful if people "in the know" could chime in and/or pitch in, helping to fix the grammar and capitalizations of these links. Many thanks! --Storkk (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Flora of x Categories
Has anyone worked on, or thought about working on, the categories for regional floras? I personally am always confused where to put things (e.g. should a plant in Canada and the US be categorised in "Flora of Canada", "Flora of the United States" and "Flora of North America", or just the former two? [or the latter or none??]) As there doesn't seem to be any standard (as far as I know), many have been following various practices. I think these cats could be very useful if they we included in all plant articles, but the scope of the categories should be hashed out first. Any thoughts? Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 03:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've always considered that an animal/plant should only be in a country category if it's mostly restricted to that area or region (I think we have a few regional divisions too). Widespread species being in 45 states categories? Impractical. The problem already shows prominently in several bird articles. At some point, an actual sensiible solution and categorization guideline will have to be devised, likely at WP:TOL project. Circeus (talk) 03:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds like a reasonable way to work. But, then would Category:Flora of California be a list of endemic or near-endemics? What would be done for those plants restricted to, say, the west of the Rockies? --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:12, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say that a hypothetical plant found in California, Nevada and Mexico should be in those three categories, not cat:USA and cat:Mexico. Similarly, a species that is widespread in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Trinidad and St. Vincent should be in three cats: Flora of South America, Flora of Trinidad and Tobago and Flora of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (as opposed to Flora of the Americas, or Flora of the Caribbean). We don't need hard and fast rules, what we need is a commonsense approach that reduces overcategorisation. That said, even if a species is widespread across, say, the entire US, I think it still belongs in the category of Flora of X if it's the state flower of X. Guettarda (talk) 19:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
My approach is that a category should contain only endemic taxa and taxa of the lowest rank. Sounds complicated but it isn't, and I think it is quite sensible:
The genus Banksia occurs in New South Wales, but it is not endemic to that state. We can get a finer resolution by considering individual species, so we omit the genus from Category:Flora of New South Wales.
Banksia marginata occurs in New South Wales, but is not endemic. We can't further subdivide, as this species has no infrageneric taxa, so we place it in Category:Flora of New South Wales and any other relevant regional categories.
But would you include Banksia marginata in "Flora of Australia" in addition (it's endemic to Australia too). And if so, would "Flora of Australia" not include a species that occurs only in New South Wales? Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 04:39, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Typically, no. You try to be most accurate in categorizing those species. Also, placing that article in both the daughter and parent categories could be seen as unnecessary overcategorization, since the flora of New South Wales is the flora of Australia. The problem arises, as Circeus pointed out, when species are present in many states/territories/provinces or countries - when do you break from including dozens of really specific categories and move to the higher up. How many countries does a species have to be endemic to in order for it to be more practical to include it in Category:Flora of Africa or Category:Flora of South America instead? --Rkitko(talk) 04:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Inasmuch as editors will even add widespread introduced plants to a category (for example, Brassica tournefortii for California), naming of the category can become all-important. One can imagine very different uses for:
If what we mean is the latter (and I would contend that it is the most useful in the context of the geographic hierarchy), then we should name the categories to make that explicit.--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In practice, I think one of the main uses for a "Flora of X" is to get a list of the possibilities for a specimen found in the wild, endemic or not. Conversely, not being in "Flora of X" should be an indication that the type is not known to be there. So if we have a plant that is in 45 of 50 US states, then we would have to bite the bullet and add 45 state categories, and reserve "Flora of the United States" for plants found in every state. Otherwise, how is somebody looking for the plants of West Virginia supposed to know which of hundreds of taxa in the US category are found in most states but not WV? We should however be pretty picky about requiring sources for range claims - perhaps there should be two categories - "known to occur in every state", "known to occur in some states, but we don't yet know which ones". Stan (talk) 15:44, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If Wikipedia were useful as an identification manual, I might agree. But it has some factors working against it in that regard:
It is not comprehensive, and worse, it's a subset consisting of the plants that editors are interested in, not necessarily the most common plants of any region.
It lacks identification keys.
Many articles lack images.
Many articles lack technical descriptions.
Many plants of wide range are mischaracterized by editors who know them only from a single region.
Well of course that's true now, but I don't think we should be categorising thinking that things will always be like that. Perhaps it's best to be a bit more idealistic and assume that in the future all of those shortcomings will cease to be true. I feel that some articles have better information on IDing than any other single source (e.g. Eurybia divaricata). At any rate, if we make some sort of standard now, it will mean a lot less work later. I would agree with Circeus and Stan that all plants, endemic or not, should go in a single category. True floras are written in this way, so I don't see why we shouldn't follow that standard. Furthermore, people will know whether the plant is endemic or not as soon as they click on it, so I think those additional categories might be a bit too cumbersome. I agree that they would certainly be useful, but to keep things a bit simpler I think it would be best to follow standard practices of typical floras. So far I am favoring Stan's "bite the bullet" approach as it seems the simplest and most logical method. Perhaps we could simply define a level at which species should always be categorised in each region of the world based on relative size (i.e. only in Flora of the countries of Europe [except Russia], US States, Canadian Provinces, Central American countries, Provinces of China, etc.). We could then categorise genera at only the continent level, for example. Of course some of that information would be tough, especially in areas with no published Flora, but it's something to work for... Djlayton4 | talk | contribs —Preceding comment was added at 18:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll start work on a subpage later today or tomorrow so we can actually come up with proper solutions. Circeus (talk) 18:45, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The categories are based on political boundaries, has the feasibility of using another form of regionalisation been investigated? cygnisinsignis 18:55, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Data are mostly available based on political boundaries. Guettarda (talk) 19:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Back in March Hesperian worked on a couple categories (see, for example, the text in Category:Flora of Queensland) to bring them in line with the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions so we might not run into the same issues the "Fauna of" categories faced. The World Geographical Scheme mostly follows political boundaries. Just wanted to bring that back into discussion since we have discussed it before. Cheers, Rkitko(talk) 21:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
As an observation (which will get us nowhere because it is too unintuitive to stomach), one can get around the problem of cosmopolitan taxa by creating categories like Category:Cosmopolitan flora of Australia, populating it only with plants that occur in every Australian state, and making the category a subcategory of each state category. Hesperian 12:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Milestone
Rosa 'Jubilee Celebration'
I think this is cause for celebration. Kudos to all that worked on them! Your hard work is appreciated :-) Rkitko(talk) 03:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yay! Good work everyone! Now we just need some Top-importance FAs! Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 04:12, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've been doing many tedious tasks recently. Working toward a top-importance FA would be a welcome break. Got the time and one in mind? --Rkitko(talk) 04:16, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I've got two weeks vacation beginning in about a week. I'd be able to help out. I'm leaning towards working on one of the "biggies", like Plant, Flower, Fruit, or Seed... though there are plenty of other Top-importance plant articles that really need work. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I was leaning in that direction, too. The big push, besides the usual checklist of making sure we've got the subject fully covered, will be to include in-line refs. That'll be a challenge, but I'm up for it. I suppose we should bring this conversation over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Collaboration, but I'm not sure if everyone has that watchlisted yet. --Rkitko(talk) 05:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll be on break from uni in about 2 weeks as well, so I'm down. I'm more of a low-importance man myself, but working on something that someone actually reads could be great. I don't really have much of a preference on the article, but I think the Plant article represents us most, so we might as well make it pretty for everyone. But, like I said, I have no strong preference. I've got collaborations watchlisted ;) Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 05:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'll be glad to help with copyediting and similar stuff, but I'm not very good at summarizing many sources (it is nightmarish for me, unless I'm trying to source something specific, to the point I almost never got that FA done). Circeus (talk) 17:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
So I move for making some sort of a definite plan for the FA collaboration so that it doesn't swept aside or forgotten about. We should pick an article and a good starting date when most people are available to begin work on it. I suggested working on Plant, but any top importance article will do. Most people have said two weeks would be a good starting point. How does the Friday, 28 December sound? Of course anyone can begin before that time, but I think it would be useful to have a date in mind. Any thoughts? Djlayton4 | talk | contribs 03:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sounds good to me on all counts. I'll be there. :-) Rkitko(talk) 04:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Alright. I posted some ideas and a beginner to-do list on Talk:Plant. I'm ready to roll up my sleves and dig in. --Rkitko(talk) 18:41, 28 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I know this isn't entirely within our scope, but I'd appreciate a couple more eyes on this article. I came across it on the new plants list today. I'm concerned that the references aren't reliable. At least one section is a copyvio from [3], another "ref" (27) is the exact same thing as the previous link and doesn't correspond with it's section at all. Should we take this to AfD? If we did, I'm not sure what we'd say beyond the copyvio. At the very least it needs attention and weeding through to get rid of POV, unreliable refs, etc. Any help is appreciated here. --Rkitko(talk) 04:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Come to think of it, the same user also created Coconut charcoal, which has similar problems with unreliable refs and possible copyvio. Rkitko(talk) 04:48, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I get three impressions reading the article
It looks like an ad
It seems to offer medical advice (the part where the oil kills the AIDS virus was news to me)
I would take it to XfD, or propose a merge. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:49, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
[edit conflict] Looks like a POV fork of coconut oil to me. "Coconut healing oil" is either a biased neologism or a clumsy piece of phrasing. Either way, I say we merge it, where "merge" is defined as "userfy and redirect" ;-) Hesperian 04:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'd say redirect coconut "healing" oil to coconut oil - not need to XfD, just be bold and do the merge. The charcoal one is a bit more difficult a call. Doesn't really seem notable enough to have its own article though. Guettarda (talk) 05:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've only checked parts of the article - but at least some of it has been lifted directly from other websites e.g. Tree of Life is from Coconut Research centre [4]. I haven't currently got access to Turnitin to give it a full check, but based on my small sampling - I would fail it for plagarism if a student submitted. The primary literture listed in the article is not actually used e.g. J. Nut. article etc. and seem to be included just to give the impression that primary sources were looked at. It might be possible with a bit of a review of the sources and proper referencing to merge some of it with coconut oil article. The impartiality of some of his sources is questionable. Sepilok2007 (talk) 08:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I've had a bit more of a look at some of his sources, and while I don't want to cause any offence to any mystic magical invisible dwarfs out there, I feel that the medical aspects of this article needs to be supported by articles in peer reviewed journals. The whole AIDS-Coconut cure bit seems to be based on a very limited unpublished study conducted over 7 years ago, that has been overegged by the coconut industry/naturopaths.Sepilok2007 (talk) 10:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Looks like a very POV piece, and I've already gone through to remove some bits of copyvio and tenuous sourcing. If this is a 'healing oil' article, it falls under WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS, neither of which are represented. While I don't think the original creator is an employee of the companies cited (I believe he's an employee of the Philippine government, or was anyway), I still think it's a very poorly sourced article for what it purports to say. Given the enormous amounts of text I've already removed, a significant proportion of the sections I looked at, I'd say merge anything reliable into coconut oil and turn the page into a redirect to a specific section. If there's anything worth keeping, perhaps it could be under a subheading (medical uses?) WLU (talk) 17:29, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've reviewed more of the article, between the copyright violations, the unreliable sources, the syntheses and original research, and the duplication between the page and coconut oil I didn't see anything worth saving - I just erased the page and merged. After I had taken out all the copyvois and unreliable sources, all that was left was some OR and references not linked to main text. WLU (talk) 18:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It was unchanged from the previous version in copyright violations, so I went ahead and deleted it. --Rkitko(talk) 13:58, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Cultivars and notability
I imagine of course that we wouldn't want an article for every cultivar of every plant (though that is the plan on Wikiversity and Wikibooks), but I'm just wondering if there is any case where a cultivar really would be notable enough to merit its own article. If not, I wonder whether there should be redirects from cultivar names to the appropriate genus, species, or hybrid (wherever the cultivar may be mentioned and/or briefly described). Any thoughts? --SB_Johnny | talk 15:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I personally think most cultivars are notable and deserve their own articles, especially given proper references. See Stylidium graminifolium 'ST111' for one of the cultivar articles I've written that others might see as non-notable. --Rkitko(talk) 15:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure it is any different from any other application of WP:N which has a lot to do with "are there enough sources out there to support the article". The number of cultivars in the world (especially if you include extinct ones or varieties which are not formally named according to the ICNCP) is so large, and little is known about some of them, so I don't know that I'd agree that "most" are notable, but a lot of them are. Where there are only a few cultivars that seem to be worth mentioning, I'd consider just putting them in a parent article (species, cultigen, cultivar group, etc). Kingdon (talk) 17:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, now you've usually got an organization which manages cultivar registration. So at the very least you're always going to have the registration and description as a reliable source. Indeed there are many, many, many cultivars out there (thinking of how many historical tulip cultivars that were out there gives me a bit of a headache). But Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. The only limits would be WP:V. It seems as if we, as a project, have taken the position that every species is inherently notable, so why not cultivated varieties, given that they're properly sourced? I have no problem with including them in species pages, but I see nothing wrong with letting them have their own articles. Take a look through Category:Elm cultivars for other examples of plenty of cultivar pages. --Rkitko(talk) 18:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Or Peace Rose. Although there are 20,000+ rose cultivars, printed encyclopedias of roses can usually manage 2-3 paras for each at least. A useful intermediate step is to list each breeder's cultivars with the breeder's article, then split off when additional material is available for the more notable. Stan (talk) 18:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's an issue of reliable sources. Can we find enough information in a reliable source to write an article that's more than one or two sentences long? Can we find several independent sources? While I would assert that all species are notable, I think we should just apply the normal notability standards to cultivars. Guettarda (talk) 18:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Some cultivars might be notable and have enough info for their own pages.
But to muddy the waters on another issue, official registrations of cultivars should be taken with a grain of salt, descriptions are most often self made by those submitting the name for registration. The purpose of cultivar registration is to prevent duplicate names, if the other info is correct that's an unexpected plus. This issue is highly variable between different groups of plants or even in the same group of plants over the history of the registration authority. Most of these positions are staffed by volunteers and the dedication to details and correct info is not uniformly applied over the history of the registration process. Hardyplants (talk) 19:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that some cultivars deserve articles. Sorry if I wasn't clear. Guettarda (talk) 19:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, do remember that the criteria for inclusion is verifiability, not truth. It's easy to assert that "the characteristics noted to be novel in the cultivar's registration description include..." and still be accurate, verifiable, and truthful. But you're right, some cultivar registrations are better than others. For example, recently the International Carnivorous Plant Society became the IRA registrar for carnivorous plants. New cultivars have been published in the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter. Because of the peer-reviewed, academic nature of the publication, I would trust the verifiability of those descriptions and articles. See Dionaea muscipula 'Bohemian Garnet' for an article I created on a recent cultivar registration. So yes, it is variable between cultivar registration authorities and through history, but I still feel cultivar articles can be accurate, verifiable, and notable. And as an aside, I would say that it is reasonable to say all taxa are notable, including those of the subspecific ranks. --Rkitko(talk) 19:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've been compiling a list of list of Grevillea cultivars (200+ so far) to give an overview of some of the hundreds of cultivars that are (or have been) commercially available. So far three Grevillea cultivar articles have been created, Grevillea 'Superb' and Grevillea 'Robyn Gordon' and Grevillea 'Honey Gem'. For well-known cultivars, there is an abundance of information to potentially create a substantial article. On the other hand, there are other cultivars for which information from reliable sources is very scarce, so it would be hard to create an article with more detail than is shown on the list. Most Grevilleas available through retail plant nursersies tend to be cultivars rather than species so I feel that substantial coverage of cultivars through a combination of lists and articles is necessary to give a complete picture of this genus in terms of cultivation and use, and this would also apply to many other cultivated genera. --Melburnian (talk) 21:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I guess it was the very large number of cultivars (I believe there are thousands within Rhododendron and Hemerocallis alone!) that made me wonder, but also the likelihood that these articles would rarely get beyond what would look like a stub for any higher taxa. Should there be a different set of standards for determining "stubbiness" for these articles?
Also, I still wonder if we should be making the redirects to genus or species if a taxon exists and is mentioned in an article, but no independent article exists. That was the M.O. for species without articles in an earlier era of Wikipedia, but over the past couple years redlinks have been preferred to redirecting towards higher taxa (and I know a lot of those redirects eventually required administrative destruction to clean up the issue). I suppose a good example would be if someone wanted to look up Lemon Queen sunflower... would it be better to just redirect that to Helianthus × laetiflorus, or start another stub for the cultivar (the species is a stub as well)? --SB_Johnny | talk 13:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
In that particular case I'd check here (no entry) and here ("accepted name in the RHS Horticultural Database", has won "The Award of Garden Merit") and try a Google search (1380 hits, some detailed information can be found amongst the hits), and would conclude that a worthwile (if smallish) article could be created. I really don't like the concept of redirecting species or cultivars to the genus (in general), if the name is contained within an article it will come up in the search results anyway. I think common sense, and looking at it on a case-by case basis is the way to go, creating 3000 one line "Rhododendron" cultivar stubs (for example) would probably not be a good idea. --Melburnian (talk) 15:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If there are thousands of cvs (or even a couple dozen), then I think a list of cultivars would be in order. And as we do with "minor characters in Harry Potter", just redirect each cv to the list. If anything on the list grows long enough, it can be spun off into an article. Guettarda (talk) 17:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, I think lists work better as an intermediate step - one can even set the list up as a table and include columns for general description, parentage, date, and picture. Redirect names to the list, just as we do now for minor characters in fiction and such. Stan (talk) 17:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, that's what I'll do. The obvious question though is what to call these articles... should it be List of daylily cultivars or List of Hemerocallis cultivars? This is lilely to become a pressing issue in the spring as we are hoping to have arboretums and nurseries involved on the WV bloom clock in the spring, which will entail a rather massive need for interwiki links :). --SB_Johnny | talk 00:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I would pick hems and make daylily a redirect. Other lists might be more problematic, but the major ones like Hosta, Iris etc should go to the genus. The genus list then can be broken down into species if known, but since many or most are complicated hybrids, the genus is best. Hardyplants (talk) 00:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I think genus is better too, of course, but I've never understood how the "exemption" policy works for plants that are article-named by the English name over the scientific. --SB_Johnny | talk 00:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You might need a hierarchically list with multiple entry points. Take something like spiderwort cults, most people are not going to look for them under Tradescantia but under spiderwort. But there are many different Tradescantia cults that are not spiderwort cults, so I would have one List for all Tradescantia cults and then have a sublist in this list for spiderworts. Hardyplants (talk) 01:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Meaning the cultivar lists should be sorted? Definitely... Rhododendron vs. Azalea would be an obvious need for sublisting, as would any of the genera that have major divisions (roses, daylilies, irises, narcissi, etc.), but are you saying these should be separate pages or single pages? (Funny, when I first read that I thought you were talking about garden clubs (daylilies and hellebores of course have rather religious followings, though I had never heard of a Spiderwort club). --SB_Johnny | talk 16:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A trio of Wikibooks-related issues (ref names, external links, and usernames)
Yes, again with the interwiki stuff :). I've been importing Wikipedia articles to Wikibooks to fix dead interwiki links from the Wikiversity bloom clock, and have run into 3 minor problems.
The first is the use of <ref name=X> for references... it's something that can be fixed using AWB on the wikibooks end, but it might be nice to come up with some "standard" ref names. I've come across many which are named after authors (without dates), or worse "flora". I realize everyone's here to write an encyclopedia, but we should keep in mind that we're also creating GFDL content, and using the same ref name for 2 or more texts over 2 or more pages can create difficulties when generating printable "textbooks".
The second is that some articles have sections called "references and external links" (as opposed to one section for references and another for external links). Combining the two can be a bit confusing when reusing content, because a reference involves attribution, while an external link is, well, just a link to something you might find interesting (I personally think external links that aren't sources have no place on Wikipedia, but don't get me started).
Finally, everybody please register an account on Wikibooks using your username here, because Special:Import attributes to username, as opposed to project:username. If you have any problems doing that, I'm a b'crat, and can almost certainly fix any problems (if you have problems, just leave me a note (and pray to the dev-gods that SUL will come soon and make this all moot). --SB_Johnny | talk 00:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
OK, so how do you think we should implement this? The only way that I can think of doing something like that would be to create a master list of references used in {some subset} of articles, and then trying to get people to use these standards. It seems like a potentially massive project - we could get a bot to harvest every reference from Plant articles, but then we'd still need to find a way to sort through them all. If we did that, it would have to be a sortable table...which would work if people use {{cite}} templates... That said, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to start somewhere. Guettarda (talk) 02:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I was just going to suggest having BotanyBot check through individual pages and search for Ref/external link sections. It could generate a list that use a combined external links/references section for users to sort through manually. I could also see what I could do about updating the 11,000 Polbot plant articles to use ref tags and a references section instead of the "Source" section currently on those articles. --Rkitko(talk) 03:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Section names aren't really the problem, it's when you're not sure what is being used as a reference ,and what's just an external link :). I think the ref namiing would be nearly impossible to do exhaustively, but standardizing names for very commonly cited authorities (GRIN, USDA PLANTS database, RHS Encyclopedia, etc.) might be nice. --SB_Johnny | talk 12:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
(1) I'm not aware of any expectation that ref names be unique across articles, nor do I see how we could make it so. (2) A combined "references and external links" section is mostly found in older articles and is a deprecated practice as I understand it. Just as an aside, external links have their (limited) place - for example the link to the Banksia Study Group on Banksia. (3) As for the account, sorry to be difficult but I already have a lot of wikimedia accounts and I don't really see creating ones for projects I don't even edit in. Kingdon (talk) 14:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Be not afraid to create custom templates and/or articles for the most important references. Templates like {{DANFS}} and {{FishBase genus}} have been extraordinarily useful for maintaining consistent referencing across thousands of articles, and can be easily added to multiple projects. Stan (talk) 18:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Oh! those are just about what I had in mind. We can probably work out the kinks on the Wikibooks side first, and then use some sort of marker for an AWB runner to make the changes on wp once it's perfected :). --SB_Johnny | talk 22:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have been creating custom templates for my most important references for ages. A word of warning that these have limited usefulness in high-quality articles, because it is difficult to control when you want an author, book title, journal article or journal to be linked versus unlinked, citation of page numbers, etc. Circeus and I had a friendly disagreement on this point, and I now empathise with his position. I now consider templates like {{The genus Banksia L.f. (Proteaceae)}} to be convenient short-cuts for use on stub and start articles, but to have no real place in high quality articles, where problems like the above must be avoided. Hesperian 23:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I have a request for a couple of fixes to Template:Infobox Cultivar by someone with template expertise, one is to give it the width properties of a regular taxobox (same width when it has no photo, or expands to accommodate a photo with no white space) and the second is to get the image caption to display. Thanks --Melburnian (talk) 03:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Fixed the caption, and while at it, fixed empty cells that have been annoying me and gave it the same basic styling as taxobox, for consistency. Circeus (talk) 04:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perfect. Thanks Circeus! --Melburnian (talk) 04:35, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Do we have a hybrid-specific taxobox, or do we just use the standard one? Guettarda (talk) 17:12, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've noticed most hybrid articles using the regular taxobox, omitting the "species" parameter and using the "binomial" parameter to name the hybrid. We could add another parameter to the taxobox for non-cultivar hybrids. --Rkitko(talk) 17:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Aren't hybrid technically species two? We could add a parentage subsection easily enough. Circeus (talk) 01:15, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
With out getting to involved with what a species is, A hybrid is not a new species because it does not produce a stable population that reproduces the hybrid, a hybrid is a mixing of two different genetic groups, and the next few generations produce individuals that segregate out those differences. Over time hybrids can lead to speciation and a stable genetic line. Hardyplants (talk) 02:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, we'd have to make sure intergeneric hybrids could also be covered by the taxobox. Instead of species/binomial parameters, we could include hybrid = and hybrid_parentage = parameters to take their place (so that the user wouldn't be forced to use species = for the hybrid, a corresponding link to Hybrid (biology) would be on the left). And if a hybrid is intergeneric (most of the time they're within the same family, correct?), then the user would simply leave off the genus = parameter. Seems easy enough to me. Might want to move this part of the discussion over to the taxobox template talk, but how do the animal hybrid articles approach this? --Rkitko(talk) 01:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Most cultivars are not hybrids, but asexualy propagated plants that show "desirable" traits or are produced by selective breeding. Hardyplants (talk) 03:02, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Right. The scheme I have playing in my head right now would be: Non-cultivar (natural) hybrids would use the updated taxobox with new parameters. Cultivar hybrids and non-hybrid cultivars would continue to use the Infobox Cultivar. That's the way it seems to work right now on most pages, but the natural hybrids have had to use the taxobox without specific parameters for them to use. (e.g. Nepenthes × kuchingensis --Rkitko(talk) 03:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Were can one find these boxs? (want to copy blank ones to my user page for later use) I assume the infobox for Cults has a picture blank too? Hardyplants (talk) 03:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The cultivar infobox doesn't come with a photo blank, but there is space to put one in if you have one. --Rkitko(talk) 04:07, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hi, all. Is anyone familiar with fern taxonomy? Seems that according to Pteridopsida there have been recent (2006) changes to the taxonomy. Should that article be renamed to Polypodiopsida? A couple new contributions including Monilophyte have introduced different higher taxonomy schemes into the taxoboxes. Would be nice if we could get some clarity and help adjust all the taxoboxes if they need it. Any input would be appreciated! Cheers, Rkitko(talk) 03:13, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I am. All of this comes from the Smith, Pryer, ... Wolf article. (I know Smth and Pryer personally). They chose not to use any ranks above class. They did use Polypodiopsida as the class name for all leptosporangiate ferns, excluding the Marattiopsida, and they included the Ophioglossales in the Psilotopsida. Note that they includeEquisetopsida and Psilotopsida within the "Ferns" clade, as we currently have it as well. Updating the higher-level fern taxonomy has long been on my (long) list of things to do, but I only got a reprint copy of the article about a month ago. I've incorporated some of the changes already, but I could attend to some of more of this revision next week. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:54, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Hello. I recently added a significant amount of information to Everglades National Park and I would like to nominate it for feature after a few loose ends are taken care of. However, there is a red link from the indigoberry tree (Randia aculeata). Red links are not allowed in FA nominations, so I thought you fine folks might want to see about creating an article for this tree. --Moni3 (talk) 13:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I created a short stub on it. If anyone wants to expand it, the US Forest Service pdf is a great resource (and, I believe, public domain). --Rkitko(talk) 15:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Yay! Cool. Thanks so much! --Moni3 (talk) 15:29, 21 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Red links are not allowed in FA nominations Of course they are! An overabundance of redlinks has in the past caused problems (and would certainly a FLC to be shot down), but opposing a FAC over a single, minor redlinks is absolutely ridiculous. 17:23, 21 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Circeus (talk • contribs)
Heronswood
Does anybody know what is going on with Heronswood lately? There is a new article about "Heronswood (botanical garden)" which, aside from the awkward article title, I think is surely inaccurate in stating that "Heronswood is a botanical garden in Kingston, Washington, USA". Heronswood was a commercial nursery with display gardens at that location, which was purchased by Burpee and subsequently moved to another location. I haven't heard anything lately about the original location but assume it is still owned by Burpee and is not operating as a "botanical garden" as most of us would understand the concept. MrDarwin (talk) 15:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Well, what I know is based on the cited sources (especially the New York Times one). I could see room for quibbling about "botanical garden" versus some other term (although I see room for grey - for example they did more than your average nursery at things like documenting the origin of their plants, as far as I can tell). But other than that the article seems to more or less match what the sources say: it was well-known; Burpee is trying to sell the land (with plants). Whether "Heronswood" is the best name will perhaps be clearer when the sale happens (or doesn't happen) but Heronswood, a Burpee company, does own it for now. The people trying to buy it call it the "former Heronswood Nursery property". As for whether all of this is up to date, seems to be, see for example Heronswood Voice entry for December 5th, 2007 which goes into what is going on with the property in some detail. There are also some July and October updates at [5]. Kingdon (talk) 21:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
"Malpighiacious": Please define
From Wallflower: "Wallflowers have malpighiacious trichomes." -- The term "malpighiacious" is apparently not defined anywhere on Wikipedia. Furthermore, Google hits for this term all appear to be clones of this Wikipedia article. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 01:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
It means "like members of the Malpighiaceae", and it should be spelled malpighiaceous. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I removed the sentence. Whatever "malphigiaceous" trichomes are, there is almost certainly a better term for it. Given that "malphigiaceous trichome" is either a useless bit of jargon or entirely meaningless, it wasn't helpful on any level to keep it. Circeus (talk) 01:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen the term before, in older references (none at hand), but I agree that it is more than ordinarily obscure.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A quick google gives the impression that malphigiaceous trichomes are bifid T-shaped trichomes. It is an unfortunate choice of terminology. (See also begonioid, chloranthoid, cucurbitoid, cunonioid, dillenioid, malvoid, monimioid, platanoid, rosoid, salicoid, theoid, urticoid and violoid teeth, but at least in the latter case they're not a single isolated term.)
I just wrote Frederick Vernon Coville, and will probably do a write up for George Vasey next, but I have a few refs I can't look at because I'm not at college, and probably couldn't get there anyway. Anybody can access Science (for Coville: [6]) or JSTOR (for Vasey: [7], [8])? Circeus (talk) 19:42, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Have downloaded the first two, am currently downloading the last. Send me an email and I ll reply with attachments. Hesperian 00:18, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Done. THank you. Circeus (talk) 01:45, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Sent. You're welcome. Hesperian 03:46, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yay! Expect an article tomorrow (buy watching end-of-year summaries and celebration on TV/procrastinating right now). Circeus (talk) 03:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Tree - content fork
Hi. As the tree article is within the scope of Wikiproject Plants, I thought I'd notify the project members of a discussion occurring on Talk:Tree due to the creation of a parts of a tree article that was recently created and then redirected, reverted and redirected again. Full disclosure: I am one of the edittors that redirected the "parts of a tree" article to the morphology section of the tree article. Regards -- Whpq (talk) 14:32, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for letting us know; I've responded at Talk:Tree. Kingdon (talk) 16:49, 11 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I need an outside pair of eyes on this article, partly because I rarely edit on Wikipedia anymore, and partly because any further edits to this article by me are likely to escalate to an edit war. In particular please look at the diffs in the series of edits by me and by User:MPF in the last few days regarding the common names of Juniperus virginiana. I have taken issue with MPF's characterization of "Eastern Red Cedar" as an "incorrect" common name. Of course this is a bit of a semantic quibble as the not-very-different "Redcedar", an entirely invented and still not widely used form of the common name, is apparently acceptable.
One thing I find particularly puzzling is that MPF continues to stress "Eastern Juniper"--still a rather uncommon common name for this species--as the first and apparently primary name, and using it throughout the article, thereby slighting the American Joint Committee on Horticultural Nomenclature, the very same authority he cites in claiming that "Eastern Red Cedar" is an "incorrect" name, although their publication offers "Eastern Redcedar" as the standard common name. (Flora of North America provides "eastern redcedar" as the only common name in English but apparently nobody has tried to tell the French what to call it as this publication accepts cèdre rouge as the French common name!)
As an aside, the publication MPF cites to reject "Eastern Red Cedar" does not say what he claims it says, as far as I can find; they offer "Eastern Redcedar" as a standard common name without saying anything about the merits or correctness of "Eastern Red Cedar", and with no comment about whether or not it is a true cedar. As another aside, this publication was a bit controversial and encountered quite a bit of criticism when it was published, and has had only limited acceptance of its "standard" common names. MrDarwin (talk) 14:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm only somewhat tongue-in-cheek when I refer to this as cultural imperialism. I grew up in Oklahoma, within the natural range of Juniperus virginiana, and everybody called them "cedars". One of the research sites for my MS thesis was called "Lone Cedar Cemetery". Now I suppose you could say that we were all a bunch of rednecks (or in BrEng, "colonials"), but I knew of the tree as Juniperus virginiana, and that it wasn't a true cedar, even before I read either "Easter Red Cedar" or "Eastern Redcedar" (which Firefox tells me is misspelled).
MPF plays the "Oh, poor us, stomped upon by the US hegemonists who want to force us to call our broom 'Scotch'", and honestly I see his point there, but his forcing British made-up "common" names on all us colonials I find incredibly offensive.
As I've said before, Wikipedia should be descriptive, not prescriptive. The fact that, in eastern North America, deer are called "elk", elk are called "moose", and junipers are called "cedars" needs to be faithfully recorded, not suppressed.--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Record, yes, but we shouldn't be promoting misapplications as valid fact that should be used! - MPF (talk) 17:49, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
It's a valid fact that people in Oklahoma call them cedars. It doesn't make them Cedrus, and no one is saying it does.--Curtis Clark (talk) 19:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If I can engage in a bit of a rant of my own, it's against what I call botanical imperialism. Common names predate both botanical nomenclature and phylogenetic concepts by centuries. (Heck, even Linnaeus didn't labor under phylogenetic constraints!) There's a bit of hubris in botanists appropriating certain vernacular names or Latin or Greek words as botanical names (e.g., "lotus", "cedrus", "cactus"), then turning around and telling non-botanists that one name or another that has been in use for hundreds of years is "correct" or "incorrect".
As an aside, it's interesting to note that "Standardized Plant Names" was originally intended to standardize names of plants in American commerce. The names are a decidedly mixed bag. One of the more ridiculous recommendations is "falsecypress", apparently because "false cypress" didn't sufficiently indicate that the plant was not a true cypress!
Oh well, I guess I need to go home and tell my parents their house is shingled in "eastern juniper" and not "cedar" as they thought. Then I'll head down to the flea market and tell all the vendors that they are selling "juniper chests", not "cedar chests"! MrDarwin (talk) 17:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think I'm not misleading when I say MPF is notorious amongst project members for those disputes (which erupted on Verbascum thapsus shortly after it became featured). At least the Latin names convention removes the risk of move wars. Circeus (talk) 16:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
You would think so, but when I replaced "Eastern Juniper" with "Juniperus virginiana" in several places in the article, MPF reverted them to "Eastern Juniper". MrDarwin (talk) 17:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Because I cited material from a valid authoritative reference, even if you personally dislike it because it conflicts with your POV? - MPF (talk) 17:47, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
No, because your edits perverted the entire concept of a disambiguation page in order to push your own POV. MrDarwin (talk) 20:02, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As has already been pointed out, that reference is far from authoritative, and because words like "incorrect" and "misapplied" are just fanning the flames. These issues are hard enough without that kind of thing and the previous wording ("strict botanical sense" and all) made the point just fine. Kingdon (talk) 17:51, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"far from authoritative" in the opinion of one contributor here who has a clear dislike of the concepts of botanical education within it. I don't accept that as an unbiased opinion! - MPF (talk) 18:01, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And this is what is puzzling me more than almost anything: you've granted their authority in rejecting "Red Cedar", then turned around and rejected their authority by emphasizing the rather obscure "Eastern Juniper" rather than their recommended "Eastern Redcedar" as the primary common name for this species. (This is doubly puzzling in light of your often-stated principle of emphasizing common names that are in use in a particular species' native area.) MrDarwin (talk) 18:15, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Why are you so vehemently opposed to calling something what it is, a juniper? If it is a juniper, it should be called a juniper, and not something else. I think your objection to fact is quite disgraceful. Or can you provide the evidence that it is not a juniper? - MPF (talk) 18:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Good grief Michael, are you listening to yourself? I'm going to assume you can't support your own position because you've chosen to make a personal attack rather than address the issues I've raised. MrDarwin (talk) 19:53, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
P.S. Sabina virginiana (L.) Antoine. Poof! It's not a juniper ;o) . MrDarwin (talk) 19:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This is insane. Eastern red cedar is a juniper. Blue gum is a eucalyptus (and not a liquidambar). Butternut is a hickory and peanut is a legume. Norfolk Island pine is an Araucaria, and she-oak is a Casuarina. Blue dicks was a Brodiaea, and now it's a Dichelostemma, but it's still blue dicks. The Mexican poppy is either Hunnemannia fumariifolia, or Eschscholzia californica ssp. mexicana, or one of several Argemone spp., or else Kallstroemia grandiflora, which is not a poppy. Cowboy rose is a mallow. Common names are exactly that: common. Some countries and some disciplines have chosen to regularize them, but refactoring or replacing all of them to form a system parallel to Linnaean nomenclature seems to me both a horrid waste of time and a way to enforce cultural uniformity.--Curtis Clark (talk) 19:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Curtis, as you well know we've been around and around this issue enough times to make us dizzy. Unfortunately I don't see that we've gotten any closer to a resolution than we have the last dozen or so times we've rehashed it. MrDarwin (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
In some respects I think MPF's edits to the disambig page were even more egregious. It's a page that links to articles for a word that is used ambiguously, not an article itself (good grief, how many disambig pages cite references?), and his edits rather missed the whole point of it being a disambig page in the first place: that "cedar" is used as a word (and not as a part of another word like "redcedar") for various different things. MrDarwin (talk) 17:59, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Has anyone really stopped calling flowers "chrysanthemums" just because they've been placed in a segregate genus? Do we balk that a horse chestnut is not in the genus Equus? Or that Dutchman's breeches grow outside the Netherlands? And what should we use as the common English name for a pineapple, which is neither in Pinus nor Malus? Names are often inaccurate in their application, and this isn't even limited to common names! Juniperus virginiana is not restricted to Virginia; Dicksonia antarctica does not grow in Antarctica; and Orchis does not have testicles.
Goodness, the phenomenon isn't even limited to names of organisms! Greenland is icy, and Iceland is green. Puerto Rico is an island, not a port. The American "Indians" are not from India. And not everyone named Thomas is a twin. These are all names, and names are intended to identify objects, not to describe them accurately. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:09, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"The American "Indians" are not from India". Q.E.D. In wikipedia, they are now called Native Americans, precisely to avoid this confusion. What's wrong with doing the same for Juniperus virginiana? Why is it such a terrible crime to call a juniper a juniper? And b.t.w., I got the name Eastern Juniper from American sources, not British; I'm not trying to push a UK-POV here as I've been accused of above. - MPF (talk) 00:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As for Indians, see this. As for J. virginiana, no one (besides you as a straw man) is saying that we shouldn't call it a juniper, but rather that we should acknowledge that some people call it a cedar without subjecting them to ridicule.--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I would like some acknowledgment in the article that "red cedar" (or some variant of that name; I will accept, though reluctantly, "redcedar" as a compromise) is (1) the most widely used common name for this species within its native range and (2) is the common name most widely accepted in most North American horticultural references, field guides, and floras. And as I will point out for the third or fourth time, even the authority that MPF himself injected into the article uses "Eastern Redcedar", not "Eastern Juniper." MrDarwin (talk) 03:37, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
While I agree with you on all else above, I'm not especially keen on this unless you have a source in hand that states such facts. While it may seem simple and on the path of common sense, independently looking at those many horticultural references and analyzing them, coming to the conclusions you have above could be a violation of WP:OR (especially see WP:SYN). It may be a borderline case, though. Just a thought to keep in mind. --Rkitko(talk) 13:18, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
The bigger issue, and what I should have emphasized above rather than the application of one primary common name (which to me is a side issue here), is simply that "cedar" has been used by many different people, in many different places, in many different contexts, for many different things. Same thing with names like "ash" or any number of any other "misapplied" common names. Well, news flash: botanists are not the only users of the English language, nor even of plant common names, and they are rarely the originators of those common names. For botanists to come along later and pronounce that cedar is "incorrect" or "wrong" when applied to anything other than a member of the genus Cedrus is, as I pointed out above, breathtakingly arrogant (what I call "botanical imperialism" above) because common names arose independently of, and in most cases prior to, any concepts of botanical nomenclature or classification, or most of all, phylogeny. (Although as shown in the ''Cedrus'' article, there's good evidence that the Greek word was originally applied to a member of the genus Juniperus and only later applied to Cedrus! I have since learned that Citrus is apparently also based on the same root.) It's just too bad that we have to have this exact same conflict and exact same conversation--usually involving the exact same players--every few months. MrDarwin (talk) 13:58, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
One last comment: I just discovered that MPF recently removed the well-established common name "prickly cedar" from the Juniperus oxycedrus article entirely, despite the fact that the epithet translates almost literally into "prickly cedar". 'Nuff said. MrDarwin (talk) 18:19, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
"Cedar" is Cedrela. All the other uses are weird. Imagine, calling a coniferous tree "cedar". Guettarda (talk) 22:28, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Names that are in any sense official would be bolded.
If other editors think the general idea is valid, we could figure out the details. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Curtis Clark (talk • contribs) 20:33, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Two questions come to mind: (1) Where on the page would this box be placed? (2) What happens for widely distributed taxa, like Pteridium aquilinum, which would have common names in hundreds of languages? In the past, translations into other languages have been relegated to Wiktionary instead, and Wiktionary could easily accomodate all the translations for "bracken". --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:43, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
To answer the second question first, one could argue that no non-English names should be included. People are less likely to remove aboriginal names, though, since most of them don't have their own Wikipediae. I could certainly agree with a policy that aboriginal names should only be mentioned in "Use" sections.
As for the first question, see Doberman Pinscher for an infobox that the dog folks use that is placed left and below the TOC. I don't especially like the way it looks, but that would be one approach.--Curtis Clark (talk) 00:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Consider going for the V. thapsus "consensus:" Latin name throughout, except for a paragraph detailing conflicting recommandations and usage (and NO USE of "official" or "correct"). Circeus (talk) 01:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Official names are worth recording, and of course a single plant might have several. "Official" is not POV, as it can be documented. "Correct" has a meaning for scientific names, but not for common names except in those cases where "official" names are expected to be used. I guess what I'm trying to say is that common names need not be controversial if we don't try to suppress some and promote others.--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:37, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I meant to be more careful. "standard" and "correct" tend to be lobed around a bit too freely in these debates. Circeus (talk) 18:19, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Circeus, scientific names are always preferable, as they are universal and generally (should) have only one correct form. I think we should list only English common names, we have a Wiktionary for translations. Other names may be included only when they're particularly remarkable. Aelwyn (talk) 09:57, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As a non-native speaker, English common names are not my forte. I have to rely on textbooks or reliable websites, esp. the website "Trees of North America" (Laval University, Quebec, Canada) which not only gives an appropriate scientific description, but also the common names with indication of the region or country where they are being used. As to Juniperus virginiana, this Canadian website [9] gives as first common name ... "eastern juniper". But my handbook "Trees of North America" (published in the USA) clearly states "Eastern Redcedar". I think this discussion can go on for a long time unless we state in the article where each common name is being used. This is a neutral position and also NPOV that can satisfy everyone. JoJan (talk) 14:23, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, regional context is extremely important when it comes to common names. "Eastern juniper" makes sense if you're in North America but in a global context, it makes little sense as "eastern" is ambiguous (east of what?). "Eastern Red Cedar" or "Eastern Redcedar" then makes more sense and is more precise because "red cedar" is used as a common name for certain North American species of Juniperus. As another somewhat amusing example, various common names given for Thuja occidentalis are "Eastern Arborvitae", "Eastern Whitecedar" and "Northern Whitecedar", even though the botanical names actually means "westernThuja"! MrDarwin (talk) 15:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
And Thuja plicata is western redcedar. But wait a minute, it's not a Juniperus, so how can it be a redcedar? Maybe we should call it the Western False-Redcedar, or to use its epithet, the Folded False-Redcedar.--Curtis Clark (talk) 20:23, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Heh :-). Now you're just piling on. Kingdon (talk) 20:50, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, this level of detail on common names seems a bit much for encyclopedia, more like a wiktionary or even wikispecies kind of thing. Part of the reason for doing common names inline in the lede paragraph is that it quickly tells readers if they actually arrived at the article they wanted, particular if they've come from a redirect and find an article with a gobbledlygook Latin title :-) . So the lede really only needs the most common names, particularly those that are redirects, and mainly English, possibly a native name for plants of restricted range. It's harder to imagine readers wanting to consult a table of possible names further down in the article. Nevertheless, documentation of all names is a worthy project, and would actually work well in wiktionary, which includes all languages on an equal footing. (Incidentally, one of the interesting features of FishBase is extensive tables of vernacular names for fish species; I've used it many times.) Stan (talk) 21:21, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I wouldn't exclude common names inline, and I wouldn't see a common name infobox as a normal feature of every plant article, just of those article where there is enough (1) information about different common names and (2) confusion about their use to warrant it.--Curtis Clark (talk) 00:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I don't agree. First, many Wikipedia users will not have botanical backgrounds and will start searching on common names rather than botanical names. Second, common names are often regional and the common names for a single species can vary quite a bit from place to place, and the articles should reflect that. I don't think it's our place to promote or suppress any common names that are relatively well-known, merely to be as accurate, informative, and NPOV as possible with regard to those names. MrDarwin (talk) 21:48, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't a bad idea, but any list of common names should seek to include all (verifiable) common names. Anything less is unencyclopaedic. As for English versus non-English names, in the example above, a large proportion of Latoka are going to be primarily English speakers, so you could consider their usage "English". On the other hand, many Neotropical species are known in the US primarily by Spanish names; perfectly good English names exist in the Caribbean, but American readers would probably be more familiar with Spanish names.
Oh, and I'd put the table at the end of the page, or at the very least below the lead. Guettarda (talk) 22:35, 15 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Part of the question, too, is what English-speaking Lakota call it. "Moose", "skunk", and "wapiti" are American aboriginal names that are in wide use, but I'm not convinced that even the Tongva who identify themselves as such call Salvia columbariaepashí rather than chia.--Curtis Clark (talk) 00:46, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I believe all Engish common names from reliable sources should be listed in an article and individually referenced. Also redirects to the main article should be created for every one of these names. In terms of the infobox, I would be wary about the statement of use eg: "Manuals and floras in North America", we can easily assume the uses, but they need to be referenced to avoid WP:OR - for example do some manuals/floras use the name, do the majority of manuals/floras use the name and who has done this research of all North American manuals/floras?. On the other hand the references column provides the opportunity to list several references of useage (for this example) in various manuals and floras in North America (and elsewhere), which may effectively demonstate regional useage while avoiding assumptions/OR as well as POV issues. --Melburnian (talk) 03:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I have to appeal to other editors as I am at the end of my rope. It's not my intention to begin intensively editing Wikipedia again, much less get into edit wars, but it's clear that any article that MPF has worked on needs to be reviewed carefully. MPF has completely removed the common name "prickly cedar" from the Juniperus oxycedrus article; apparently we are to pretend that this common name, which can be found in numerous references (and is more or less a direct translation of the specific epithet), doesn't exist. I'd also like some input from anybody from New Zealand; several references I found used "New Zealand Cedar" for species of Libocedrus so I added this (neutrally, I thought) as a common name to that article, which MPF has qualified as "formerly they were sometimes called New Zealand Cedar" (ironically, with the edit summary reduce pov-pushing); I have no idea how widely the Maori names are now used but "New Zealand Cedar" seems to remain in use, even in New Zealand. MrDarwin (talk) 02:01, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I refuse to pile on; MPF knows my opinion and I believe you're correct on this. We've been over this several times in several different places with no change in behavior. I, personally, would support taking this to WP:RFC where other, non-plant project editors could take a look and give objective opinions. Feels like we're just spinning wheels here, even though we may see consensus among the participating editors regarding common names, perhaps MPF doesn't. RFC seems like the first step beyond WT:PLANTS and might help bring the conversation to a resolution instead of repeating a pattern. If you don't have the time to open an RFC, I'll gladly help. Cheers, Rkitko(talk) 02:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
WP:RFC seems appropriate to me, and I think you'd do a good job at the (difficult) task of writing up an RFC, Rkitko. Kingdon (talk) 04:57, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I did a literature check, and simply couldn't find 'prickly cedar' (so deleted it as unreferenced, which is legitimate); I did find 'sharp cedar' mentioned as an old variant name (Dallimore & Jackson; Prickly Juniper as the main name in bold, with sharp cedar in italics with the synonyms). But it certainly isn't a common name; Prickly Juniper outnumbered all other variants (including 'cade juniper') by about 10:1, and was universally given as the first choice. Ditto on Libocedrus; you may detest it, but New Zealanders are quite strongly in favour of the Maori names being used, and you won't find much recent literature that uses other names. - MPF (talk) 12:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Forgive me for being just a wee bit incredulous because anybody can do a 10 second Google search and find either common name quite easily, and Google Scholar makes it easy to find numerous references in the botanical and other literature. For example read what one New Zealand botanist has to say about Libocedrus, New Zealand Cedar in a recent article published on a NZ government website. So I'm sorry, but I'll take a New Zealand botanist's word above yours (although we should also note that New Zealanders are not the only people in the world who may refer to these species). MrDarwin (talk) 14:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, regarding the latter genus, the Maori names and "cedar" names seem to co-exist in Aotearoa/New Zealand: [10][11][12][13] --Melburnian (talk) 14:17, 16 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Hello everyone. Would someone like to review the material on humans as frugivores at the bottom? There's been a little bit of dispute about it but the article is largely unwatched so I need some external input. I think the material probably either needs to be rewritten or removed, though I'm just looking for an impartial editor to provide input. Richard001 (talk) 01:01, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I have been wanting to make the suggestion of botanical illustrations but I'm not knowledgeable enough to back up the request. I am aware that botany is one of the few places where hand drawings are still preferred by the professionals (botanists etc.) over photographs - as a drawing can capture all stages of a plant (flower, fruit, seed, new and old leaves...) in the one place whereas a photo only gets one season.
Is there a list of "important" plants that would benefit from a proper botanical illustration? I'l love to see some of that project going towards botany.
I meant to do this at some point anyway, but here are the results of some category intersections between Category:Plant articles needing photos and the importance assessment categories:
Top-importance articles that are currently tagged as needing images: Plant embryogenesis
There are 279 mid-importance articles that are currently tagged as needing images. The rest are all low-importance or unassessed (the bulk of which were tagged by User:Polbot as it created new imageless pages.
Regardless of whether or not someone suggests a good article from this list that could utilize the PGIP project, it at least alerts us to our most important articles without images. Certainly crown (botany) should be an easy one to pop a photo in there. Cheers, Rkitko(talk) 13:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell from browsing meta:Philip Greenspun illustration project/Requests and from our past experience, the hard part is figuring out what the illustration should show (in some detail). Exmples of non-free images, photos, and/or "paper napkin sketches" along the lines of what we are looking for would be helpful, for example. As would a detailed list of features to be shown on each diagram. Kingdon (talk) 14:31, 20 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
There is currently an edit war going on at Thuja about whether or not to include information on its homeopathic uses. It looks like one or two anti-homeopathy editors resent any mention of the homeopathic uses and are removing any such mentions, however neutrally worded. A quick web search turned up plenty of information on Thuja's use in homeopathy (BTW a discipline which I consider quack medicine, so I can hardly be accused of having a pro-homeopathy POV) and this was supported by at least one notable citation within the article itself, so in my opinion it should be at least briefly mentioned in the article. I'm raising the issue here because I imagine this controversy is being played out, or will be played out, at any number of plant articles. Edited to add: a quick check of the editing history of one of the edit warring editors, User:ScienceApologist reveals that User:Hardyplants has already been contending with this issue in the Aconitum napellus article; this edit is representative of what is happening. MrDarwin (talk) 19:13, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
More going on at Arnica montana. In my opinion, what User:ScienceApologist and User:PouponOnToast are doing is nothing short of far-reaching vandalism in attempting to delete all homeopathic references, however neutrally worded, from numerous Wikipedia articles. MrDarwin (talk) 19:19, 22 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]
--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)