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Botanical Code query

Here's a query for any experts on the ICBN.
The facts (not in dispute): Dawson in 1959 established the genus Psilophyton with the type species P. princeps. However, in 1967 Hueber and Banks published a paper showing that his description and later reconstruction of P. princeps were based on parts of three distinct plants (now Psilophyton, Sawdonia and Taeniocrada). They selected new type specimens for P. princeps.
The query: What is the correct citation now for Psilophyton and P. princeps? It may be different for the genus and the species, of course. The literature contains the following:

  • "Dawson" [paleobotanists almost always give the date, with or without parentheses, but I'll ignore it here]
  • "(Dawson) Hueber & Banks"
  • "Hueber & Banks"
  • "Dawson ex Hueber & Banks"
  • "Dawson emend. Hueber & Banks" – actually I can't now find this one, but I'm sure I've seen it.

I have an opinion, based on reading the Code, but little confidence in its correctness! Peter coxhead (talk) 14:21, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Still just Dawson. The code deals with names, not species concepts, and Psilophyton was brought into "nomenclatural existence" by Dawson. A neotype doesn't change that (unless there was a conservation proposal of some sort enacted in Taxon). Circéus (talk) 15:34, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As that's what I used in the article Psilophyton, it's good to have support. (By the way, I think it's actually an "epitype" not a "neotype"; see Article 9.7. However this doesn't change the conclusion that the authority doesn't change.) Peter coxhead (talk) 20:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Note that if the circumscription or diagnosis has significantly changed, some authors will cite in the form "Dawson emend. Hueber & Banks", but that still credits only Dawson with the name. The emendation is not covered in the Code per se, but can clue the reader to a significant change in taxon concept. That is, it's not required. In some cases, redesignating a type doesn't even merit an emendation, but for Psilophyton I'd personally put it in because of the heterogeneous original publication. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:12, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
On reflection, I agree, and I've changed the taxobox in the article since my first post here. This does raise a general point about names & author citations in taxoboxes, which I've raised in a new section below. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've very rarely seen "emend." actually used in author citations. Usually it's a one off to mark that the current author is emending a diagnosis (very many original diagnoses are no longer considered valid anyway! The names are used, but sometimes without any of the original author's actual criteria). Circéus (talk) 04:08, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've seen it quite often, but then I'm usually looking at cryptogamic literature. There may be a bias in my specialty field towards using it, and you may be right about it appearing principally whe the current author is emending the diagnosis. That's been happening quite a lot lately among the bryophytes now that large-scale molecular phylogenies are being published. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are definitely different usages in different fields of botany, as EncycloPetey says. Paleobotanists almost always include dates in authorities, for example. I've read a lot of papers about Devonian plants recently – a field quite new to me – and the use of "emend." there is not uncommon, in line with EncycloPetey's comments about bryophyte literature. For example, Cooksonia was created by Lang in 1937, with a relatively vague diagnosis. Recently, Gonez & Gerrienne quite significantly tightened this diagnosis, ejecting some species – although crucially not the type species. So the authority appears in other places as "Lang emend. Gonez & Gerrienne", which seems in accord with Recommendation 47A.1. However, this is only a recommendation, so just "Lang" would be correct. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:40, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'll trust your judgement regarding usage of "emend." in the paleobotanical literature (a field very much alien to me). If it is in use, then by all mean, put it in th taxobox. Circéus (talk) 13:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Policy on botanical names/authorities in taxoboxes

This may ultimately be a broader issue than just WikiProject Plants but I'll raise it here first. When the literature contains more than one name/authority for a taxon, to ensure NPOV is maintained these should clearly be discussed in the article itself (when this is appropriate to the level of detail in a Wikipedia article, which it often may not be). However, following the example of earlier and more experienced editors, I have taken the view that only one authority should appear in a taxobox. I don't think that taxoboxes are the place for presenting alternative authorities or names (other than perhaps well-known synonyms). If only one authority is to be used in a taxobox where the literature offers a choice, at least two principles are available:

  • consensus if one is clearly more common than the other
  • correctness under the ICBN since there can only be one correct author citation.

I have to say that I prefer and have acted on the latter, which could, I suppose, lead to accusations of OR. So I thought I should make this clear here. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:31, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Genuine disputes (as opposed to errors, which do occur with some level of frequency, including in the bibliographic references, I recently found one in the Code) about places of publication are somewhat uncommon (unlike those over typification/application of names), when they do arise, they are typically discussed in the literature, which obviates the OR issue. Circéus (talk) 13:57, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My impression, and it is only an impression based on partial knowledge, is that paleobotanists have been somewhat more careless about author citations than other botanists. I've learnt not to trust secondary sources, which I have been checking and sometimes correcting based on the original papers where accessible. However, I believe that some editors have frowned on this and considered it OR. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:56, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Authorities (and both the ICZN and ICBN, or at least commentaries on them, acknowledge it) are essentially reduced bibliographic citations. If such a citation is provably incorrect (and I have had to correct a few over at Wikispecies and in MycoBank), providing the right citation is not (IMHO) OR. Circéus (talk) 18:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've recently come across a whopper of an error, and the error looks suspicioously deliberate. For the taxa above rank of family, the authorities are rarely given in the literature, presumably because priority doesn't apply anyway. Dr. Reveal has been accumulating authorities for these higher-rank names, and had (until recently) been citing Scott's Studies in Fossil Botany, 2nd ed. (1909) for "Lycopodiophyta". His website has recently changed to claim the 1st edition (1900). I've looked at the first edition, and no formal names appear there on the cited pages. The reason I think this change was deliberate is that Reveal has been big on following priority (regardless of the ICBN), and also big on excluding fossil taxa from his classifications. I notice that he's inserted a synonym of "Lepidophyta" from Bessey (1907), which predates Scott's use of a formal name in the 2nd edition, and (if priority is followed) would bump the name "Lycopodiophyta" to one based on extinct Lepidodendron. I imagine that he wouldn't care for that.
So, there are major secondary sources out there with flat-out errors, apparently deliberate in some situations. There are even major textbooks and major classification schemes (from authors who should know better) where the Latin ending was incorrectly attached, and the resulting name is therefore not in compliance with the ICBN and needs to be corrected. The erroneous division names "Anthocerophyta", "Hepatophyta", "Lycophyta", and "Pterophyta" are widely-used examples of such erroneous names. So, wide-use would not be a criterion I'd care to follow, as some errors are pernicious and pervasive.
I've been working lately to insert correct ICBN citations for authors of high-rank plant taxa into Wikispecies, as there is a better structure on that project for nomenclatural information. As another example of widespread citation being incorrect, I discovered that the oft-cited author for the Isoetales (J.H. Schaffn. 1928) was incorrect despite it's wide usage. The correct citation appears to be Bartl. 1830, which predates the common citation by nearly a century. I've even gone to the Bartling publication to verify myself first-hand that there is a formal name, identified at the correct rank, and with even a Latin diagnosis. Also, I'd encourage editors here to be sure that a copy of correct citations end up on the Wikispecies companion page for each taxon. The Wikispecies page is often used by authors on other-language Wikipedias in preparing articles. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:23, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's interesting advice about Wikispecies. I have to say, as one who taught undergraduates about the undesirability of duplicated code in software design, that I have an aversion to the parallel nature of Wikipedia articles and Wikispecies information, but if putting information there would help to correct errors, it's worthwhile.
I've discovered that other public data sources contain significant errors. For example, until yesterday, a search of IPNI for D.Edwards claimed that "Denzil Edwards" rather than "Dianne Edwards" was the author of Tortilicaulis, and that "D.Edwards" was his botanical abbreviation. However, IPNI staff were quick to respond when sent the correct bibliographic reference, so if you find any errors, do contact them via the e-mail address on the site. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:56, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've found similar quick responses from Michael Guiry at AlgaeBase and from B. Goffinet in regard to his on-line moss classification, though the error rate is small in both. I have found a couple of published taxon authors missing from INPI, and sould dredge those up and alert them.
Keep in mind that the Wikispecies information doesn't really "duplicate" Wikipedia since it covers only the classifiation, scientific name and synonyms, publication source, and vernacular names in various lanugages. That's information we typically put just in the taxobox (often without putting it into the article itself). Wikispecies contains no biological data, only nomenclatorial information per its remit. In consequence, it can be a good place to shift those long lists of plant names in various languages that sometimes accrue here in articles. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, but as we both know only too well, classification, if not the other information, is a disputed or unclear area at present, with the result that very different classifications of the same species can be (and are) in use in Wikispecies and Wikipedia. I would hesitate to get involved in this in two different projects – one is bad enough! Peter coxhead (talk) 18:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Categories Paleobotany and Prehistoric plants

Category:Prehistoric plants is, rightly, a subcategory of Category:Paleobotany. However, articles placed at present in these two categories seem to me a bit confused. My suggestion (which I have put on the Category:Prehistoric plants page) is that "Prehistoric plants" is used solely for specific taxa or groups of extinct prehistoric plants (of whatever rank), and that "Paleobotany" is used for more general articles. There are a very few exceptions to this usage at present which would need to be re-categorized if there is agreement (an example is Fossil wood which I would put in Category:Paleobotany not Category:Prehistoric plants). Comments please. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:46, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your suggestion is what was originally intended, and follows the same distinction between "plant" stub and "botany" stub tagging. Because WP is dynamic, errant new articles can often end up in the wrong place, often because new editors don't know about the distinction or are simply unaware that the other category exists. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:36, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, it's good to know that what I suggested was what was intended. I've sorted out the few incorrect categorizations. It is helpful to new editors if the Category pages have an introduction which explains how they should be used, so I've added a bit to both Category:Paleobotany and Category:Prehistoric plants. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fossil wood, Petrified wood, Fossil plants

While sorting out categories (as per above), I came across Fossil wood and Petrified wood. Some-one might like to look at them and see whether they should be merged. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:34, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seems better to keep them separate, several articles I've found do make a careful distinction between permineralized fossil wood and other types of preservation. Fossil wood encompasses them all, as the lead says ('Fossil wood may or may not be petrified'). Seems that some (usually extremely fragile) fossil wood are not permineralized but simply 'mummified' in permafrost/glaciers/peat/lignite but yeah still consisting of the original organic tissue at least. I'm also guessing the term 'fossil wood' alsp includes trace fossils related somehow to paleoxylology. Some of the more interesting ones I can find are here, here, and here, all of them discusses the difference between 'mummified' and the more familiar 'petrified' wood. I've added a link to the Fossil wood article to the See also section of Petrified wood, it still needs to be expanded though.--Obsidi♠nSoul 19:22, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For a less ambiguous example of fossil wood which is not petrified wood, there are coalified wood fossils in coal deposits. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:59, 7 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'd just point out that if the argument is that they are different because Fossil wood includes Petrified wood, this isn't in itself an argument for two articles; "Petrified wood" could be made a section of Fossil wood.
I'm personally generally in favour of smaller articles, provided that this doesn't lead to the need to repeat too much overlapping material, so I'm quite happy with two articles. But there have been moves lately which have produced much larger single articles, witness Evolutionary history of plants. Some consistent principles might help to guide editors... Peter coxhead (talk) 11:23, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that Petrified wood (or at least a summarized version of it) should be in the Fossil wood article with a link to the main article, but I can't agree to wholesale merges of them. Petrified wood has achieved a greater notability than Fossil wood. Merging Petrified wood into Fossil wood would result in the Petrified wood section overwhelming the parent article. (For an example see how Fossil itself does it. With subsections that branch out to larger articles for specific types of fossils)
The problem here is not whether it needs to be merged or not really, it's that the Fossil wood article needs expansion, heh. I would do it, but I'm not an expert on the subject. :( While I can get by with paleontological subjects enough to write about individual species/taxa, I don't think I have what it takes to write on very specialized fields like paleoxylology. :/ --Obsidi♠nSoul 12:30, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Oh well, I'll take a shot at expanding and reffing it anyway. :P Anyone who'd like to help/correct, feel free to pitch in.--Obsidi♠nSoul 12:42, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the higher level general article, "Fossil plants" can be a catch all to merge all similar "plant preserves" articles into. (Higher still, "Biological preservation in nature".) Continuing the above beginning of parsing out of preserved plant materials, geologist Alex Sessions at Caltech and his postdocs study epicuticular waxes preserved in the geological record, such as with Crassulaceae spp., as they do not decompose with oxygen and do not react with water. The plant material sandwiched between is also somewhat preserved. If you want to see the "preservation of other stuff" phenomena and live in Southern Ca., this August, find a cliff face with Dudleya pulverulenta, and spill some water on the nappy/chalky/dusty/bally/gummy epicuticular "wax", and see it coat what is below, including preserving the water in the soil under it. Also Neotoma spp. packrat middens preserve woody tissue for tens of thousands of years due to the urine, or something like that. There is also stuff on preservation by mummification in Carla Nappi's The Monkey and the Inkpot: Natural History and Its Transformations in Early Modern China[1]. In an obscure passage near the end of Ronald Quinn's Introduction to California Chaparral[2], there is a one line comment where he speculates that the nest architecure might be mimicced in human homes to "preserve" heat, protect from weather, etc. Interestingly, if you look at unwatered nappy D. pulverulenta epicuticular wax under a microscope, the particle flakes are layered and organized in a structure similar to the Neotoma nest architecture, but the structure collapses when water is added to it. PPdd (talk) 19:51, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Almond

Hi, if someone could spare the time, the Almond page could use some help. Some not very good text has been replaced by even worse, and an editing war has resulted that needs a third party who knows the basics of genetics (not much needed!) to adjudicate. Discussion is at User talk:Dia^#April 2011. Thanks in advance to any volunteer! Nadiatalent (talk) 13:00, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed two references which claimed to support the statement that every sweet almond tree produces a few bitter almonds (see Talk:Almond#Every_tree_produces_a_few_bitter_almonds). The statement may or may not be true, but there are no references to what I would call reliable sources which support it. Articles about foods seem to attract editors drawn to fringe science; I've normally steered a wide berth of them and will probably regret this foray! Peter coxhead (talk) 21:12, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
More generally, the Almond article is rated as B-class by Wikiproject Plants. It may have been so in the past, but it isn't now, in my view; there are too many sections with unreferenced material. Unless anyone objects, it should be down-graded to C-class. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:15, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No objections on down-grading the assessment here. It was probably rated B-class before C-class was available (or even discussed). Rkitko (talk) 22:05, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:18, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just added some more references from the University of Graz (no fringe science) that confirm that what I wrote was correct. Sorry guys! ;0) Here the interesting text: Sweet almonds are, by centuries of cultivation and breeding, very low in amygdalin and, thus, harmless; however, even sweet almond trees sometimes yield single bitter almonds (up to 1% of total crop), and some sweet almond cultivars still contain traces of bitter almond aroma. and the link: http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/Prun_dul.html --Dia^ (talk) 22:22, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Material being hosted at a university site is insufficient grounds to conclude that it is correct. Universities sometimes provide hosting facilities to undergraduates and alumni, with minimal editorial oversight. In this case the cited material is a "hobby page" from an alumnus, and is out of his field.
The way almond has been phrased suggests a bimodal distribution of amygdalin concentrations; a possibility is an overlap between the upper bound of concentration in semi-bitter varieties (heterozygotes) and the lower bound of concentration in bitter varieties. Lavateraguy (talk) 08:04, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See also my comment at Talk:Almond#Every_tree_produces_a_few_bitter_almonds. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:16, 11 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

April 2011 Plant-related disambiguation pages with links.

Greetings! We have a new report of the most linked disambiguation pages, including three that are about plants. The members of the Wikipedia:Disambiguation pages with links project would appreciate your help in fixing ambiguous links to:

  1. Tulip tree: 51 links - no longer a disambig
  2. Fan palm: 50 links - no longer a disambig
  3. Black oak: 48 links

Cheers! bd2412 T 18:29, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've dealt with half-a-dozen at Tulip tree; but would it more sense to move it to Tulip tree (disambiguation), and have Tulip tree redirect to Liriodendron tulipifera as the principle meaning? Lavateraguy (talk) 19:59, 8 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds like a good idea to me. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell from a bit of quick googling, yes Liriodendron is the primary meaning (Spathodea being African Tulip Tree). I suppose I'd link to Liriodendron rather than Liriodendron tulipifera but that seems like a more minor point. Of course, if someone can show widespread use of "tulip tree" for something besides Liriodendron (perhaps in only some parts of the world?) that might change things. Kingdon (talk) 03:22, 10 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Tulip tree is almost a WP:TWODABS situation, with only two actual articles. This can be dealt with by moving the current disambig page to its "Foo (disambiguation)" title, redirecting the base page name to the most common meaning, and adding a hatnote there to the other existing article. bd2412 T 14:47, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It turns out that there is a recently (23/3/11) created Tulip tree (disambiguation) which redirects to Tulip Tree. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:27, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, all "Foo" disambig pages have a "Foo (disambiguation)" redirect pointing to them, so that intentional links to the dab can route through it. I can take care of that, if we all agree that the above solution is appropriate. Cheers! bd2412 T 21:03, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A minor point is that a lot of tulip tree links should be pointing at Liriodendron tulipifera, rather than Liriodendron. Lavateraguy (talk) 22:37, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fan palm appears to be a generic description rather than an ambiguous term. I have therefore removed the disambiguation tag from the article. Cheers! bd2412 T 14:44, 13 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Xerophyte is being reconstructed.

Xerophyte is being reconstructed.[3] Help would be appreciated. PPdd (talk) 16:31, 12 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Unsure what to do about this - plant name being referred to a Wood type

The article Philippine mahogany refers to a type of wood more accurately known as lauan/meranti etc. from the genus Shorea. The usage of the term 'Philippine mahogany' seems to be restricted to US trade. Meanwhile, there is actually a species belonging to the mahogany family (Meliaceae) known as the Philippine mahogany (the Kalantas - Toona calantas). So should it be retained as a valid (though inaccurate, as Shorea is a dipterocarp and not a mahogany) American trade name for a type of wood? Or merged and redirected with hatnotes to the articles for Toona calantas and Mahogany?

Ok, I have (possibly temporarily), reverted it to its earliest version as a disambiguation page.--Obsidi♠nSoul 03:56, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Global Composite Checklist

Dear active WikiProject Plants members, comments would be welcome at Talk:Mutisia about the following comment that I've added. Perhaps this sort of situation has come up before? Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

  • The Global Composite Checklist lists taxonomy in a very shabby way with "Synonym of Unknown" for many Mutisia species. Until they get their act together and decide why something is a synonym and what it is a synonym of, I'd like to suggest that we don't glorify their list in Wikipedia, but instead merge the list of "unaccepted" species names with the "accepted" ones, and list the GCC site simply under "external links". Nadiatalent (talk) 16:11, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Taxon authority errors

I just made an eye-opening discovery. Of the four orders of magnoliids, all four had the wrong taxon authority. APG III has updated more than just nomenclature itself; some older sources for ordinal (and possibly familial) names have turned up. It looks as though there wil be a lot of updating to be done in the angiosperm order and family pages. But note that is is something a person can do with just a copy of the APG III paper. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:30, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One issue is that the ICBN at Article 11.10 says "The principle of priority does not apply above the rank of family", so it's not clear what the exact status is of authors of ranks above family. I have the impression that in the past authors have sometimes been given to indicate "sensu" rather than priority of authorship. However, it seems that as per Recommendation 16B there is a move towards priority being important at all ranks. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:57, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just because priority is not important doesn't mean that orders do not have correct authorship. I'm not clear how trusty Reveal's lists are for authorities, though, given some comments by (IIRC) EncyclopPetey. Circéus (talk) 17:17, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This isn't an issue of priority of names, but of correct author attribution. As Circeus notes, Reveal's lists don't seem trustworthy, but I'd expect APG III to be correct given the people who are in that group. Nor is the problem confined to orders; I've just found that the Piperaceae page uses the taxon authority for the Piperales (and am correcting it). --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:55, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't implying that a particular name, say "Asparagales", doesn't have a author in the sense of the person who first used "Asparagales" for an order, or that we shouldn't try to get it right, just that citing the author isn't as important as it is for lower ranks since priority doesn't determine the correctness of names, so authorship has perhaps not been as well-researched.
Any views on the reliability of this list? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:42, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The abbreviations themselves are sound (and have been published separately), the ACTUAL list is this one. Circéus (talk) 18:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
[I've moved and indented the following comment by someone else to maintain flow. Peter coxhead 11:00, 26 April 2011 (UTC)] Wow...that page has "supersubtribes"..(sorry just had to break this with a moment of levity).19:00, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
However, the authorities given for taxa on that list are not always correct. These two lists are the ones I criticized before for sloppy research and outright errors. His "Isoetales", for example credits Prantl (1874), but a brief look at Bartling (1830) will show he validly published the name nearly half a century earlier. The kicker is that Bartling is one of the sources Reveal uses for other taxa on his list. That's a problem in addition to the fact that some of his attributions are for sources that didn't even contain a formal name for the taxon in question. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:58, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, right. I missed (or forgot) that earlier discussion; hopefully I've caught up now... One question which occurs to me, which more academic botanists may be able to answer, is this: apart from the natural desire to give credit where credit is due, unless and until the ICBN adopts priority for ranks above genera, why is it important to cite authors for these ranks? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:16, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Let me "answer" your question by posing two alternative questions: (1) Have you looked at the family list for APG III and seen how many names are annotated "nom. cons."? (Far more than half.) Given this, why cite authors for families? (2) Why cite authors for families in Wikipedia? Their principal value is in determining which name is used when a family circumscription is changed, and we don't deal with that here until someone has published anyway. So why cite authors for families on WP? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:14, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Very good questions. Going back a step, why cite authors for genera/species on Wikipedia? Here I think there are answers. One is because the literature contains names which turn out to be illegitimate but which have been used sufficiently widely to justify being in Wikipedia and which need distinguishing so that someone who comes across them can find them correctly. (In paleobotany, for example, Cooksonella Senkevich nom. illeg. is not the same as Cooksonella Nagy.) I'm not aware of any such examples for families. If there are none, then I'd say that Wikipedia editors could decide not to cite authors. (IMHO it's better not to cite them than to cite them incorrectly.) What's important about families, as per the section below, is their circumscription. Asparagaceae sensu APG3 is very different from Asparagaceae sensu Watson & Dallwitz, and the fact that de Jussieu was the first to use the name is of little or even no relevance to Wikipedia readers. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:00, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I could certainly live with a decision to cite authors only for genera and species, although if this is attempted without sufficient consensus there is always a danger that well-meaning editors will put back authors (probably even more inaccurately than what we have now). Kingdon (talk) 03:07, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Re: Peter's comments. I agree that it's important to make explicit which genus concept is intended, but often you can't get that from citing the taxon authority. For example, there are two radically different concepts about Anthoceros in the literature (as a result of misapplication of the law of residues). The correct taxon authority for the genus is Linnaeus, but the concept of that genus in the original publication is way off, because Linnaeus included what is now a major segregate genus Phaeoceros (and which is incorrectly given the name Anthoceros as a result of the aforementioned problem. None of this could be clarified by putting "L." after the genus name in the taxobox; it requires a full explanation. The same could be said of Cooksonella, for which an identification of the taxon authority in the taxobox will be wholly unenlightening to anyone not already familiar with the name's issues. So, I don't think that taxon authorities are useful in a taxobox at the rank of Genus or above. Now, for species I can see a rationale. It isn't unusual for a species to be transferred to a new genus, so that both the publishing author and revising author need to be identified, and this allows references to be placed into the taxobox in a meaningful way.
I also don't know that adding "sensu APG3" to every angiosperm family page would be enlightening. Since we use a single standard system across the whole of the angiosperms, there should be a better way to indicate this fact. On Wikispecies, we include a note at the top of every angiosperm page about the choice of system. We do the same thing for the "ferns" (Smith system) and mosses (Goffinet et al.). We might consider some way of implementing that here, especially if the issues with the automatic taxobox can be resolved. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:45, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think we are actually in agreement, although the difficulty I find in explaining taxonomic issues may have misled me. To be clear about the Cooksonella example (in case it isn't), it's not that there are two circumscriptions of the same genus, it's that Senkevich published the name for one set of fossils when Nagy had already published the name for a quite different set. So a new name is needed for Cooksonella Senkevich, but doesn't yet seem to have been published; hence in the meantime, the only unique identifiers of the two different genera consist of the combination genus name + authority. Now this could in principle happen for a descriptive family name (though I don't think it ever has), but it can't happen for typified family names (or any other typified rank name) under the ICBN because "Xaceae" is always the same name/identifier regardless of which genera other than "X" are included.
I would like there to be some neat, tidy way of telling the reader what system is being used in a taxobox. I'm not quite sure how this should be done; certainly not by putting "sensu X" everywhere. One possibility would be to have "System: ..." as the first entry in a taxobox classification, with the name of the system being linked to an explanation. This might be too obtrusive though (and would need discussing at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of life). Peter coxhead (talk) 16:53, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Use of taxon name + sensu X

Picking up my last comment the discussion above, and returning to an old issue, I remain very concerned about the lack of clarity in many plant articles as to the sense in which names of higher taxa are being used, regardless of who the authors might be. Good examples of problem names are Chlorophyta, Streptophyta and Charophyta, which have quite inconsistent uses in different sources. The Streptophytina article is currently confused between at least two senses. Given that we can't agree on a consistent classification system to use for plants sensu latissimo, could we not agree to make more explicit use of "sensu X", at least in taxoboxes? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:51, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The problem here is twofold. On the one hand, you're concerned about clarifying to a reader the sense in ehich the name of the article is applied. The second problem is that article writers are confusing the name of the article with its subject material. The result is that we have articles that go on-and-on about the different circumscriptions of different authors without discussing anything of value. Each article should be principally concerned with a given subject, not with the name applied to the article or the definition of that name. With taxonomy, this does get a little messy, but the point for an encyclopedia is to focus on the topic of discussion, rather than the various ways the name has been applied. That's not to say there shouldn't be a section within the article somewhere that addresses differences of application and circumscription, but that issue should always be secondary to the biology, economics, etc. of the taxon. With that in mind, I don't see how adding "sensu" to taxoboxes will be of any value. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:09, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think you make a very valuable point. We should have more discussion among active editors of the principles which should underpin article construction. I'll respond with some questions.
  • What size of the article we are aiming for and how should articles be related? How should articles at different ranks (e.g. order-family-genus-species) be designed? How much repetition should there be? Little or none, because wiki-links lead upwards to shared material? Quite a bit, because encyclopedia articles should be stand-alone?
Personally, I think that at present there are too many plant articles which repeat too much material (often inconsistently).
  • Following on from this, should we have a separate article for every one of the recently accepted higher taxa (whether ranks or clades)? Or should some of them be grouped in articles, e.g. on the research/system which produced the taxa or on the higher taxon of which they are part?
It seems that we do try to achieve one article per taxon. However modern phylogenetic approaches often produce less 'natural' groups (particularly the higher ones). By 'natural' here I mean a group which has shared features of morphology, anatomy, ecology, etc. which are accessible to non-specialists. So circumscription becomes a difficult issue, requiring more space, and repetition from one taxon to another. In principle, I'd prefer only one main explanation of the current usage of chlorophyte, streptophyte, charophyte, etc. At present, there's material in Plant, Archaeplastida, Embryophyte, Chlorophyta, Streptophytina, Green algae, and doubtless elsewhere, some of which is inconsistent. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:24, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever we do, I think an underpinning principle is that the topic/scope of the article should be the first consideration, and what we call that article should be secondary. So, if there is an important group/clade/taxon (say, Nymphaeales, monocot, moss, vascular plant), then we should write the article about the organisms, and pick a suitable name for the article to go with what's written. In the past we've often worked the other way 'round. Articles started either from a perceived need to turn a name's redlink blue, or else someone penned a factoid and put a taxobox on it to make an "article". This puts undue emphasis on the name. For a time, we even had a few editors creating articles just about the names, divorced from all biological information. As a result, the articles had no focal point for content. It's certainly true that "the meaning of this name varies with usage", but that's true for most words in the English language, even for everyday words like table, heavy, and orange. It's not necessary to base a whole article around this fact. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:24, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Pity that it seems to be only the two of us discussing this, because I think your comments are very valuable and some version of them should be put on the project page, not left here to be archived. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:58, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A good example of articles which are really only about names are Drepanophycales and Drepanophycaceae (another pair were Drepanophycus and Drepanophycus spinaeformis, but I've merged these two already). The substantive content of these two is something like "early lycophytes". (The division into orders and families is rather out of date, as well.) Another task to be done should time permit... Peter coxhead (talk) 14:34, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Botany Barnstar

Just letting you all know, I submitted one for WikiProject Awards (apparently there were earlier attempts at making one as well)

The Botany Barnstar
For your excellent contributions to Plant-related articles.--Obsidi♠nSoul 09:27, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free to comment at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikipedia Awards#Proposal: The Botany Barnstar (title and wording of default message might still need to be changed). Cheers--Obsidi♠nSoul 12:11, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation opinions

Hi. I'd be grateful if editors which an interest in disambiguation could take a look at Tristis and let me know their thoughts on its talk page. Thanks SP-KP (talk) 10:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see the logic of disambiguation pages for species epithets. Are we going to have one for every species epithet used more than once? What's the point? If I remember that the specific epithet of an organism in some particular group is "tristis", surely it's easier to just search? Since I don't know that the disambiguation list will be complete, I'll probably need to search anyway. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:28, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's also the possibility that an organism with the masc./fem. epithet tristis will be reassigned to a neut. genus, resulting in the epithet triste, which wouldn't be listed on the page at all, since it's spelled differently. The same could be send of eppithets like rubrus, rubra, rubrum. There are so many potential variations on this theme, that even a "complete" list would not always be helpful. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:56, 29 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How to handle families not in APG III: a proposal

In expanding Asparagales based on the Spanish article (as suggested by a heading note at the time) I ran into the problem of families which are no longer recognized in APG III. There are no less than 13 in the Asparagales, some of which are small, but at least three of which are quite major groups and currently have significant articles on them, particularly Alliaceae, Amaryllidaceae sensu stricto and Hyacinthaceae. In the Asparagales article, I adopted the families of APG III with the subfamilies of Chase, Reveal & Fay (2009) to keep track of the submerged families. I notice that no-one has objected to this. It does however mean that the Asparagales article and articles on the affected families and their genera and species are inconsistent.

My proposal is that this be made consistent, i.e. we adopt the APG III families strictly, removing those which were in earlier versions of the APG system but are not in APG III, but, unusually, explicitly using the subfamilies proposed by Chase et al. (at least in the Asparagales). One advantage of the automatic taxobox system is that a 'minor' rank, like subfamily, can be made to display or not in taxoboxes by a single change to the relevant Template:Taxonomy/... For now, I would suggest displaying subfamilies like Allioideae, Amarylloideae and Scillioidae.

There are two alternatives: continue to use the submerged families or make them disappear totally by ignoring the Chase et al. subfamilies.

Which of the three alternatives do other editors support? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:45, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Use the subfamilies. The APG III publication seems to indicate that for simplicity's sake, they didn't tackle the subfamilies in the large APG III paper and specifically point this out: "For convenience and better communication, a subfamilial classification of Amaryllidaceae, Asparagaceae and Xanthorrhoeaceae sensu APG III is proposed in Chase, Reveal & Fay (2009). This will allow researchers to use a subfamily name where previously they would have used one of the APG II bracketed family names." Use of these subfamilies is clearly in line with APG III and it would seem the authors fully support their use. Rkitko (talk) 21:51, 3 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell, it is pretty safe to use APG III and the subfamilies from the Chase (2009) paper. Classifications prior to that one were pretty much all over the map (as I understand the situation, anyway). Kingdon (talk) 01:57, 4 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That has been my impression as well, and I've been following the monocot classification revisions for some time. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, well it seems that everyone agrees so far. Just to summarize:
  1. We use only the families in APG III (as already agreed).
  2. For those previously 'major' families which have disappeared in APG III but have a subfamily provided in Chase et al. (2009), at least for the present, we use the subfamily both as the article title and in the taxobox.
I personally will use an automatic taxobox in any articles which I convert (I'm aware that there's no consensus on this). The advantage is that the subfamilies can be marked "always display"; then if it seems that they don't 'take', changing one taxobox will make them disappear everywhere. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:15, 5 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In updating articles on species, I have removed text which names the family to which the species belongs: (a) this seems unnecessary at the species level (b) it makes any future change of family more difficult to implement. If anyone objects, I'll stop. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wrong picture.

Hallo, This is a picture from the fruit of Planchonia careya & not Terminalia ferdinandiana, there are two tree's with the common name "Biilygoat Plum" or "Kakadu Plum", Planchonia careya & Terminalia ferdinandiana. It's maybe a good idea to change it to stop confusion. I myself am new to Wikipedia & don't really understand how to do this. Thanks Stephen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.2.187.16 (talk) 09:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

 Done. See here. Have also requested a renaming of the photo itself. Thank you for pointing it out.--Obsidi♠nSoul 10:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Blurgh. Looks like that picture was misidentified as well.--Obsidi♠nSoul 10:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes the two pictures at commons were of 2 different plants but neither correct! Fixed now. Melburnian (talk) 10:53, 8 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Zephyranthes article

Could someone please have a look at this article, which I 'passed through' while updating to APG III taxonomy? A quick glance suggests some possible advertising; some of the article looks more like a catalogue than an encyclopedia article – but I only looked quickly. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:02, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Didn't look like a catalogue to me: it isn't tied to a particular vendor. Nothing wrong with listing cultivated varieties of a plant, if that is all this is. There might be a little advertising snuck in (such as "are just a few of the talented breeders") here and there. There are some violations of WP:NOTHOWTO but mostly of a stylistic sort: I don't think the discussion of how these things are cultivated and what conditions they thrive in is particularly excessive. Some of it could be trimmed down but I don't see any need for large-scale slashing of that text; more like rewording and tightening and probably snipping out a few things here and there. Kingdon (talk) 01:30, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Opinions sought

This section Amaryllidoideae#Tribes, subtribes and genera of an article which I 'passed through' while updating to APG III seemed inappropriate to me. My feeling is that a detailed discussion of the tribes into which a family or subfamily can be divided is really only of interest to botanists, who can read the sources, and not appropriate to the level Wikipedia aims for. But what do others think? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is a point on which I am an inclusionist. It can always also be broken off into an Phylogeny and Classification of Amaryllidoideae article. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:18, 13 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In this case it is well-written and informative. As Lavateraguy says, we can break it out if need be. Not sure I'd say the same of classifications which don't cite their sources, don't say whose classification it is, commit original research, etc. Kingdon (talk) 01:21, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well sourced, encyclopedic content - definite keep. That it's detailed is a positive, not a negative. mgiganteus1 (talk) 01:25, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting to see different reactions. I think it would be really useful if we could add some material to the project page which spells out in more detail the level of detail in articles the project is aiming for. The Scope and goals set out the top level goals (although note that articles on orders and higher taxa are missing from the goals). But then I'd like to see more subsections in the Guidelines section, e.g. explaining how WP:NOTHOWTO is applied in the context of plant articles. Since I'm currently traversing the entire tree of articles on Amaryllidaceae sensu APG III, I looking (very superficially) at many more articles than I would normally. A high proportion, in this group at least, rely on horticultural sources for information, and hence include material on cultivation – quite reasonably in my view. But perhaps others would regard the cultivation material as excessive whereas I regard tribe-level classification material as excessive. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:25, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Template. I think that's what you're looking for. Rkitko (talk) 01:35, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In my original post, it might have been helpful if I had emphasized the word 'detailed': "My feeling is that a detailed discussion of the tribes into which a family or subfamily can be divided is really only of interest to botanists, who can read the sources, and not appropriate to the level Wikipedia aims for." See also below.
It's just unusual because very few articles have this sort of detailed material and even fewer users have the capacity to write that sort of taxonomic overview. Circéus (talk) 00:34, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See the GA review of Aloe vera, in particular the comment
"At times, the language is pretty inaccessible to anyone who is not a botanist, or has not received a scientific training. This is not so all the way through, but it occurs in some of the sections. ... This article has the potential to be of interest to readers outside the natural scientist community, but it needs to be made more comprehensible to them."
Do we, as a WikiProject, agree with this approach to GA status or not?
I think it's also a matter of balance. I've been influenced by a comment by User:EncycloPetey above (see #Use of taxon name + sensu X) making the point that articles should be about the subject and not merely about names. If it's helpful to the reader in understanding the morphology, anatomy, properties, etc. of members of a group, then division into tribes, subgenera, or whatever is useful, but it seems to me (now) that the taxonomy per se should be very much secondary. This is rather against my personal feelings, since I find classification an absorbing subject. However, I'm currently of the view that Wikipedia editors should not. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:30, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Though I have great difficulty in understanding phylogeny and whatnot, I'm also of the opinion that we should not dumb down content for the sake of dumbing it down. I've argued about this with someone in IRC once. While we can exchange jargon with words more familiar with readers, we also should not omit information that may be important to someone serious about the subject simply because majority of people don't care to know about it, imo. But yeah, it's all about balancing, I guess. I usually shove down the more technical aspects of articles I write (which I barely understand myself) down at the bottom of articles so as not to scare away readers.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 11:05, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Obsidian Soul. A GA physics article is generally going to go over my head because you can't explain the topic in proper detail without assuming the reader knows something about physics. Likewise in botany. The solution to this is to be careful and link to the proper articles in our dense descriptions or explain likely unfamiliar words or concepts with parentheticals. That has never been a problem before in any GA or FA review I've participated in. Rkitko (talk) 11:53, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I try to put brief explanations in parentheses, but too much makes the text hard to read. Now if there were a single "botanical glossary" with anchors for every defined term, this might help to produce more useful wikilinks than is sometimes possible at present. The discussion of merging Glossary of botanical terms and Glossary of plant morphology terms seems to have halted, which I think is a pity. I'm in favour of a single "botanical glossary". Peter coxhead (talk) 20:34, 18 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Orphan notices

Another thing I've noticed in traversing the 'Amaryllidaceae article tree' is the significant number of species articles tagged as orphans. Since the project's goal is to describe "all ... species of the kingdom Plantae", it's inevitably the case that many species will only be linked to from their genus article. So I've simply removed these orphan tags whenever I found them. I suspect there's no way of preventing them being added, although if there were I would support it. Any views? Comments? Peter coxhead (talk) 07:30, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I dislike that tag a lot. LOL. It's extremely unnecessary in most cases and quite obnoxiously prominent. imo, it should only be used when there are actually articles that can be linked to it, instead of arbitrarily placing them on every page with less than 3 articles linking to it.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 08:40, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If you talk to the people doing the tagging, they'll suggest that you make an "all species in the genus" template and include it on all pages related to the genus. That's an option for smaller genera, but I don't think it would be feasible for large genera. And, more to the point, it's silly to add it just to avoid having a bot tag the pages. Guettarda (talk) 16:37, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I always got the feeling that people who add it to pages simply can't find anything else wrong with them. :P As if they have to place a tag so they place that one in the absence of anything else appropriate. I mean seriously, whatever happened to WP:SOFIXIT. :/
Anyway, yep, seems to be justified. Species/Taxonomic articles are specifically mentioned in Wikipedia:Orphan#Articles that may be difficult to de-orphan -- Obsidi♠nSoul 17:13, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It seems that we all agree on the removal of orphan tags. I've made WP:TAXONORPHAN a shortcut to Wikipedia:Orphan#Articles that may be difficult to de-orphan, so when removing orphan notices from taxonomy/species articles, [[WP:TAXONORPHAN]] can be given as justification. Hopefully this will stop reverts, if not additions in future. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:55, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Blue Sage

I've just done a little bit of tidying on Eranthemum pulchellum and I notice that both it and Salvia clevelandii are known by the common name Blue Sage. Currently Blue sage redirects to Salvia clevelandii (which has no hatnote for Eranthemum pulchellum). There's also a DAB page Blue Sage (disambiguation) which links to both articles. Is Salvia clevelandii the primary use of Blue Sage or is that country dependent? It seems that Eranthemum pulchellum is a popular Indian plant. Should Blue sage be a DAB page or is it appropriate for it to redirect to one of the two articles with a hatnote for the other one? Ka Faraq Gatri (talk) 14:53, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

S. clevelandii seems to be more commonly known as the 'Cleveland sage' ('blue sage' being only one of its common names). You should change the redirect from Blue sage to point directly to E. pulchellum and put a {{Redirect|Blue sage}} hatnote on it. S. clevelandii, on the other hand, should have a {{For|other plants also known as 'blue sage'|Blue sage (disambiguation)}} or something hatnote leading to the dab page. It probably was redirected to S. clevelandii before simply because the article on E. pulchellum didn't exist at the time of its creation (former was written in 2007, latter in 2011).-- Obsidi♠nSoul 15:38, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, done. Thanks. Ka Faraq Gatri (talk) 20:52, 14 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Guarana

Just a heads-up; Guarana has had a GAR open for over a month and nobody's commented yet. Please feel free to do so here. Ten Pound Hammer, his otters and a clue-bat • (Otters want attention) 21:46, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Algae tagging

Possible errors I made a number of edits to talk pages adding {{WikiProject Algae}} in January and I've tried to rectify my mistakes, but one of the editors who was vigilant about this matter (User:Kleopatra) has apparently disappeared from Wikipedia. If anyone else wants to go through the effort of checking some of my old edits for errors, I'd appreciate it. From now on, I'll be sure to steer clear of tagging the talk pages of technical or scientific articles. Thanks. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 01:45, 16 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For those who might not have found User_talk:Koavf#Tagging, the issue was articles like Phytopthora, Pythium, Dileptus anser and other non-photosynthetic unicellular eurkaryotes. Your edit history is pretty prolific, though, koavf, so it isn't easy for me to just check whatever you have tagged. Kingdon (talk) 01:30, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Actually I only tagged one of those three pages. Here's what I'm doing: starting with this edit (2011-01-24T04:12:54) to Talk:Artificial seawater, I will go through my edits (see starting here) backwards through to my edit (2011-01-24T19:20:21) to Talk:Zonaria (alga) and for every edit where mine is the top diff, I will make a list that can be reviewed by other users who are more knowledgeable than me. As I've stated before, I'll not engaged in any mass-editing of science or technical articles (where I am too ignorant), nor will I tag them at all (mass- or otherwise), unless I am certain of the appropriate WikiProject. This was a huge hassle for everyone involved—myself included—and I want it to be fixed finally. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 22:50, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Here you go
All (top) edits from this period—Total: 280
There are all of them in a list, so they should be reviewable by someone who is knowledgeable on these topics. If this is too much of a hassle, I can place {{db-author}} on all of these talk pages. Please let me know if/how I can assist on my talk. Thanks and (once again) sorry. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 23:46, 7 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks; that list is quite helpful. I went through the first dozen or so and only found one error. If I get more time I'll do some more, but help is appreciated. Just add strikeout (<s>) tags to ones you have already checked (and if you aren't sure, just skip that one and move on to the next). Kingdon (talk) 01:30, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
You're welcome But the rub here is that all of these articles were under Category:Algae, which is why I felt safe tagging them in the first place. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 08:16, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. I've changed the categories on Telonema. Kingdon (talk) 02:15, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Flora or plants?

Should I move California native plants to Native plants of California, Indigenous flora of California or some other combination? Is "flora" and "plants" used interchangeably? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 05:58, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In terms of articles that exist, it seems that titles of the form "Flora of location" are preferred over "location-adjective Flora", so there's a case for moving from "California native plants" to "Native plants of California".
As to "native plants" vs. "indigenous flora", I'd choose "native flora"!! Peter coxhead (talk) 09:07, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization of plant articles

Having updated to APG III the taxonomy in all the articles I could find relating to Xanthorrhoeaceae, Amaryllidaceae and Asparagaceae (as per Wikipedia_talk:PLANTS#How_to_handle_families_not_in_APG_III:_a_proposal) I wanted to ensure that the categories matched. I started a thread on categorization at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#Guidelines_on_categorization, which seemed to reach some kind of consensus (among the few respondents).

However, the actual categorization which seems to be intended for plants is more complicated. I say "seems" because many of the relevant extra categories appear to have been created by Hesperian, who doesn't seem to be around to answer my request for an explanation.

The categorization appears to me to be meant to work like the diagram opposite. "Meant" because actual article categorization is highly inconsistent. The brown lines show categories and links which I don't really see the need for.

  • Arrows in the diagram mean "is categorized as". Links between categories read in reverse as "has the subcategory"; links between an article and a category read in reverse as "has the page".
  • Articles on species and genera are categorized either under the genus, if it's big enough, or under the next higher category otherwise.
  • Articles on genera are ALSO categorized under the category "FAMILY genera".
  • Articles on subfamilies are categorized under the subfamily.
  • Articles on families are categorized BOTH (1) under the family AND (2) under "ORDER families".

Where there were existing categories in the articles whose taxonomy I've updated, I've followed this pattern.

  • Is this system of categorization documented anywhere? If so, where?
  • Have I understood it correctly?
  • What are the advantages of the categories shown by brown links in the diagram? The disadvantages seem clear to me: extra complexity means that editors don't categorize as apparently intended; there's great scope for inconsistency between the links with, e.g., genera articles placed in "Category:FAMILY1" but also in "Category:FAMILY2 genera".

I hope someone can help! Peter coxhead (talk) 11:09, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(non-WikiProject Plants member observation) Thanks for raising this. I also find those brown links/categories rather confusing and somewhat redundant. Are they a hangover from some older attempt at categorisation, perhaps? Ka Faraq Gatri (talk) 12:31, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are also categories for some tribes (e.g. Cichorieae). Lavateraguy (talk) 18:14, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, I should have added to the notes above that "subfamily" is just one example of an intermediate level. Very large genera might need subgenera, etc. to reduce the size of the category listing (orchids are a good example where genera have a huge number of species). The principle is clear, I think. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:00, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To me the brown Category structure seems redundant, and Hesperian hasn't given much of an explanation as to its need. I would say adjusting, merging, and deleting categories where they are needed to get down to the taxo based structure may be teh way to go.--Kevmin § 19:41, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, if no-one explains why the brown Category structure exists, I'm very tempted to do exactly what you say in the area I've been working in, namely Xanthorrhoeaceae, Amaryllidaceae and Asparagaceae. It's a big enough task to get the black links right. But let's wait a little longer (but not too long :-) ). Peter coxhead (talk) 20:00, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I consider the use of categories like Category:Proteaceae genera to be useful and sensible. It don't think the structure is at all confusing, though even I find the diagram above confusing, with all its needlessly crossing lines and its failure to capture the symmetry inherent in the system. I'm sorry if my explanation has been inadequate; I am too busy in real life to invest time in defending this. Hesperian 00:02, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I understand that I'm (semi)retired and so have more time for this stuff than others, which should not give me more say in decisions, so I want to proceed with caution. I'll make some points in the hope that there are others about who understand this stuff.
  • There definitely is a strong potential symmetry in the system, which I agree doesn't show up too well in my 2-D diagram. I think this is because it has multiple category hierarchies: the categorization of the taxa themselves, the categorization of the taxon genera, the categorization of the taxon families (and the categorization of the taxon orders, etc. if the diagram were extended upwards). To show how these multiple vertical categorizations are connected seems to require crossing lines – or at least I haven't found any way of drawing it that doesn't, and I have tried several.
  • The symmetry is only potential, because taxa with few members (genera with few species, families with few genera, etc.) have usually not had categories created for them, since there is a bias against categories with few members (although WP:SMALLCAT allows them in this case, I think). So the reality is that if the categories were fully populated, which is far from the case, the system would be symmetrical. Actually it is not, partly deliberately and partly because categorization is far from complete.
  • I agree entirely that if the categorization were complete, it is useful to be able to access a list of all the genera within the Proteaceae (say) on which Wikipedia has articles. But in the system under discussion there are two ways of doing this which should produce the same result: firstly by going to Category:Proteaceae genera and secondly by going to Category:Proteaceae, which should contain either subcategories or pages for each genus. In this case, I guess because Proteaceae interests Hesperian, there is a comprehensive list in Category:Proteaceae genera, but a poor one in Category:Proteaceae (e.g. the article on Knightia excelsa is there but nothing for the genus Knightia). For other families, e.g. Apiaceae, there is actually no Category:Apiaceae genera, only Category:Apiaceae.
In conclusion, unless anyone else is really interested, I think I'll get back to writing articles, which is more useful, it seems, than thinking about categorization! Peter coxhead (talk) 07:17, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Now that I see it all laid out, I like the system. Family categories have the potential to be messy - some genera, some species, some subfamilies...there's no guarantee that you can look at a family and figure out what genera are in it. Big families can be especially messy. So having a category specifically for genera, by family is useful. It parallels "lists of genera by family" (lists and categories are supposed to exist in parallel), while being potentially easier to maintain. So yeah, I like it. Guettarda (talk) 11:57, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comment – good to see that someone else is willing to engage with this issue!
I entirely agree that lists of genera by family, with links from the genus names to Wikipedia articles, are extremely useful (not least when taxonomies change, as seems all too often at present). What I'm not convinced of is that having categories which parallel these lists is useful. In particular, I can't see that it's potentially easier to maintain. As I know from recent experience, if the circumscription of a family in terms of its genera changes, you have to change:
  1. one or two pages which list the genera of that family (the family page + possibly a separate page listing the genera for that family)
  2. the taxoboxes for the affected genera AND species (which is MUCH easier if automated taxoboxes are used since you don't need to go to the species articles at all)
  3. the text of the articles for the affected genera AND the articles for the affected species if these latter mention the family in the text (which I think they generally shouldn't)
  4. the categories in the articles for the affected genera – one 'black' category in my diagram and one 'brown' category.
(If categorization is correct, then there shouldn't be any changed categories for species articles, but this is a big if!).
Did having a category for the genera of a family help me in changing Xanthorrhoeaceae, Amaryllidaceae and Asparagaceae to APG III? Not in the slightest, it just made extra work.
Anyway, I thought there might be a quick consensus on this issue; as there isn't, and as I don't think that categorization is at all an important feature of Wikipedia for taxon articles, I think I'll leave this topic now. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:22, 24 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Categorization and APG III

(Moved to a new section as a new topic I think. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:22, 25 May 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Actually I'm more than a little concerned about APG III recategorization. I don't think that we should reclassify entire groups solely based on APG III. Family circumspection depends on a number of factors. Until the experts working on a family actually accept the redefinitions, APG III is nothing more than a proposal. It is worth noting, of course. But until it enters common usage, we should not be changing families. It isn't our job to advocate for change. It's our job to document changes. Bearing that in mind, I suspect that it might make sense for parallel APG III categories to exist, at least until the systematics world establishes consensus on these changes. Guettarda (talk) 15:11, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are three places where reference to the placement of a taxon occurs:
  • In the text of the article. Here, I'm sure we all agree, there should be discussion (or at least mention) of all taxonomic placements likely to be found in the literature. Recently I've been trying to explicitly add a statement about the system in use if I've been editing an article. Thus if it said "species X y is in family Z", I would change this to "In the APG III classification system, species X y is in family Z". We need to make the subjective nature of classification clearer.
  • In the taxobox. Here there can only be one taxonomic hierarchy, and I asked above if anyone objected to this being changed to APG III for the Asparagales families most affected; no-one did. I have raised before whether there should be some mechanism for explicitly showing in the taxobox the system in use. I favour this. E.g. instead of "Scientific classification" which sounds definitive and authoritative, why not "Classification according to APG III", or whatever system is in use for that group?
  • In the categorization. Having been through all the articles I could find relating to the Asparagales, I am only too aware of how inconsistent and generally poor the categorization was (and probably still is, although I've tried to improve it). The problem for me with providing multiple categorizations, which of course is technically possible, is that editors clearly find it too difficult to cope with the current system of categorization. I incline to the view that one system, paralleling the taxoboxes, which then has a chance of being more-or-less complete and consistent, is better than multiple systems, which would inevitably be less complete and more inconsistent. (Btw I have deliberately classified and categorized to the subfamily level in those families most affected by APG III. This means that there is a match between, say, Asparagaceae s.s. and Asparagoideae sensu APG III+, making it easier to match the two systems or switch back if the consensus changes.)
More generally, it seems to me that the organization of an encyclopedia does require editors to make decisions about classification systems (but they should be up front about these decisions). (You can't organize a library by both the Library of Congress and the Dewey systems. You just have to choose.) The content of an encyclopedia is different. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:22, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Many, if not most, of the changes in each APG update do reflect the literature. As you read through the APG III publication, they reference work by others that supported the conclusion for family or order shifts, so I don't think APG III, for example, is making much of this up or producing radical changes with no supporting data. I also don't think it's fair to say we're advocating for use of APG III by using it in the taxoboxes (one might say using Cronquist's outdated system would be advocating a position, too); I think the reasoning behind adoption of the system is quite sound on our part for consistency's sake. We could be waiting forever for common usage to catch up and by then it may be changing again. I continue to support APG III usage here. I also think it's pretty accurate to say that the systematics world is APG III, or at least many of the big names in flowering plant systematics are a part of APG III. I doubt very much that Chase et al. would publish a new family or order arrangement without consulting the experts on that taxon and inviting comment, given their data. And for what it's worth, I also support Hesperian's categorization scheme above of Category:Family genera. I just haven't had the opportunity to say so. I also apologize if any of this is incoherent as I'm working on little sleep and jet lag right now. Rkitko (talk) 20:36, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Although I support the use of APG III (as is obvious!), I'm aware that, as Guettarda wrote, it's not the case that all the experts on particular groups agree with APG III. (For example, I know from personal communication that Alan W. Meerow, an expert on the Amaryllidaceae s.s. and author of many names in this group, does not accept the full APG III system which sinks this group to a subfamily.) So we need to be a little cautious, hence my advocacy (and use) of the subfamilies which could be more easily turned back to families should the need arise.
I've given in over the "Hesperian categorization scheme"; clearly some plant editors like it and it should stay. I'll only point out, again, that its usage among plant groups is very, very patchy. I suggest that those who like it spend some time applying it. :-) Apiaceae is a good place to start since as of now Category:Apiaceae genera does not exist. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:31, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If anyone wants to take this up they may find my old notes in User:Hesperian/Notes/Ranks of some use. Hesperian 23:45, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Wow! Now draw a diagram for that without crossing lines... :-) Peter coxhead (talk) 07:05, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with updating to APG-III. Whereas most published taxonomies are merely the views of a few authors, APG-III represents the consensus of a peak body. It was already the consensus view the day it was published. There's no need to hold out for unanimity. Hesperian 23:45, 25 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just came across this interesting paper: Kim, Joo-Hwan; Kim, Dong-Kap; Forest, Felix; Fay, Michael F.; Chase, Mark W. (2010), "Molecular phylogenetics of Ruscaceae sensu lato and related families (Asparagales) based on plastid and nuclear DNA sequences", Annals of Botany, 106 (5): 775–790, doi:10.1093/aob/mcq167 {{citation}}: Unknown parameter |lastauthoramp= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help). Quote from the conclusion section: "the parsimony analysis in this study does not find support for the broader circumscription of Asparagaceae sensu APG III. Amaryllidaceae s.l. are supported, but in this study Asparagaceae s.l. are paraphyletic to Amaryllidaceae s.l.". Note that two authors (Fay & Chase) are part of the APG group. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:37, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Purple yam

I've requested the article Purple yam be moved over redir to Dioscorea alata. Please weigh in at the talk page. I am leaving this message at all the relevant project's talk pages. Hamamelis (talk) 13:05, 26 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article has been moved, as above, with 5 votes in support; 0 votes opposed. Thanks everyone for your participation. I am leaving this message at all the relevant project's talk pages. Hamamelis (talk) 10:41, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Categorisation of plants by political entity

The topic of categorising plant within political borders may have been discussed somewhere else but I thought I would drop a note here. Lobelia inflata is listed as a plant in numerous US states. What do we do with some of the plants with a more cosmopolitan distribution? In how many country categories should we list bracken or some of the eucalypt species? Having lots of categories in the article makes the category system less useful. Can a reader be bothered wading trough all the categories? Geographical grouping are a much better way of categorising plants (and animals). -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 04:37, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, this has been discussed a bazillion times. Two points bear repeating:
  1. People have an interest in the flora of their countries and states. Plus flora is managed along political boundaries, because herbaria are funded by political entities. Pick a country/state, and search for books entitled "Flora of <country/state>" or "Plants of <country/state>", and I guarantee you you'll find plenty. Wikipedia's job is to reflect that interest, not to pass judgement on it and decide not to provide people with what they are looking for because we think it is silly.
  2. It can be hard to justify following political boundaries when dealing with non-contiguous cases, like Hawaii being a part of the United States. But this is not a problem unique to us. Every herbarium database has to deal with it. Compromises have to be made. Rather than make our own decisions on how to proceed, we outsource the issue by following the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions.
  3. Regarding over-categorization, a key solution is to add distribution categories only to lowest level (or endemic) taxa. You wouldn't add flowering plant to every "Flora of" category. Similarly, you wouldn't add bracken either, because this is a genus. You would only add geographic categories to individual bracken species, such as Pteridium aquilinum.
Hesperian 05:19, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Question about Shallot article

Information has been added to the Shallot article re Shallot#Shallots_in_Persian_cooking. This is partially referenced and appears to be correct. However, whereas the Shallot article at present refers in the lede to Allium cepa var. aggregatum or A. cepa Aggregatum group, the 'Persian shallot' is a different species (A. stipitatum, syn. A. hirtifolium). I'm not used to editing food-based plant articles. Is this a case where the initial description of 'shallot' should be widened or where the material on 'Persian shallots' should be moved to a newly created Allium stipitatum article? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:18, 27 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you have a reliable reference to create the stipitatum article, then that would seem preferable. Meanwhile, the Shallot article is under a common name, so it is appropriate that it refers 'other shallots'. Perhaps at present the lead should be modified so slightly to acknowledge these? Imc (talk) 07:01, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Lavateraguy has already modified the lead section. The issue for me, then, is that the taxobox isn't quite right once the article says that "shallot" is not one species.
On the issue of a reliable source for info on A. stipitatum, I have Dilys Davies' Alliums book, but the Kew Checklist seems to have sunk species she describes separately into synonymity, so it's slightly tricky to work out which currently recognized species is being described. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:25, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have now created Allium stipitatum. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:39, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Now that you have created Allium stipitatum I would favour moving the Persian shallot stuff into there. If an article is created for French shallots as well, then shallot can be cleaned up.
I speculate about the value about creating a subarticle of Allium, about their culinary uses. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:42, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I'll move the Persian shallot stuff, leaving a wikilink in the original article.
Done.
I think that a general article about culinary uses of Allium species would be very worthwhile. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:49, 28 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's a chapter on "Edible Alliums" in Davies, Dilys (1992), Alliums : the ornamental onions, London: B.T. Batsford (in association with the Hardy Plant Society), ISBN 978-0-7134-7030-7 which seems well-researched and would be a good source if you have access to it. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:51, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Warnings

reading Camassia quamash I noticed that there are two warnings in the article pointing out that it can be confused with Zigadenus venenosus which is poisonous to humans. While I appreciate the sentiment, this seems unencyclopedic to me. Encyclopedias do not exist to offer advice on whether one should or shouldn't do something. Is there some kind of guideline for this type of thing? Murderbike (talk) 22:49, 29 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes WP:NOTMANUAL. I've addressed it at the article.Melburnian (talk) 00:06, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But it's ok to report, neutrally, on advice which can be sourced elsewhere. So if it's reported that Camassia quamash bulbs are edible, then it would be responsible to add something like "SOURCE says that the species can be confused with Zigadenus venenosus which is poisonous to humans", assuming that there is such a source. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:08, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Plants Desert Plants Task Force

WikiProject Plants Desert Plants Task Force

Would anyone like to join me in starting a WikiProject Desert Plants Task Force? Once there are five names above, we can start our task list. Sign your name in the quote box above. PPdd (talk) 21:04, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Plants Illustration, Anatomy, and Morphology Task Force

WikiProject Plants Illustration, Anatomy, and Morphology Task Force

Would anyone like to join me in starting a WikiProject Plants Illustration, Anatomy, and Morphology Task Force? The purpose would be to create a Wikipedia Illustrated Encyclopedia of Plant Terms, to visually illustrate the technical terms used in our plant articles. A picture is worth way more than a thousand words, and we all have that "So and So's Illustrated Encyclopedia of Plant Terms" on our shelf that we take out more than any other book there. Once there are five names above, we can start our task list. Sign your name in the quote box above. It will also help people scratching their heads and looking up into their upper right visual periphery every time they look at a Jepson Manual. PPdd (talk) 21:07, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Query about ICBN and Ternary name

I would be grateful if any experts on the ICBN/botanical nomenclature could look at Talk:Ternary_name#.22Ternary_name.22_is_not_in_the_ICBN; I've flagged the article with {{disputed}} which may or may not be correct. Thanks. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:17, 30 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I commented there. Also, suggest you review Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Archive30#"Quadrinomial_name" and maybe have a chat with Curtis Clark, who is very strong on nomenclature. Hesperian 01:37, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the link. Actually, on reviewing it, I'm inclined to think that your comment "I suspect I am going to have to read this [Art. 24.1] twenty times before I begin to comprehend the disputes and compromises inherent in the wording, and its implications for us" applies to me too! In spite of his expertise, I'm not entirely convinced by Curtis Clark's response to you then. I've left him a message asking him to look at Talk:Ternary_name#.22Ternary_name.22_is_not_in_the_ICBN if he has time. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:24, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article "Ternary name" has been moved to Infraspecific name (botany) following discussion on the talk page. Please see the queries/requests at Talk:Infraspecific_name_(botany)#Move_and_re-write. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:59, 2 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The name Papilionoideae

This edit claims that the subfamily name Papilionoideae is not "properly formed". The idea of citing the ICBN directly (as opposed to a secondary source) makes me nervous, but more importantly, is this correct? I fairly quickly got more deeply into taxonomy than I either know already or could quickly look up. I can verify that Papilionoideae is used in the literature (e.g. google scholar) but of course that doesn't answer the question of what the ICBN says. Kingdon (talk) 01:26, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why should citing a primary source make you nervous? Anyway, the online version of the ICBN was cited, which says "19.7 When the Papilionaceae are included in the family Leguminosae (nom. alt., Fabaceae; see Art. 18.5) as a subfamily, the name Papilionoideae may be used as an alternative to Faboideae". The issue that I see is that "properly formed" is ambiguous; Papilionoideae is explicitly legitimated by the ICBN, and uses the proper termination, but isn't based on the name of a genus (it was grandfathered in, like Cruciferae, Leguminosae, etc, when the rule about basing names at some ranks on a genus name was introduced).
"Article 18.5. The following names, of long usage, are treated as validly published: Compositae (Asteraceae; type, Aster L.); Cruciferae (Brassicaceae; type, Brassica L.); Gramineae (Poaceae; type, Poa L.); Guttiferae (Clusiaceae; type, Clusia L.); Labiatae (Lamiaceae; type, Lamium L.); Leguminosae (Fabaceae; type, Faba Mill. [= Vicia L.]); Palmae (Arecaceae; type, Areca L.); Papilionaceae (Fabaceae; type, Faba Mill.); Umbelliferae (Apiaceae; type, Apium L.). When the Papilionaceae are regarded as a family distinct from the remainder of the Leguminosae, the name Papilionaceae is conserved against Leguminosae. "
"Article 18.6. The use, as alternatives, of the family names indicated in parentheses in Art. 18.5 is authorized. "
Lavateraguy (talk) 07:18, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The implication, to me, of both the Code and Lavateraguy's explanation, are that the edit is not completely accurate: it's true that the name could not be formed now, but it is conserved, so in this sense it is correct. I would suggest changing the edit to "Faboideae is also sometimes referred to as "Papilionoideae", which is a conserved name under the current International Code of Botanical Nomenclature". Presumably the pairs that should be used are Leguminosae/Papilionoideae and Fabaceae/Faboideae and not mixtures of the two?
More generally, I agree that you shouldn't be nervous about sourcing from the Code itself. The various articles on botanical nomenclature suffer from serious under-referencing to the Code. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:21, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Looking at the edit history, the corresponding comment there is definitely incorrect - it ways that Papilionoideae is not a valid alternative. Lavateraguy (talk) 10:46, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think it should be reverted; to me it strongly implies that Papilionoideae has no formal standing as a name, when in fact it is explicitly allowed by the code, more that one can say for Faboideae. --Curtis Clark (talk) 14:58, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The reason that citing a primary source can be problematic is that it is too easy to push an agenda which does not reflect the consensus in a field (especially if the citation is selective or heavy with interpretation of a non-self-explanatory source). See WP:PRIMARY. But I don't want to get too hung up on wikilawyering. In this case "the name Papilionoideae may be used as an alternative to Faboideae" settles the matter (but isn't this 19.7 rather than 19.6?). I somehow missed that text the first time around. Kingdon (talk) 01:16, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is a bit off the specific issue of "Papilionoideae", but I don't see that your reason above really has anything to do with the source being primary. Citing any source can be done badly in all the ways you describe. Secondary sources often have their agendas and have already been selective with the primary sources, which is why you should usually go back to the primary sources to check. I agree that where primary sources are used there's generally a particular need to look at a wide spread to avoid POV-pushing, but this does not apply to the ICBN. By definition there's just one primary source. It seems to me that it's only when you want to say something like "the Code says X but usage is often Y" that you need careful choice of sources for the latter.
WP:PRIMARY is not written from the point of view of science articles. Almost all the language used has nothing to do with science, e.g. primary sources offer "an insider's view of an event, a period of history, a work of art, a political decision, and so on"; secondary sources "are second-hand accounts, at least one step removed from an event". In this Wikiproject, we don't work on articles about events, periods of history, works of art, political decisions; we work on articles about plants and plant-related issues. A high proportion of these simply couldn't be covered at all without using primary sources, but I see no evidence that WP:PLANTS editors feel that such articles shouldn't exist. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:20, 3 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Chaparral article needs images of both resprouters and the fire follower annuals and their eco-community.

The Chaparral article needs images of both resprouters and the fire follower annuals and their eco-community. Does anyone have good suggestions that are illustrative of both concepts and apply statewide? PPdd (talk) 15:13, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Plants Chaparall and Fire Task Force

WikiProject Plants Chaparall and Fire Task Force

WikiProject Plants Chaparall and Fire Task Force

Would anyone like to join me in starting a WikiProject Plants Chaparall and Fire Task Force? Once there are five names above, we can start our task list. Sign your name in the quote box above. PPdd (talk) 15:18, 31 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Musa banksii or M. acuminata subsp. banksii

Wondering if someone who is a botanist, or better yet, a Musa specialist, can take a look at Talk: Musa, section Musa banksii or M. acuminata subsp. banksii. We (myself and Obsidian Soul) are not sure which of these, if either, is the consensus accepted name for this plant. Some basic web searching has already been done, and the fruits of that search are at the talk page. Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 07:43, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Laurel Sumac

I noticed that in the Santa Monica Mountains, Malosma laurina is the first to resprout after a Summer or Fall fire, with no waiting for winter rains, and is also the only chaparral plant with substantial growth in the later parts of the dry period. Also that the parasite Cuscuta californica is mostly only in its growth phase on this species in these driest of times. Does anyone know and source as to whether these are all related? PPdd (talk) 02:44, 6 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quercus ×audleyensis - The Audley End Oak

After reading about this tree in the Sun newspaper dated 8/6/2011 I tried to find more detail of it online, without much success. It is one of a kind in the UK and grows in Audley End, England. Does anyone else know more about it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.2.77.142 (talk) 08:53, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Google tells me that it's a hybrid between Quercus ilex and Quercus petraea. The original description, in Elwes and Henry, doesn't have a Latin diagnosis; one would have to check the ICBN to see whether one was required at that date (1910). If one was then the correct name might be Quercus ×koehnei, from 1912. Lavateraguy (talk) 10:00, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that nothospecies names (but not nothogenera names) must conform to the same rules as species names Article H.10. Only after 1 Jan 1935 does a non-algal non-fossil taxon need a Latin diagnosis Article 36.1. So Quercus × audleyensis would appear to have priority over Q. × koehnei. But the ICBN is not a model of clarity, so I may be wrong. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:45, 9 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Photo of pollen [sic] of Taraxacum kok-saghyz

The captioned photo appears to be of seeds.

JBP20090825 (talk) 23:01, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What photo? Where? --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:58, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Must be this one. mgiganteus1 (talk) 23:59, 13 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If so, a larger version can be found at the address below - the USDA doesn't seem specify what part of the plant it is (at least I could not find it).

Hamamelis (talk) 00:03, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Those are achenes/fruits. The pollen looks completely different as you can see here (under "C" for "Common Dandelion"). --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:31, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have move permissions on Commons and have renamed the image / edited all links from Wikipedias. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:36, 14 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Food web

Food web is currently being rewritten, and will hopefully go to FA. Any relevant contributions from people in this project will be much appreciated. --Epipelagic (talk) 06:15, 15 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Botany background color - unification

Hello colegues!

Do we consider decolorisation of topic template a problem? (From dark green to standard navbox blue?) Do have any plant topic color-scheme tied to relevant navboxes?

I do ask, because User:Frietjes, while in the midle of series of small semi-automatic usefull editations aiming on template standardisation, he removed the background color from Template:Botany (per wp:deviations). Is it OK with us? Wp:deviation aim at removal of unnecessary HTML tags from Wiki. But at the same time, if have reason to believe, that color is justified by navigation value (as cited) bellow, it is still OK to have the template green.

Quoting from wp:deviations:
Deviations from standard conventions are acceptable where they create a semantic distinction (for instance, the infoboxes and navigational templates relating to The Simpsons use a yellow colour-scheme instead of the customary mauve, to tie in with the dominant colour in the series) but should not be used gratuitously

So therefore I ask, does have the green color in the templete any relevance for the reader? Or we do not care? Reo + 18:46, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dark green seems to me an appropriate colour theme for plant related articles. --Epipelagic (talk) 22:53, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Looking over Wikipedia:Navigation templates and Template:Navbox I note that one is encouraged to use the default colors, but using non-default colors is OK if there is a reason for it. The green seems fitting and harmonizes a bit better with the plant taxoboxes (although few of the pages have both a taxobox and the botany box). As for wp:deviations, the key thing there is how much contrast (see WP:COLOR), and from that point of view the green is probably too dark, especially if the foreground is #0645AD (which is the foreground color I'm getting as a non-logged-in user with firefox, as far as I know with no unusual browser defaults). The color contrast thing is kind of complicated because it is affected by the user's theme, although I guess the most important thing is what non-logged-in users see. Oh, and of course there is Wikipedia:Don't edit war over the colour of templates. Kingdon (talk) 00:14, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I see it actually similarly. I think it would be good, if the template would be harmonized with the Plant-taxabox colors and had a Green color. This being said, Frietjes mayby changed it also from the point of WP:ACCESS#Color(contrast) point of view, so if we want to harmonize really, so then lets use the exact colorcode of the taxaboxes. That would be the best option - two birds by one stone. --Reo + 00:58, 17 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please make me a photo of this plant, to support an article...it will show what a kick ass project you are

Please...I need a photo uploaded that shows the poison leaf plant. We have no photo of it. But I want to show it in the Fluorine article which is being worked up for FA. It would also grace the article for the plant itself as well as the article for fluoroacetate. So high impact. TCO (talk) 20:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

PLEASE! Come on, help the FA! TCO (talk) 20:08, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I doubt anyone here has some Dichapetalum cymosum lying around waiting to be photographed LOL. You'd have better chances asking in WikiProject South Africa. That said, you could try emailing the address given (under inquiries) in these slides from the University of Pretoria, South Africa website.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 20:38, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry...will do. thought this might be like the Harry Potter where the fake Mad-eye Mooney leaves the book on gillyweed with Longbottom. TCO (talk) 20:52, 16 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seeking a UK Wikipedian for a Summer placement

In the Summer of 2011, Wikimedia UK and ARKive are colloborating on a project to improve Wikipedia's coverage of threatened species. This will involve recruiting a fixed-period in-residence role that we are calling Wikipedia Outreach Ambassador. This will be a volunteer, with access to desk space at ARKive's offices in Bristol and with travel and subsistence supported by Wikimedia UK. Their role will require both on-wiki activity and involving the wider community through online and offline events. If you can attend meetings in Bristol, and are interested in both wildlife and free knowledge, please visit the project page for further details. MartinPoulter (talk) 12:46, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please verify my identification of this plant

This photo was taken in Yellowstone on June 18, 2011. I believe this to be: Smilacina racemosa, False Solomon's-seal. Am I correct. If not what is it? Thanks --Mike Cline (talk) 15:48, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The current name for that species is Maianthemum racemosum. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:36, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
How confident are you in that identification? It doesn't look too much like Maianthemum racemosum to me but I don't know whether there is variation in stem thickness and other traits based on things like subspecies or whether it is growing in sun. Perhaps Veratrum? Kingdon (talk) 21:09, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The plant in the picture above also doesn't have an arching habit, which adds weight to it not being Maianthemum racemosum. UK nurserywoman Beth Chatto describes M. racemosum as "Related to Soloman's Seal, and very like it in its beautiful arching foliage...". As one of the most distinctive features (to a horticulturist, if not a botanist) of true Soloman's Seal (Polygonatum) is its arching habit, it could be argued that one would expect a plant known as "False Soloman's Seal" to also exhibit such a characteristic - which the plant in the picture does not. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:58, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If not Maianthemum racemosum, then any help identifying would be appreaciated. The plant's location as seen in the photo is on the east facing shelter of a large boulder setting in fairly damp soil adjacent to a marshy pond. This appeared to be a relatively isolated colony with no evidence of other colonies in the vicinity. --Mike Cline (talk) 11:32, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The only other possibility which occurs to me is Veratrum – it has the right overall look, and at first I thought the leaves were spirally arranged, but now, on looking at a blown-up version of your photo, the leaves are in two ranks. The location behind a boulder is probably causing a more upright growth than you would see in the open. What species of Maianthemum are listed for Yellowstone? (Well out of my geographical area of experience.) Peter coxhead (talk) 12:51, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]


According to USDA PLANTS data these are the taxa within the genera Maianthemum and Veratrum (mentioned above) within the counties that the park crosses:

Of these, I think the more upright and robust nature of the pictured plant most resembles the latter.--Melburnian (talk) 13:09, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A quick difference between Veratrum and Maianthemum is that the latter genus usually has flowers with very small tepals and more prominent stamens. Unfortunately none of the flowers is very sharp in the photo. The habit (upright, robust) is exactly what I would expect of the European Veratrum album, which Veratrum californicum seems to resemble. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:20, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the input so far. Very enlightening. A interesting point of note is the USDA Distribution Map for Veratrum californicum. For Yellowstone it only shows Teton County, WY, and not Park County, WY (the country northeast of Teton). This photo was taken well inside Park County, relatively close to the Montana border. 44°54′57″N 110°23′38″W / 44.91583°N 110.39389°W / 44.91583; -110.39389. Whereas Maianthemum is reported from Park County, WY. I hope to be back in the park within the week and may revisit this to get some better photos.--Mike Cline (talk) 22:22, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Just a note about that: plant populations are not always static, and probably under-reported. So, they could have migrated to Park County; or they may have been there for a long time, just nobody noticed. Hamamelis (talk) 22:39, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As an addendum to that: The distribution maps for the Arkansas flora did not include dandelions in every county, although they were certainly present in every county. There is (and always will be) room for more basic floristics research to improve US distribution maps (the UK is way ahead in that regard). --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:42, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A close-up of the flower would settle the issue. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:33, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Flower close-ups

Here's a series of photos (as best I could do) of the flowers as of 0800 this morning. [4] --Mike Cline (talk) 22:53, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The flower close-ups seem a good match for Maianthemum racemosum ssp. amplexicaule [5] --Melburnian (talk) 01:02, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. Definitely not a Veratrum, in spite of the rather robust look. The two-ranked rather than spiral arrangement of the leaves noted earlier is also a feature of Maianthemum. A lesson for me in not relying on the overall "look" of a plant when you don't know the full range of species. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:00, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks, a bit harder than birdwatching with the exception that plants stand still, isn't it. --Mike Cline (talk) 13:05, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I guess I'll buy it after seeing [6]. Also, after reading the description at Flora of North America. The subspecies are different in erect vs. arching and leaves which are clasping versus not (the source says "petiolate" for the eastern subspecies but we certainly aren't talking about a long petiole, I think mostly they mean "not clasping"). Kingdon (talk) 13:35, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Plant articles needing a taxobox

I would like to propose that {{WikiProject Plants}} be modified slightly so that, rather than placing articles with needs-taxobox=yes into Category:Plant articles needing a taxobox, it would place them in the more general Category:Missing taxobox. This is a simple and straightforward change, and should be advantageous to WP:Plants, since it means that any plant articles needing attention will be one level higher in the hierarchy, and thus more likely to receive attention sooner. The current category also appears to be entirely redundant; in all the years I've been looking at it, I haven't seen a single page in there. In that time, however, dozens of plant articles have shown up in Category:Missing taxobox (through the use of {{missing taxobox}}), and been dealt with. Ten months ago, I tried to retarget the template as I have outlined here, but a single user disagreed with what I had thought of as an uncontroversial change, and my efforts stalled. Now I would like to try again. I think the change can only be beneficial to WP:Plants and the articles under its aegis, but I will gladly listen to any disadvantages I may have overlooked. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:32, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They will be less likely to get quick attention that way, since the plant taxa will be mixed in with fungi, animals, and microorganisms. People wishing to assist would need to wade through additional chaff to find the articles they can work on. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:35, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There seriously isn't that much chaff. At the moment there are 54 articles (which counts as a backlog for this low-traffic category and is gradually decreasing), and any new entries get dealt with within the day (typically within the hour). Also, bear in mind that the existing category has been used a total of 0 times, to my knowledge. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:42, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It and its predecessor (a cfd changed the title) were used plenty when we were first assessing plant articles for the project before, I think, {{missing taxobox}} was created. I also prefer to keep it separate as I check it diligently. I'm not interested in creating taxoboxes for other taxa, as I'm not certain I would be competent enough with those classifications to do it correctly. Rkitko (talk) 20:17, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you check it diligently, perhaps you can tell me: how many articles have passed through Category:Plant articles needing a taxobox in the last year? I may have missed some, but between us we probably saw them all. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:25, 19 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One of the primary tasks of a project is to identify project-specific maintenance issues, and this template assists with that aim for the Plants project, so I believe it should be retained. The main reason that the template is bypassed appears to be due to the template not being listed on two key pages:Wikipedia:Taxobox_usage#Articles_lacking_taxoboxes and Wikipedia:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life#To_do.--Melburnian (talk) 01:35, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some years ago it had quite a few articles in it.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:49, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see that a category being useful years ago has any bearing on its being useful now. I don't doubt that it was useful; I doubt that it is useful. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:31, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that whether it was or is useful many not be the right issue which is whether it will be useful in the future. Accepting your statement that no (or almost no) pages ever appear in this category, I would like to know why. If it's because very few plant pages are being created by comparison to animal pages (which I suspect), then the category should still be retained, against the day that there will be more active plant editors. If it's because plant pages at present always get taxoboxes (which I suspect is true because they are created by relatively few experienced editors), then again, the category should still be retained for the same reason. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:50, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And if, as is actually the case, it's because plant articles without taxoboxes are treated like articles from other kingdoms, and are simply tagged with {{missing taxobox}}? Then there is no reason to try and separate the two. Plant articles without taxoboxes are, de facto, placed in Category:Missing taxobox. There was one there this morning, for instance. It may perhaps make your project feel good to have an empty cleanup category, but it doesn't lead to any improvements of articles. (If there was a need in the future, the category could easily be resurrected; the important time period is, however, now and the near future, not a distant, more botanical, future.) "If it's because very few plant pages are being created [...] then the category should still be retained, against the day that there will be more active plant editors"; "If it's because plant pages at present always get taxoboxes [...] then again, the category should still be retained"; this doesn't follow. There would need to be not only plant articles without taxoboxes (which does happen), but they would need to be marked as such using the parameter in {{WikiProject Plants}}, which doesn't happen, and there's no reason to think that would occur more in the future. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:04, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the question that we all should be asking is which is likely to be more useful in the future. It's not easy to distinguish the name of an obscure plant genus from a protist clade or a fossil invertebrate, so their incorporation into the missing taxobox category isn't necessarily helpful. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:05, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's what already happens! They are incorporated there. They are mixed in with protists and fossils (well, there aren't any at the moment, because plant taxonomy is relatively straightforward, so they get dealt with quickly). The question is, is it worthwhile maintaining a category that is constantly empty because its potential contents are consistently placed elsewhere? --Stemonitis (talk) 09:09, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think we may be mis-understanding one another. Are you saying that the category is empty, not because such cases don't exist, but because the necessary flagging to record them as a missing plant taxoboxes is never done? If so, then you're clearly right that this category isn't needed. (But this isn't what you wrote initially; don't assume that we all understand the fine details.) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:27, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: apologies if that wasn't clear. The plant-specific flagging has never occurred to my knowledge (it is certainly vanishingly rare). Any time a plant article has been flagged as needing a taxobox (this is fairly common), it is done using {{missing taxobox}}, and the article appears in Category:Missing taxobox. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:33, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, right. An idea which occurs to me is that {{Missing taxobox}} should be revised to take a parameter, such as |animal or |plant. If this were recognized then the template would also put the article in a more specific category. If the documentation to the template explained this, perhaps people would be more inclined to use the extra parameter. I sympathize with the view that I think the others were expressing, namely that if possible we'd like plant articles without taxoboxes separated out. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:48, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I used to use this quite a bit. I had a habit of scrolling through User:AlexNewArtBot/PlantsSearchResult daily and assessing each article. I often didn't have time to add the taxobox myself since there were so many results, so I just tagged it for later while adding the assessment banner. Here's one today: Maerua Oblongifolia, which obviously needs lots of help. The time commitment for going through the NewArtBot's results every day was a bit much, so I stopped, but the category and the functionality through the WP:PLANTS banner is still useful. Rkitko (talk) 22:14, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Some of the text there is rather similar to the JSTOR Plant Science page for the species. Since I've moved it to Maerua oblongifolia could someone dispose of the redirect left behind? Also, do we want both Pueraria tuberosa and Kudzu? Lavateraguy (talk) 22:54, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Right now Kudzu covers 5 related species from Japan and China, but P. tuberosa is from India, Nepal and Pakistan. As far as I can tell from Flora of Pakistan there is little reason to cover P. tuberosa and the Chinese/Japanese species in the same article (that is, there are plenty of differences between the species, no hybridization that they mention, etc). Kingdon (talk) 01:32, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Postscript: a confession

I must own up to having carried out a devious experiment. I came across a plant article without a taxobox, and rather than dealing with it promptly, as I normally would, I placed it in the plant-specific missing taxobox category to see how long it would take before it was fixed. A week has now passed, and nothing has happened. I recognise that there is a strong desire to keep the plant-specific category, and I can see that I'm not going to change your minds on this, but the fact of the matter is, it doesn't work. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:22, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

But why doesn't it work? Not because there's anything wrong in principle with having a separate category for plant articles missing taxoboxes, but because there simply aren't anything like enough editors working in the area. Your sterling work is noted and much appreciated; if there were more like you, the categorization would work. So there's an argument for not being defeatist; keeping the category and hoping that more editors will appear. Or am I just naively optimistic? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:02, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A nice attempt at a positive spin, Peter; it certainly made me smile! For this task, the problem is not a lack of editors. It only takes one to check the category regularly (daily, say, or even weekly) and deal with an article should it appear. In fact, one editor is generally enough to cover missing taxoboxes across all kingdoms. The problem is that it's a category that no-one looks at, and that's why its contents don't get fixed. You are right that there is nothing wrong in principle with such a category, but in practice there is. A cleanup category that doesn't get cleaned out isn't working. I don't actually expect to change your minds at this stage, but I thought I should at least document my little experiment. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:33, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any evidence that putting it in the general category would have worked any better? Lavateraguy (talk) 11:30, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Every other article newly appearing in Category:Missing taxobox (including several plants) were dealt with quickly – most within the hour, and all within 24 h of appearing. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:36, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, you've convinced me at least. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:49, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Were there any other plant articles dealt with in that week though the parent category besides Dicksonia sellowiana? Melburnian (talk) 02:05, 8 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I also dealt with Croton gratissimus (perhaps too efficiently), and – eventually – Carex festucacea. Other editors may have dealt with others (I suspect not, but I can't guarantee it). "Several" may be a slight overstatement, but the principle stands: plant articles regularly go through the main category and are dealt with. Nothing goes into the plant category, and if it does, it doesn't come out. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:20, 8 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Two of these are taxobox requests, so the volume of taxobox requests on plant articles seem much less (if ~2 per week) than times past, making a subcategory less justified. I'm still not keen on putting these in a mixed basket though where plant aricles are hard to identify. Think I'll revise my position to "neutral".Melburnian (talk) 02:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

challenge to take poison leaf plant to GA

I would like to incite someone here to take Dichapetalum cymosum to GA. Very cool plant in that it makes a fluorine compound. TCO (talk) 18:10, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Lowercase sort key for species articles function gone

Hey folks, just a heads up. I didn't notice this until now, but apparently back in March there was a MediaWiki update that fixed a bug for the sorting order in other language Wikipedias. As far as I can tell, this means DEFAULTSORT is no longer necessary on non-biographical articles (hurray!), but the solution created other problems. Apparently, the solution was to treat all letters as capitalized, which caused some problems when μ gets transformed to the uppercase M, which is still Mu and sorts after Z (used in stub sorting).

Anyway, it also seems to have changed the way we were using lowercase sorting for species in genus categories. Take a look at your favorite genus category (mine: Category:Drosera) and notice that subgenera, sections, and "List of" articles are now mixed in among the species, which, in most cases, were sorting under lowercase headings via explicitly defined sort keys (e.g. [[Category:Drosera|paradoxa]], which now sorts under "P"). I started a discussion here: Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Category sort order (lower case no longer?). User:Kotniski had an interesting idea, to exempt explicitly defined sort keys like ours from the new sorting rules. How we would do this, I have no idea (probably through requesting the feature at bugzilla) and I'm not sure if we'd gain support for it. If we want to go that route, we'd have to advocate for it.

Regardless, I think we're in a better position than we were several years ago when most genus categories were unsorted by species epithet, but it's a bit annoying that we can't separate out capitalized entries from lowercase entries. Thoughts? Rkitko (talk) 22:03, 20 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I think that Category:Drosera is sorted exactly how I would want it to be sorted. I'm strongly against sorting entries on the basis of the case of the first letter which is against all the normal rules for alphabetic sorting. Why shouldn't subgenera be sorted among species? Peter coxhead (talk) 07:40, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
That's just one example. You can find other genus categories where now species articles titled at common names are mixed in among species names, along with the "List of Genus species" article. It's just messy. The old way was a consensus view aimed at keeping species sorted separately so they could easily be found among the other articles in the category. Why shouldn't we separate them? Rkitko (talk) 12:11, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, categories such as Category:Quercus now appear somewhat jumbled.--Melburnian (talk) 12:33, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I agree that the "List of Genus species" article and other special articles, such as the genus itself, should be separate (which is easily done using | ]], but personally I don't see the case for keeping common names separate from species. However, if there was an earlier consensus, I guess it should be adhered to if this is possible. But the way to do it isn't to fiddle with the sort order, but to have some explicit mechanism to create more than one sorted order. Sorting upper and lower case letters by ASCII order creates all kinds of problems, especially when there's no consensus on the case to be used for common names. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:52, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let's go back to the basics here? Originally the idea was to sort by SPECIES name in genus categories. Lowerkey simply had the extra advantage of sorting species separately from other articles, but I believe we can live with that change (worse come to worst, the two types of articles, thematic and species, can be split to separate categories). With subgeneric groups (which seems to be the main actual complain), such cases can be treate din multiple ways: a separate category ("subgeneric classification of Drosera"?), sorting them under "Subgenus/Section/subsection" instead of the section name, and using a non-letter sort key to put them at the beginning. Circéus (talk) 16:01, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One 'basic' might be to think about indexes in botanically-oriented books. There seem to be two strategies regarding common and Latin names in the books I have on my shelf; they are about evenly split. Some have two separate indices, one for scientific names and one for everything else (this seems to be older books); others have one index. There is an argument for separating scientific names from common names/other titles, but then I would have thought that subgenera go with the other scientific names. I have to say that when I look at the complete muddle which most categories pages are in, sort order doesn't seem to me to be the highest priority. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:12, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
For large genera, I quite like the concept of separating out common names in a separate category such as at Category:Banksia taxa by common name created by Hesperian. It creates an easy to follow listing and redirects from common names are placed there as well. I've used the same system at Category:Grevillea taxa by common name.--Melburnian (talk) 01:58, 22 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Extended clade template

Some editors might be interested in {{Cladex}}, an eXtended version of {{Clade}}. This allows coloured brackets or bars to be drawn to the right of leaf nodes in a cladogram, thus allowing paraphyletic groups to be identified. Unfortunately I can't yet find a way of labelling these brackets/bars, but as they can be of any colour, a key can be provided. An example is:

embryophytes

tracheophytes

hornworts

mosses

liverworts

where the green bracket marks the "bryophytes".

NOTE As with {{Clade}}, the display of the cladogram depends on how your browser lays out tables. Please report any bugs with particular browsers at Template_talk:Cladex. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:01, 21 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Titles for articles on nothogenera and species in nothogenera

Is there a consensus as to whether the article title for a nothogenus or a species in a nothogenus should include the multiplicaton sign? Lavateraguy (talk) 21:33, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There was a a discussion back in 2007 about use of the multiplication sign in article titles generally, though Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora) doesn't mention nothogenera specifically.--Melburnian (talk) 01:36, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any articles on nothogenera or its species which don't include the cross symbol?
I'm more concerned about the non-use of a space between the × and the genus name. This causes problems (a) for people who need to use screen readers and so is against accessibility guidelines (b) with searches. (The same is true for the use of † for extinct taxa.) Ideally all non-alphabetic characters should be separated from words by at least &thinsp;. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:07, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are a few variations used for article titles as seen here Melburnian (talk) 08:43, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The hybrid symbol should not be in italics

At least for plants, it's clear to me that the × symbol should not be italicized. See all the examples at ICBN, Appendix I, although explicit reference to not italicizing the hybrid symbol is restricted to the use of the letter x (H.3A.2). I've added a referenced note to this effect to Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(flora)#Hybrids.2C_cultivars_and_provisional_names which I hope isn't controversial. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:22, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In most font families the multiplication sign glyph is the same in both the regular and italic versions, so one can't draw an inference from the appearance in the ICBN. In terms of practicaliies in Wikipedia, in nothospecies it is more convenient to italicize it (Geranium × magnificum vs Geranium ×magnificum). See also the use of the italic title feature for species. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:30, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"In most font families the multiplication sign glyph is the same in both the regular and italic versions": precisely; this, I am sure, is why the ICBN does not say that it should not be italicized. It does say that if the letter x is used it should not be italicized, from which it is reasonable to deduce that the symbol × should not be either if the font family concerned displays it differently when italicized. Further, if you look at the source HTML for ICBN, Appendix I, you'll see that the <i>...</i> tags exclude the ×; for example ×<i>Agropogon littoralis</i>.
It's true that it's more convenient to italicize the ×, but my contention is that this is wrong and we should not be doing it. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:57, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Symphytum

Symphytum redirects to comfrey, which covers Symphytum officinale and Symphytum ×uplandicum Lavateraguy (talk) 09:47, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've made a start on sorting this out, by creating a stub article Symphytum. There's already an article on Symphytum officinale; for the present I've made Symphytum × uplandicum a redirect to Comfrey, since the bulk of the 'gardening' stuff there relates to the hybrid. I'll do a bit more editing for consistency. There are a number of cases like this, where a gardening or food term covers more than one species (e.g. Scallion, Shallot), so that articles don't quite fit into the normal pattern for plant pages. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:33, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The statement that Symphtyum officinale is widespread is misleading; while it is arguably widespread, Symphytum ×uplandicum is much the commoner taxon, to the degree that I am concerned about recording segregants of the latter as the former. Lavateraguy (talk) 18:29, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. Certainly around where I live I never find clearly identifiable S. officinale in the wild, only S. × uplandicum and probable back-crosses. I revised Comfrey, referenced to Stace (2010). Several of the sections still need severe pruning (pun intended) as they are "how to guides". Peter coxhead (talk) 22:36, 24 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Miscategorization

Can anyone tell me why Template:Full echinoderm phylogeny is categorizing in Category:Botany templates? I can figure out where the category placement is hiding. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:33, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's only visible when you hit the edit button on one of the subpage thingies, see Template:Full echinoderm phylogeny/doc. I've moved the template into Category:Animal templates (I hope) but there may be a more appropriate location for it. Ka Faraq Gatri (talk) 20:56, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Many thanks. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
No worries. Wonder why it isn't showing up in Category:Animal templates.... Maybe I need to purge my cache. Ka Faraq Gatri (talk) 21:00, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's not at your end (or mine) that the problem lies. The categorization is transcluded, so the change won't show up until either (a) someone edits the template itself, or (b) the system reworks the transclusion, which can take an hour or more to go into effect. Purging the cache won't have any effect; we used to have this issue all the time on Wiktionary, where transclusion is done far more often than it is here. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:07, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah. I was worried I'd managed to screw something up. I normally steer clear of templates for fear I'll accidently break something that shows over multiple pages. Ka Faraq Gatri (talk) 21:19, 25 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Green color for navigation templates and accessibility

Hello. Until recently, the Template:Botany was using dark green for its background which did not met accessibility requirements (WP:COLOR). Per discussion at its talk page, I changed it to same light green that is used in taxoboxes, and some of your templates like Template:Plant classification. Though there doesn't seem to be a lot of coherency among the color of your templates, I though you should be notified. And I hope my change will be consensual, so that we can move onto more important matters. Dodoïste (talk) 14:31, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The lack of coherency in "our" templates comes from the facts that (1) many of our templates aren't navigational, but consist of article content, (2) Some of our templates are shared across major themes, such as chemistry or paleontology, so color-coding them would not actually mark them thematically, (3) the two templates not color-coded for green that could be are probably unknown to the majority of project participants, since we are shooting to create and manage more than a quarter of a million articles.
The choice of green was initially made to match the color used in the plant Taxoboxes, where the choice of color was reached after much discussion and checks for visual and technical compatibility. If there is a problem, then it affects far more pages through the taxobox template than it does through the Botany template.
Reminder: The usual order of things is to reach a consensus first, not to wheel-war a change through and "hope [the] change will be consensual". If you engage in discussion first, you can know these things rather than hope for them. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:08, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I see that consensus to use the color from the taxobox was already reached at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants#Template:Botany background color - unification. I'm lucky today. :-)
For the reminder : you're right. However, I believe that such trivia shouldn't require that many formalities. Dodoïste (talk) 21:34, 26 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Help with plant identification

Hi. Can someone help to identify the species of lily shown in "commons:File:Iris delavayi.jpg"? Apparently it is not an Iris delavayi but we folks at the Commons don't know what it is, so we can't rename the file (unless we call it "Unidentified Lilium"). Please respond at "commons:File talk:Iris delavayi.jpg". Thanks very much! — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 16:39, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Looks like Lilium regale, possibly a selected form of it or a hybrid of it. Imc (talk)
I too believe that it is Lilium regale. --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 17:44, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks! I'll wait a few days and see if there are other suggestions before renaming the file. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 19:03, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are two varieties or forms of Lilium regale in cultivation. The first is the 'normal' variety, Lilium regale var. regale, which commons:File:Iris delavayi.jpg appears to be. It has purplish markings on the outside of the flower, and deeper green leaves. The second is Lilium regale var. album, which seems to be the variety illustrated in the wild at commons:File:Lil_regale_01Infl_China_Sichuan_Wolong_18_06_04.jpg. This has a pure white outside to the flower, and rather paler leaves. (de:Königs-Lilie mentions this variety, en:Lilium regale does not at present.) Peter coxhead (talk) 21:53, 3 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to everyone – I've renamed the image "Lilium regale var. regale - 20070814.jpg". — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 11:36, 5 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
What plant is this?

Whaddya know – more help needed! Can you please identify the plant shown in these photographs? It was originally identified as a "silver fir", but a request has been made for them to be renamed as "Abies procera Glauca - blue spruce - Blautanne". However, I note that Abies procera is the noble fir, and the blue spruce is Picea pungens. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 14:58, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I confirm that Abies procera 'Glauca' is the "blue fir" (English) or "Blautanne" (German), and that Picea pungens 'Glauca' is the "blue spruce" (English) or "Blaufichte" (German). The pictures are of a Abies procera 'Glauca'. Botanically yours, --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 15:43, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Great, thanks! Perhaps "Abies procera" should be updated to mention the term blue fir? — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 15:53, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Abies procera is the "noble fir" or "Edeltanne", its selection 'Glauca' is the "blue (noble) fir" or "Blautanne". --Réginald alias Meneerke bloem (To reply) 16:03, 6 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Adding Plant Profile resources

I am working for Nature Manitoba, a 90year old non-profit dedicated to natural history, and am trying to get some new plant profiles (in .pdf format) available as resources to people looking for plant information. These are great and detailed community-funded resources and they do not need to link to Nature Manitoba's website (it's not a promotional scheme, just part of the grant's mandate to make these accessible to the public). How do I go about adding links to them? I tried adding external links but it was considered spam. Any recommendations?

The list is here:

http://naturemanitoba.ca/botany/index.html

Some individual profiles are here:

http://naturemanitoba.ca/botany/wildPlants/AnnualSowThistle.pdf
http://naturemanitoba.ca/botany/wildPlants/Chicory.pdf

Tommy (talk) 19:03, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure why adding an individual profile PDF file which isn't advertising as an external link to the relevant article would be considered "spam". I've added the Chicory one to the Chicory article; it seems to me to be as relevant as any of the others. However, each profile would need to be considered on its merits in relation to the article. The detailed photos in those I've looked at seem excellent. One disadvantage is that they are PDF files rather than HTML pages. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:35, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Hi Tommy. Here are a couple pages for you to read: first Wikipedia:Conflict of interest where it says "This page in a nutshell: Do not edit Wikipedia to promote your own interests, or those of other individuals or of organizations, including employers". Next Wikipedia:Truth, where it says "Truth is not the criterion for inclusion of any idea or statement in a Wikipedia article, even if it is on a scientific topic (see Wikipedia:Science). The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." Please do read both of those pages for reasons why.
So if you wrote it, or are in any way connected to the people who did, then you just have to trust the system that if it is worthy enough, then third-party sources will pick it up, it will become notable, and other editors (never you) will include it here. Best wishes, and keep on editing.  :) --Tom Hulse (talk) 19:44, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Tommy, just like User:Peter coxhead, I also found those articles to be an excellent resource. The articles, for the photos alone, would be a great addition as an external link to most any Wikipedia species article. Wikipedia guidelines on adding External Links, in cases where you have a conflict of interest, is not quite as severe as what is mentioned just above. Regarding the addition of External Links in which you might have a conflict of interest, you'll see the following recommendation: "you should avoid linking to a site that you own, maintain, or represent—even if WP guidelines seem to imply that it may otherwise be linked. When in doubt, you may go to the talk page and let another editor decide." If I saw a request from you to add an external link to any of the plant articles that I watch, I would look at the linked PDF file and almost surely go ahead and add such a useful resource to the external links. First Light (talk) 20:23, 7 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the notes. This is the first time I have tried to contribute and have a better understanding of the process -- discussions first! Tommy (talk) 21:06, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Editing article titles

Is it possible (or even recommended) to edit existing article titles, or do they have to be renamed and moved? I've started doing some tweaking on articles within Category:Rose cultivars, and am finding a lack of uniformity in the titles - many don't have the genus name italicised (eg Rosa 'English Miss'), some don't even have the genus name at all and are just listed under their cultvar name (eg Old Blush), some don't have quotation marks around the cultivar name etc. Is it possible to correct these titles when editing? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:03, 9 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We can introduce italics in to the title, as I have now done using {{DISPLAYTITLE:''Rosa'' 'English Miss'}} at Rosa 'English Miss'. Articles at their partial cultivar names would require a page move to put them in the standard Genus 'Cultivar' format followed by DISPLAYTITLE. Before moving, I would suggest adding a reference to the article text showing the name in that format, using a source such as RHS plantfinder (example). Melburnian (talk) 02:36, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In case moving pages is a new concept for you, you'll find a 'move' tab either amongst your tabs at the top of the page, or in the dropdown menu under the "▼" tab. Hesperian 03:06, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the help! PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 09:47, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It is often a good idea to propose a move on the talk page, as described at WP:MOVE. The main exception is if you are pretty sure it is uncontroversial. Kingdon (talk) 17:42, 10 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I made a few more of these moves, but then realized that actually some of the names are not cultivar names but trade designations and I had made mistakes. The ICNCP puts trade designations in a different font, not in single quotes; only cultivar names go in quotes. We should, I think, only use cultivar names as page titles; alternative trade designations should be redirects, listed in the article. Thus Rosa Royal William is really Rosa 'Korzuan' according to the RHS plantfinder. The whole list of rose "cultivars" needs checking against the RHS plantfinder (and any other sources).
There doesn't seem to be a policy on trade designations/cultivar names, so I've raised this below. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:56, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Kew Bulletin

This is currently the most-cited journal on Wikipedia that doesn't have an article (cited at least 193 times on at least 164 different articles). Apparently it's a Botany journal, so I though I'd drop by and poke around to see if someone could write this article. If you never wrote an article on academic journals, there's WP:WikiProject Academic Journals/Writing guide to help you out. There's also Systematic Botany (cited at least 80 times on 74 articles) and many others that can be found at WP:JCW (see "Most popular missing entries"). Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 17:02, 11 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've started the Kew Bulletin article, just a stub for now. First Light (talk) 00:57, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Amazing! That was fast! Many thanks. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 13:08, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not finding the "Most popular missing entries" that you mentioned at WP:JCW. Could you provide a link? --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:31, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Wilibald Swibert Joseph Gottlieb von Besser

Just noticed that this Austrian botanist for which the genus Bessera was named doesn't have an article yet. Murderbike (talk) 05:15, 12 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are certainly welcome to start one. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:10, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've created a very short stub: Wilibald Swibert Joseph Gottlieb von Besser. mgiganteus1 (talk) 01:08, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cultivar names and trade designations

Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(flora)#Hybrids.2C_cultivars_and_provisional_names covers only cultivar names. However, "trade designations" (ICNCP term) are generally used more than cultivar names, especially for popular groups (e.g. annual bedding or basket plants, roses, phormiums, etc.). My personal view is that where the correct cultivar name is known (this is unique), the article should be under the cultivar name, with any trade designations as redirects, to be listed in the article. Thus according to the RHS plantfinder, there is a rose with the trade designation "Royal William" whose cultivar name is 'KorzuanKorzaun'. So the article should, I think, be at "Rosa 'KorzuanKorzaun'" with "Rosa Royal William" as a redirect. If there's a consensus Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(flora)#Hybrids.2C_cultivars_and_provisional_names should be changed. What do others think?

One annoyance is that the ICNCP requires the use of a different font family for trade designations. This is fine in print: typically a serif font is used for the main text and a sans-serif font for a trade designation. This doesn't work on the web, since users can set different default font families so the font family for the main text is unknown. The only thing I can think of is to use monospace for trade designations, e.g. Rosa Royal William. What do others think? Peter coxhead (talk) 07:08, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking on the same lines a week or so ago. We can get monospace with the CODE markup. Is there any other way of doing so? (Small caps would be an alternative, but I don't see a means of producing these.) Lavateraguy (talk) 07:37, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Small caps can be produced Like This, but the code isn't very pretty. mgiganteus1 (talk) 08:06, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Also in template form: {{Smallcaps}}. mgiganteus1 (talk) 08:10, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I confess that I have always found this whole area rather confusing - probably because I am always introduced to a rose through its trade name, rather than its cultivar name, (although the two can be the same), and because it's only with more recent introductions that the concept of an international cultivar name (or international registered name) has gained currency. Also, international registered names almost always follow the standard format of having the first three letters (usually capitalised in books and trade publications) taken from the breeder's name, with the rest of the name often verging on gobbledegook, whereas older cultivars which were never given an international registered name should strictly speaking be known by the name they were first given as a trade name in their first country of introduction. For example, the rose cultivar which people in English-speaking countries know as Peace was first introduced in France (where it was bred) as 'Mme. A. Meilland', and this should be (indeed it is!) its cultivar name as it was never given an international registered name - even though 'Mme. A. Meilland' is itself a trade name in effect. Conversely a more modern introduction such as Royal William was bred by Kordes in Germany, where it was introduced as Duftzauber 84, but it was also given the international registered name of 'KORzaun' (incidentally my 2 sources both list it as ..zaun and not ..zuan) - which strictly speaking should be the cultivar name - although I notice that even in the RHS Encyclopedia of Roses it's listed under Duftzauber 84! I don't know where I stand on this. To be technically accurate I agree with Peter above, but that would mean that an awful lot of rose cultivars will be listed under very similar-sounding and almost nonsensical cultivar names (all cultivars introduced by Kordes begin KOR..., all cultivars introduced by David Austin begin AUS... etc). Under such a system for example Gertrude Jekyll will be listed under 'Ausbord' and Graham Thomas will be 'Ausmas'. I'm wondering if, seeing as this is the English-language version of Wikipedia, we shouldn't in fact use the English trade names, with the international cultivar name underneath. I confess though that this does go against my inclination to have things listed under their technically correct names (I'd rather have all taxon entries under scientific rather than common names for example....) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:08, 13 July 2011 (UTC) [reply]

"Korzuan" was my typo; it should be "Korzaun"' – I've corrected my original. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:21, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A 'back question' is whether we want Wikipedia to contain articles on every cultivar, i.e. is Wikipedia a gardening encyclopedia as well as a general encyclopedia? My personal preference is not to have articles on cultivars unless they have some more general importance, e.g. the first of a new group of cultivated plants. This doesn't solve the naming problem, but does put it into perspective.
More generally, I think that small caps should be avoided as the display case for trade designations; {{Smallcaps}} explains some of the problems with small caps. I suggest that we create a template for trade designations and try to get it used consistently; then it will be easy to change the display later. (Incidentally, it's quicker to type <tt>..</tt> than <code>..</code> and slightly more logical when the text isn't code.) Peter coxhead (talk) 08:30, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see why Wikipedia shouldn't contain articles on every cultivar, eventually. Surely that's the beauty of an online encyclopedia - it isn't limited by bulk of paper. As long as articles are factually correct and about subject matter of sufficient interest to have been written about and read about, I don't think it's right to put our own limitations on what those articles should cover. (Take a look at the rest of the encyclopedia and see how detailed the coverage of other areas is - List of EastEnders characters (2009) and Pokemon crime syndicates being 2 examples.) However I agree that cultivars of special historic or other significance should be prioritised. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 10:04, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm obviously an old fogey, but I wouldn't have either of those articles in Wikipedia if it were down to me, so it's doubtless a good thing that it's not. But let me put my concerns a different way. No-one is going to prevent anyone creating a Wikipedia article if it meets the appropriate criteria. So the question is whether most cultivars would meet these criteria, in particular those in WP:N. I suspect not:
  • Merely being present in a list of cultivars or a plant catalogue or the RHS plantfinder (which is just a list) doesn't meet the requirement for significant coverage.
  • Many cultivars are only described in primary sources which are not independent, such as plant catalogues or sellers' or breeders' web sites, so don't meet the requirement for independent secondary sources.
  • Typically quite a lot of the information available about cultivars is concerned with how to grow them; given WP:NOTHOWTO this can be summarized factually, but cannot be used extensively, which means that very often there isn't enough left for significant coverage.
Only if the cultivar has a reasonably detailed history and description in a gardening book, magazine or encyclopedia does it seem to me likely that it will meet the requirements for notability. As a practical example, look at Rosa 'Iceberg' (which should probably be Rosa Iceberg). Is there anything more that can be said about it, other than more cultivation details? If not, then I believe the article doesn't meet WP:N and should be deleted. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:34, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Another point which occurred to me is whether the article Rosa 'Iceberg' is really within the scope of WikiProject:Plants, as its talk page suggests. The spirit of the project page seems to me firmly towards botany rather than horticulture. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:46, 13 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I believe the spirit of WikiProject Plants is firmly towards plants. While I don't believe in assumed notability for all cultivars, I would also argue that many have a degree of notability that well exceed many plant species. People in their day to day lives are more likely to come across cultivars than pure species, in terms of the food they eat, street trees, the plants in their parks and gardens and the crops in their fields.Melburnian (talk) 00:34, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree that this project is about plants, and notable cultivars are surely more notable than many plant species. Rosa 'Iceberg' was immediately familiar to me, moreso than perhaps 99% of all species with WP articles. Some horticulturists come to it through love of the individual plants, species, varieties, cultivars, and botany - more than through landscape design or the broader field of horticulture. First Light (talk) 01:30, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Please don't think that I am arguing against cultivars being part of WikiProject Plants: I personally am as much a gardener, if not more, than a botanist. I do think that the project page doesn't reflect equal interest in both areas, and needs a little editing if the project does indeed cover both.
Returning to my example of Rosa 'Iceberg', within Wikipedia, "notable" has to be interpreted in relation to policy, i.e. WP:NOTABLE. The fact that cultivars are better known than species doesn't make them notable to an encyclopedia. The question is whether there is enough independent sourceable material about them. So I think that Melburnian and First Light have not succeeded in defending the article. (To repeat, I am not actually suggesting deleting it, but if someone else did, it needs defending in terms of WP:NOTABLE.) Peter coxhead (talk) 06:19, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Having been around here for nearly six years and created hundreds of article, I am familiar with the notability policy. I always find that the best way to defend notability is by expanding the article and adding sources. Now I do work full time and its a bit's difficult at short notice, but I gave it a go ...Melburnian (talk) 07:16, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding Rosa 'Iceberg' (which should really be Rosa 'Schneewittchen' - it's a German-bred rose, introduced by Kordes in 1958, and 'Schneewittchen' is its original German name), I have found the following secondary sources in my possession:

  • "The RHS Encyclopedia of Roses" (Dorling Kindersley, 2003) by Charles and Brigid Quest-Ritson, p359 - mentions that 'Schneewittchen' is "the world's most popular and widely-grown rose"
  • "The Ultimate Guide to Roses" (Macmillan, 2004) by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix, p228 - mentions that 'Schneewittchen' is "one of the most important roses raised in the last 50 years ... It has won many prizes including the WFRS Hall of Fame in 1983"
  • "The Dictionary of Roses in colour" (Rainbird Reference Books Limited, 1971) by S. Millar Gault and Patrick M. Synge, p179 - says 'Schneewittchen' "Has been, for several years, one of the great Floribunda roses"
  • "The New Rose Expert" (Transworld Publishers Ltd, 1996) by Dr. D. G. Hessayon, p37 - 'Schneewittchen' is described as "Quite simply, the most popular white Floribunda of our time"

I have not quoted all my sources, nor even all that they say about 'Schneewittchen', but are the above references not defence enough? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:26, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I got caught in an edit conflict before posting the above comments, and Melburnian beat me to it - and did a much better job! PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great! We can all agree now that Rosa 'Iceberg' is notable, and Melburnian is absolutely right that the best way to defend an article is to expand it and add sources. Now for the rest of the rose cultivars... Peter coxhead (talk) 07:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Original issues

I rather led us off the original issues (with hindsight I should have started another thread). These were:

  • Under what title should cultivar articles appear when there exists both a cultivar name and trade designations? The 'obvious' answer of "cultivar name" does run into the problem that these are increasingly nonsensical character strings. I currently incline to the view that we should pick the best-known English name, whether this is a cultivar name or a trade designation. We should try to reach a consensus on this, rather than leave it unresolved.
  • How should we show trade designations? I'm going to create a template for this so that it can easily be changed if a different consensus emerges. Initially I'll use monospaced font.

I'll make a note when I've done it. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:52, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that listing strictly according to registered cultivar name will produce perhaps rather baffling article titles. Sticking for the time being with roses (where at least I have some familiarity), I know that at least one rose breeder (Tantau, in Germany) has resorted to using numerals for the international registered cultivar names of their introductions (presumably because it's easier than thinking up new names all beginning with the letters TAN). Hence, the cultivar with the trade name Twice In A Blue Moon has the registered cultivar name 'TAN96138', and Birthday Boy is actually 'TAN97607'. I think I'm inclined to agree that the best-known English name is probably the most workable solution for titles in the English-language Wikipedia, although I note that the RHS Encyclopedia of Roses seems to list entries according to the trade name in their first country of introduction. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:24, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have created the template {{Trade designation}}, short form {{Tdes}}. It works both in the text and for titles (see this redirect).
I have made some copy-edits to the Rosa 'Iceberg' article, leaving it as here. I think it's then well beyond start class, so I'll alter the rating. As an experiment, I'm going to alter the article to use {{Tdes}}; if people don't like it, they can revert to the one just linked to. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:32, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Article now altered; see version 439402774. On a Mac, I think that the font size for the trade description name needs increasing slightly, say to 110%, but I know I'm in a minority, so would Windows users please comment? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:47, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It does seem that the choice is between the best-known English name or the first used trade description when the cultivar was introduced. Avoiding cultural imperialism suggests the latter; ease of pronunciation the former. I can cope with French and German, but I grow a fabulous clematis whose first cultivar name was ‘Blekitny Aniol’ – it was introduced by the famous Polish clematis breeder, Brother Stefan Franczak. Polish friends have tried to teach me how to pronounce it (to me it sounds something like "bwekitnee aniow", but when I say it, they smile). So I prefer 'Blue Angel'. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:04, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The effect which the new template has on the text of Rosa 'Iceberg' doesn't work for me and my personal pc/browser settings (I'm on Windows/Firefox) - the trade names come out very small. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 10:33, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think templates in the main text are generally discouraged because of such discrepancies between platforms. For the record, I have viewed this in Windows+Firefox 5 and see the same problem as PaleCloudedWhite does. In Windows+IE7 it looks OK. I'm glad that we are looking at trade names vs cultivars names because it does require more detailed consideration. Whatever we come up with needs to conform with the WP:COMMONNAME policy. Melburnian (talk) 13:57, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is not the template (there are plenty of templates intended for use in the main text), but choosing the best way in which to implement it to allow for browser differences. I'm now in the university where I have access to different platforms. For flexibility I used a span tag within the template; I'll change it to tt and check. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:02, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The current version seems ok in all the browser/platform combinations I've tried, although still not ideal. Basically it expands to whatever <tt>..</tt> would on a given system, but with the font size increased to 1.2×.
Recall that this is not necessarily the final solution. The point of using a template rather than inserting e.g. <tt>..</tt> directly in the source is to make it easier to change later. On the other hand, apart from small caps, I can't think of any other way of doing what the ICNCP requires.
(Conforming with WP:COMMONNAME is an interesting issue, because the policy seems to me to prefer common names to scientific names, as other projects within the ToL project do, whereas we (rightly in my view) have preferred scientific names over common names.) I think that choosing the best-known English trade designation when the cultivar name is inappropriate is consistent with WP:COMMONNAME and its general policies. In particular:
  • "Recognizability – article titles are expected to be a recognizable name or description of the topic" – this supports trade designations like Iceberg over cultivar names like 'KORbin'.
  • "Naturalness – titles are expected to use names and terms that readers are most likely to look for in order to find the article (and to which editors will most naturally link from other articles)." – again this supports Iceberg over 'KORbin'.
  • "Precision – titles are expected to use names and terms that are precise, but only as precise as is necessary to identify the topic of the article unambiguously." – it could be argued that since the registered cultivar name is unique, this favours 'KORbin' over Iceberg, but so long as there is one trade name which is well known and well attested to by reliable sources, it should be ok.
  • "Consistency – titles are expected to follow the same pattern as those of similar articles." – so we need a WikiProject Plants policy.
Peter coxhead (talk) 15:49, 14 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm in general agreement with your Iceberg vs 'KORbin' dot point analysis, and that we need to cover trade names in the "Hybrids, cultivars and provisional names" section of our existing policy. Melburnian (talk) 23:58, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Revision of Project's Scope and Goals

As currently worded, the Project's Scope and Goals are not clear about hybrids, whether natural or artificial, or cultivars. I propose that the Scope and Goals be changed as below, where new material is underlined.

This WikiProject aims primarily to describe all plants, that is, all species and natural hybrids belonging to the kingdom Plantae. This project's scope also includes botanists and botany-related articles and notable artificial hybrids and cultivars.

Goals:

  1. Describe all ranks and notable clades, particularly orders, families, genera, and species, and natural hybrids, of the kingdom Plantae.
  2. For species, natural hybrids, and notable artificial hybrids and cultivars, describe botanical properties, distribution, multiplication, usage (medicine, food, etc.), botanical history, cultivation information, and common names.
  3. Develop and implement a robust method of naming plant articles for the ease of navigation and searching for Wikipedia users.
  4. Maintain Category:Plants and its subcategories.

The addition of clades and orders just reflects the current position. The change is to be clear that we regard all species and natural hybrids as sufficiently notable for inclusion, but not all artificial hybrids and cultivars, although those which are sufficiently notable do fall within the scope of the project.

Views? Peter coxhead (talk) 07:19, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The amendments appear reasonable to me. Melburnian (talk) 11:25, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
and me too. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:50, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good. Thanks for the work. First Light (talk) 16:30, 15 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your comments. I'll leave it over the weekend to see if there are any dissenters, and if not, I'll edit the policy on Monday. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:08, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
We shouldn't get too hung up over such text (for example, it is not a problem if there is overlap between the scope of the plants project and others such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Horticulture and Gardening, WP:FARM, WP:FOREST, etc). But having said that, the proposed amendments look fine to me. Kingdon (talk) 12:13, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I completely agree that overlap between projects is not a problem; indeed it's an advantage. Clear wording in the project policy can be useful, though: I have used the existing wording to defend a plant stub from deletion on the grounds of non-notability by pointing out that it was the policy of WikiProject Plants to have an article on every plant species. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:22, 16 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the absence of a specific issue, I suppose this is just a nit-pick, but the current wording says we want to cover all species, not necessarily that each species gets its own article. Kingdon (talk) 01:57, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved

As there was no disagreement, I have now made the changes suggested above (with some very small changes to the English). Peter coxhead (talk) 06:48, 18 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One article per species

(I moved this to a new heading. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC))[reply]

That's an important distinction raised by Kingdon above. Since day one the project scope has included the aim to "describe all plants" but has never specified whether this description means individual articles for each one. The scope of Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds, for comparison, specifically includes "articles for all known species, genera, families, and orders of birds ..." Melburnian (talk) 03:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two points:
  1. The project has been clear that it doesn't want separate articles for monotypic taxa, so in that sense it doesn't want an individual article for "all known species, genera, families, and orders" of plants.
  2. I personally think it's a purely pragmatic matter as to whether there should be one article per species or whether they should be covered in, say, the genus article. For extinct species the norm seems to have been to have an article on the genus with brief accounts of the species. This seems to me correct (I've written quite a few such articles, so I may be biased). For extant species the norm seems to be to have an article per species (subject to (1) above). The result is that there are a lot of stubs, when perhaps a short description of the species in the genus article would be more sensible until more is written about the species.
Either way, it would be good to be clear about this in the project principles. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:39, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My eventualist view is that we should aim to have an article on every extant species, with the qualification of your point 1. I'm not so sure on extinct species, perhaps modern extictions should be treated separately from prehistoric extinctions. At the next level of genus, it would seem that all would qualify to have individual articles. Melburnian (talk) 12:25, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree with aiming for an article on every extant species. What I'm personally unsure about is the wholesale creation of stub articles – an editor sees a list of species in a genus article and creates a stub for each which just says something like "X y is a species in the genus X, family Zaceae." Is there a point to this? This is not just a rhetorical question; I'm interested in Scilla, and had thought of creating stubs for the missing species, before deciding that there was no point in doing this – either I should create at least a start class article or leave the red link there. I'm interested to know what other editors think.
The extinct plants I've written about are Early Devonian genera like Adoketophyton, where I think there really is no point in separate articles on the two currently named species, since the amount of information available is very limited. (Actually, it could be argued that the whole article is not acceptable according to WP:PRIMARY.) But as I wrote above, I think this is just a pragmatic issue, not one of principle: normally for fossil plants a genus article will be sufficient, but in some cases it may not be. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:43, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Whether one article per species is a good idea depends on the degree to which a particular genus has been taxonomically and biologically studied. To take a real example, here is a quote about Marchantia from volume VI of Schuster: "Although the genus is considered as among the best known groups of hepatics, aspects of its taxonomy remain poorly resolved. Thus some 72 taxa have been reported for the New World, although Bischler (1984) reduces these to nine!" So, there are very well-known and well-researched taxa, for which the taxonomy is a royal mess. In these situations, articles on all the species should not be created. (Although Bischler has now finished a world monograph of Marchantia, which could rectify the situation for this particular case). --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:53, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is a really good point, which I should have thought of. There definitely needs to be some degree of taxonomic consensus, otherwise we end up with incompatible articles through editors using different taxonomies and it becomes a huge task to sort it out when a consensus finally appears. (My favourite genus, Ophrys, is another example of a mess. Flora Europaea had 20 species; Delforge (2001) has 252 species, many of which he says are only distinguished by their pollinator; a recent study of the genetics of the genus found only 10 genetically distinct groups.) Peter coxhead (talk) 20:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My opinion, Peter, is that such articles are worse than worthless. If they provide no information beyond that presented in a list on a genus page, but they require the reader to click through to reach that lack of information, then they actively inhibit learning. In such cases, I generally merge the species back into the genus, although this occasionally releases vitriol from other editors, albeit in only a small minority of cases. (The problems that EncycloPetey raises are additional reasons why one might be cautious, but would only result in wasted effort for editors. I feel that wasting readers time is a much more serious problem.) I think the project is right to wish to cover all plant taxa, but it should not enforce a separate article for every taxon, even apart from situations of monotypy. A species can be adequately covered within a genus article in many cases, such as where it is poorly known or differs little from other species. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:06, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This is my current opinion too, although when I started serious Wikipedia editing I followed others and did create some species stubs. Now I don't. I haven't quite gone so far as to merge species stubs into the genus article, but I tend to think you're right to do so. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:16, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree with Stemonitis and prefer even a simple stub rather than a list or mention in the genus article. I see several advantages. First, a species name shouldn't redirect to the genus unless it's monotypic. Second, a species stub can be categorized in flora categories, etc. And third, if a stub exists, it will eventually gather more edits (and photos, and links to Commons, etc). Rkitko (talk) 22:29, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes I agree with Rkitko. The Euphorbia in the section below is a good example. We wouldn't be able to put 2000+ species summaries in the genus article. If a proper stub was created for Euphorbia lurida we would have a taxobox with synonyms and references and a redirect from Euphorbia pringlei. I am also quite amazed when I put in a photo request on new species articles, how other editors will either take a photo or track down a photo (say from flickr), and add it to the article. Also, once a stub is established with a valid taxobox, it allows other editors who are not so comfortable with taxonomy to more readily make a contribution. Melburnian (talk) 00:53, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Generally, I agree with the above two. Speaking for myself, WP's hold on me stems from there being a whole lot left to do. It's inexplicable, but that is principally what drives me to edit at all. Less is not more here to me, its just less. I understand Stemonitis' point, but 'less than worthless' is a bit extreme, I think, as many, if not most articles start out as very stubby stubs; their worth is in their potential early on, and not closed. Hamamelis (talk) 01:25, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I will respond point by point if I may. "A species name shouldn't redirect to the genus unless it's monotypic." This is simply dogmatic, and is not based on any worthwhile argument (at least none has been presented). "A species stub can be categorized in flora categories, etc." So can redirects, and I frequently do this. "If a stub exists, it will eventually gather more edits (and photos, and links to Commons, etc)." This is frequently cited, but I have yet to see any evidence for it. I see no reason why a species section of a larger article shouldn't accumulate the same number of substantive edits. (And how many Commons links does one article need?) I don't claim that species should always be merged into a genus, and a large genus such as Euphorbia would be one very clear instance where that wouldn't be desirable. That in no way reduces the desirability of doing so elsewhere, however. I feel that the desire for separate substubs comes from what I would call editor-centred writing, where Wikipedians (understandably) prefer systems and situations that make it easier for editors; while the ability to edit is an integral part of Wikipedia, its core function, which we must never lost sight of, is to inform readers. It doesn't matter how good an article will be or could be. Wikipedia will never be finished, so it has to be useful right now. Splitting off substubs is not informative to the reader and isn't helpful in the current state of the project. When you look at it from the readers' point of view, there really is no justification for such vanity. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:19, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It would be useful to have some statistics to show how long stubs sit around un-expanded. One reason that I now tend to support Stemonitis's view is that I originally bought into the argument that stubs (and red links) encourage further editing. I'm now very doubtful that this is true. The number of editors who add to scientifically oriented plant articles is very small (witness the number who ever comment here). (Articles with some connection to herbal or fringe medicine are another matter.) Peter coxhead (talk) 07:43, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I managed to find some relevant statistics. I should say immediately that although I've read the help pages, I don't entirely understand the underlying processes that generate them. Further the data relies on the accuracy of the rating for WikiProject Plants on the talk page, which is not always correct.
If you go to [7] you can generate a list of Plant articles by change of status over a date range. I left the date fields blank; the earliest date I saw was in 2007. I looked at all possible changes from "Stub-Class", with the following results:
  • Stub to Start: 264 articles
  • Stub to C: 29 articles
  • Stub to B: 1 articles
There were no other changes. Thus over the time period that the tool generates the data, only 304 articles have had their status changed from Stub to something else.
To get an idea of the recent rate of change, which is clearly higher (or picked up more by the tool), I set the date range to 2010-01-01 to 2010-12-31. This produced a total of 158 articles leaving Stub class in the year. As there are currently 34,810 Stub class articles, this implies that it will take 220 years to fix all the stubs at the 2010 rate, assuming no more are added.
This is a serious underestimate, actually, since if you look at some of the articles, you'll see that often what happens is that an editor creates a stub and then expands it later, which does nothing towards fixing existing stubs. Melburnian favours "eventualism", but this is rather too "eventual" for me. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:26, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
To be completely fair, very few people raise the rating of an article after they expand it. I had gone through a couple years ago and, while assessing new articles, made sure I took a look at the stub-class articles that no longer had a stub template. Further, I wasn't necessarily talking about expansion up to start-class. I'm talking about the incremental increase in information from a "substub" type "X is a species in the genus Y" article with taxobox and categories to including photos, a link to commons, other sister projects, synonyms, maybe a bit more information, but it's still a stub. You can't measure that. Rkitko (talk) 12:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. So one of the issues is what proportion of articles rated as Stub-class are actually not. There seems to be no automated way of deciding this, so I went through a selection of species articles rated as stubs whose genus name begins with "M" (as this is about the middle of the alphabet). You're absolutely right that the rated class is highly inaccurate; no more than 1/3 those I looked at are what I would call a stub, and some were at least C. So the situation isn't as anything like as bad as the raw statistics above indicate. However, even if you apply a large correction factor, the reality is that there are likely to be a lot of real stubs which don't get expanded. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:14, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think a distinction needs to be made between stub articles which only comprise variations on "X is a species in the genus Y in the family Z" and those which give rather more. It is possible that some species articles are quite satisfactory remaining as stubs. Also I think a situation which has been overlooked by Stemonitis is when a reader searches for a particular species, but then has to read through a whole genus article, only to find that the species is just part of a list. This I think perhaps serves the reader less well than if they are brought directly to a species article, even if it is only a stub. I am not making an argument either one way or the other on this issue - I am just raising points which I think need considering. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 09:11, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not overlooked. I think that if I were looking for information on Euphorbia lurida (just to take a species at random), I would learn more from this:

Euphorbia is a genus of plants belonging to the family Euphorbiaceae. Consisting of 2008 species, Euphorbia is one of the most diverse genera in the plant kingdom, exceeded possibly only by Senecio. Members of the family and genus are sometimes referred to as spurges. The genus is primarily found in the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa and the Americas, but also in temperate zones worldwide. Succulent species originate mostly from Africa, the Americas and Madagascar. There exists a wide range of insular species: on the Hawaiian Islands where spurges are collectively known as "akoko", and on the Canary Islands as "tabaibas"...

than I would from this:

Euphorbia lurida is a species of Euphorbia.

because the second gives you no context until you have clicked on Euphorbia and read the first. You are right, however, that more informative stubs are a different kettle of fish. An article which states:

Euphorbia lurida, the San Francisco mountain spurge, is a species of Euphorbia that occurs at altitudes of 3,500–7,500 feet (1,100–2,300 m) in Utah, New Mexico and Arizona, and closely resembles E. robusta but with narrower cauline leaves.

is clearly much more informative and could not be usefully merged into the genus article. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:27, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(Replying to PaleCloudedWhite) If some species articles are "quite satisfactory remaining as stubs", then the definition of "Stub" is wrong. If there is nothing more that can be said about a species because nothing more is available in reliable sources, then the article should surely not be classed as a "Stub". Perhaps we need to clarify the project's quality categories to be clear that they are relative to the subject matter: a "C-class" article on a relatively unknown species can't be expected to be as detailed as a "C-class" article on a major taxon, e.g. a family or an order, or one on a botanical topic. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:51, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The difficulty with discussing stubs as a class is that it includes substubs, which at one time were in a separate class of their own. Generally speaking, I would not encourage the creation of single-sentence substubs, particularly en masse as part of a "rollout". On the other hand I fully support the creation of near-Start class referenced stubs on any notable topic.Melburnian (talk) 03:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Same. Any species article that includes information that simply can not be placed in the genus page deserves an article of its own. I would agree with Stemonitis though that one-sentence "X is a species of Y genus" stubs aren't really that informative. And they simply hide the existence of far more comprehensive coverage of the subject.
On that note, are there any ways of emphasizing that the reader should see the genus article for more info? In short articles, the genus is often already wikilinked in the first sentence, but a See also section urging the reader to see the genus article might still fall within the guidelines of WP:SEEALSO. That might solve the problem of readers being unaware of the larger article.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 05:21, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We seem to be reaching some kind of consensus here, which it would be good to try to write up on the project page (I have the feeling that too many useful discussions just disappear when at least a summary should be recorded). Here's my attempt at a summary including some contentious points:

  • The default position is that each species/natural hybrid should have its own article.
  • However this does not meant that species articles should be created regardless.
    • They should not if they will be left as what used to be called a "substub". Such articles can legitimately be removed. [This last may be contentious; I think that only Stemonitis and I have expressly supported it.]
    • They should not while there are major taxonomic uncertainties which may later require wholesale changes.
    • They should not if there is never likely to be sufficient information available to make the species notable relative to the genus; many if not most fossil plant species fall into this category.
In such cases, treatment at the genus level is more appropriate, at least as an interim measure. Rather than a "substub", a categorized redirect to the genus article can be created. [Contentious?]
  • A true stub, i.e. a very short article but one which nevertheless contains some information about the species that cannot be deduced from the genus name + the genus article, is of value. [We may disagree about the boundary between a "substub" and a "stub" but seem to agree that some articles classed as stubs are ok.]
  • Every effort should be made to categorize articles correctly; the number of Stub-class articles shown in the project table is much larger than the reality.

Is this a fair summary? Peter coxhead (talk) 13:58, 21 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would not include "Such articles can legitimately be removed". I don't support redirect from species name to genus as it results in "false" blue links. The "taxonomic uncertainty" clause requires more thought, because, as written, we would not have any articles on Acacia species, for example. The next one could be something like where there is insufficient information available from reliable sources to meet the notability requirement. This will be the case for many fossil plant species (but only if other editors dealing with the latter agree that that is a correct assumption). Again I don't support "Rather than a substub, a categorized redirect to the genus article can be created". The last two stub points seem basically OK - though I would not use the terminology "true stub".Melburnian (talk) 07:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, well you've confirmed that the parts I suggested might be contentious are indeed so. I'm going to add something to the project page and then ask others to check it.
  • The bits marked as contentious will be removed or noted as such.
  • The "taxonomic uncertainty" bit will be weakened, to suggest being cautious in such areas rather than avoiding them altogether.
  • No editor who has created articles on long-extinct plant species has ever disagreed with working mainly at the genus level, but there aren't many of us – actually I think only myself and User:Smith609 recently – so it's hard to say that there is a consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:25, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please see #Further update to project page. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:11, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Euphorbia pringlei"?

Anyone heard of this? Does it exist? Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 11:56, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

not my area of expertise though this looks promising..Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:49, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
IPNI includes it, and notes that it's a synonym of Euphorbia lurida subsp. pringlei. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:14, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
This 1960 reference has it included under Euphorbia lurida as well. Melburnian (talk) 13:19, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
ahhhhhhhhhh... lurida... thank you. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 23:17, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Linnaeus for GA

The GA review for Linnaeus has begun. If you can help, please "watch" the review page and assist as you can. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:31, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The article really needs some more work; see the latest discussions at Talk:Carl_Linnaeus. In particular how he came to his ideas, some more about them, and their impact. It's a pity that Linnaean taxonomy is such a poor article. (It's on my ever-growing "to do" list.) Peter coxhead (talk) 19:21, 19 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Invitation to assist in adding donated content: GLAM/ARKive

I am the Wikipedia Outreach Ambassador to ARKive, who have kindly agreed to donate an initial 200 article texts about endangered species from their project, to Wikipedia, under a CC-BY-SA license. Details are on the GLAM/ARKive project page. The donated texts include many about plants. Your help, to merge the donated texts into articles, would be appreciated. Guidelines for doing so are also on the above page. Once articles have been expanded using the donated texts, we are also seeking assistance in having those articles translated into other languages. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns, on the project's talk page, or my own. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 15:09, 20 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ARKive have just released another batch of texts, including several on plants. I've added these to the list on the project page. Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing); Andy's talk; Andy's edits 14:34, 30 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not a birch tree?

  • from a distance
    from a distance
  • close up
    close up

I may have misidentified the tree in these pictures. I thought the unusual bark was due to it being a very large, old birch but someone suggested it is actually a cottonwood or a poplar tree. Anyone know for sure? Beeblebrox (talk) 18:30, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a birch; cottonwood looks right to me. My best guess is Populus trichocarpa ; this reference says it grows on the Kenai Peninsula between sea level and 2,000 feet. However, as I live over 12,000 kilometres from where this picture was taken I can't claim any local knowledge.Melburnian (talk) 02:32, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Further update to project page

Based on the discussion at #One article per species, I have added some more content to WP:PLANTS#Scope and goals which I think reflects the consensus of the discussion. Please check and amend if I have implied there is a consensus over an issue where there is not.

I have also added a brief note at WP:PLANTS#Statistics which should not be contentious. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:10, 22 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'd WP:Avoid instruction creep and just revert [8]. I didn't see any evidence of a consensus one way or the other from the previous discussion, and at least speaking for myself I don't agree with the proposed text. I'm also somewhat suspicious about a plants-specific policy when WP:TOL already addresses the question. Kingdon (talk) 02:31, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The project page should certainly not say anything on which there isn't a consensus, so go ahead if that's what you think.
The only two things I would say are firstly that we seem to have discussions here which do yield useful insights and these often just disappear, which I think is a pity and not helpful to newer plant editors. (How to categorize plant articles is a good example of such a discussion which seems to have produced no recorded output.) Secondly, I don't see the text as "instructions" but merely advice.
On the separate issue of plants versus ToL, there are already clear differences between different (sub)projects. For example, we have favoured scientific names for article titles; many other projects do not. The whole discussion arose from the reasonable question as to whether WP:PLANTS wanted one article for every species, as some other projects do, or not. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:46, 23 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I was quite surprised how this last (quite large) amendment was implemented without any editor giving support for the wording, quite in contast to your previous amendment. I don't like reverting good faith edits, but have done so in line with your first sentence and the objection from Kingdon above. Melburnian (talk) 01:04, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I, too, disagree with the text that Melburnian reverted, in particular the guidance discouraging the creation of substubs. I don't see the need for us to give any guidance whatsoever on this point. This is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit; anyone is entitled to create an article on any notable topic. WP:PLANTS is merely a place for plants editors to collaborate and coordinate their efforts; we have no jurisdiction to alter fundamental principles of openness. Hesperian 02:20, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I stand corrected; I fully accept that my summary did not represent a consensus (although I thought it did). I have restored the brief note at WP:PLANTS#Statistics which I think is not contentious.
I disagree that there is no "need for us to give any guidance whatsoever on this point" – the key word being "guidance". Just as anyone is entitled to create an article on any notable topic, anyone is entitled to challenge its notability and have it deleted (or delete it themselves if they are an admin like some of those who have opposed "substubs"). Such a cycle is not a very productive use of our limited time, and I still think that a genuine consensus would be useful, so I hope someone else will manage to find some wording concerning the issue of one article per species which can be added to the project page. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:51, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In nearly seven years I have not once seen a verifiable plant taxon substub deleted through due process. Hesperian 08:16, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly they are replaced by redirects. See Stemonitis's comments at #One article per species. Anyway, I don't want to imply by prolonging this discussion that I don't accept the reversion; I do. Let's leave it for now. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:36, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Merge of Viridiplantae and Plant

An anonymous editor has raised this at Talk:Viridiplantae. Please comment there. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:29, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Latin cultivar names

As I remember, in names such as Rosa gallica officinalis, the cultivar name should be treated as other cultivar names even if it is Latin; i.e. with initial capital, and not be italicised. Always assuming that it is a true cultivar and not a natural taxon of course. Can someone confirm this?

See the Rosa gallica article for the current usage and another example, Rosa gallica forma trigintipetala. Thanks, Imc (talk) 10:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If "officinalis" is an established cultivar name, then it is governed by the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP). (Cultivar names can only be all in Latin if established before 1 January 1959.) If it's a cultivar name, then the whole name should be written as Rosa gallica 'Officinalis', as you remembered. Frequently old "cultivars" with names such as "officinalis" turn out to be groups. Group names are not put in quotes, e.g. Rosa gallica Officinalis Group.
If it's not a cultivar or group name, then it must be an botanical infraspecific name governed by the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature (ICBN), in which case it must be written with a "connecting term" such as "var." if a variety or "f." if a form, e.g. Rosa gallica var. officinalis. The connecting term is never italicized. In botany, trinomials such as Rosa gallica officinalis are always wrong.
The RHS Plant Finder lists it here as a variety, i.e. under the name Rosa gallica var. officinalis. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:14, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A quick scan through my rose books reveals a certain amount of confusion, both historically and today. In the RHS Encyclopedia of Roses (2003) it comes under 'Officinalis' standing alone, without the Rosa gallica, confirming that the authors regard it very much as a cultivar (seeing as all the other cultivar entries are listed alphabetically under their cultivar name alone, without any Rosa in front). In "The Hillier Manual of Trees and Shrubs" (1998) it's listed as Rosa gallica var. officinalis. In the 2006/7 catalogue of rose grower Peter Beales (who holds the UK National Collection of Rosa species) it's listed as Rosa gallica officinalis. In Phillips and Rix's "The Ultimate Guide to Roses" (2004) it's Rosa gallica 'Officinalis'. So there we already have 4 sources and 4 different notations. It appears that this confusion has historical precedents. If I can quote at length from an article (by Francois Joyaux) about Christophe Opoix ("The Champion of the Rose of Provins"), in the Autumn 2005 edition of the Historic Rose Journal:

"Today we distinguish between the single wild rose, Rosa gallica and the semi-double rose of the apothecaries, Rosa gallica 'Officinalis', which is the only one, strictly speaking, entitled to the synonym 'Rose de Provins'. At the start of the nineteenth century, this terminology was not exactly fixed. Even today, some authors continue this confusion. Take, for example, the case of Krussmann, a serious author, who describes Rosa gallica 'Officinalis' first as single, then later as semi-double."
"Despite Opoix's opinion that the semi-double variety known as the 'Rose of Provins' had been cultivated since the thirteenth century, it is noticeable that many of the old representations of roses for medicinal use show single roses, with five petals. This is seen in the work of Symphorien Champier, entitled Rosa gallica, published at Paris by Josse Bade in 1514 ... It is clearly a single rose ... This single rose was called Rosa gallica and is indeed the rose whose medicinal virtues he promotes. In this sense, it is the rose of the apothecaries."
"Opoix's own confusion is total, and he equates Rosa gallica with Rosa gallica 'Officinalis'. He writes: 'The red roses, known by the name of Roses de Provins, Rosa rubra simplex Tournef., Rosa gallica Linn., etc.' Or again: 'Foreigners and the famous botanist Linnaeus have called them Rosa gallica, the rose of France, and the French, the rose of Provins'. To him, quite curiously, the single botanical species rose of Linnaeus, Rosa gallica and the horticultural semi-double form Rosa gallica 'Officinalis' syn: 'Rose of Provins', syn: 'Rose of the Apothecaries' are one and the same rose ... Yet it is quite clear that the roses grown at Provins at that time were semi-double roses ... Opoix says that 'the number of petals rarely exceed twelve' - which matches the semi-double flowers of our Rosa gallica 'Officinalis'."
"And how were the Roses of Fontenay [a competing rose-growing area] described? Opoix singles out several differences .... most importantly, the roses of Provins are 'more single' than those of Fontenay 'and their petals, though fewer in number, are larger'. ... [His] remarks suggest two conclusions. First, it is clear that in Opoix's time, and for a long time before, no clear distinction was made between the wild species Rosa gallica L. and the horticultural variety Rosa gallica 'Officinalis'. Even if the synonyms 'Rose of Provins' and 'Rose of the Apothecaries' are applied to the latter, both seem to have been roses used by apothecaries. Second, this confusion could be explained by a gradual progression in roses used in pharmacy from a single flower to one that was increasingly double. In 1807/8 Opoix was using the term Rosa rubra simplex to signify a rose which had not been single for a long time. On the other hand, the nurserymen of Fontenay had come to be growing a rose that was distinctly more double than that of Provins, which, moreover, to Opoix was a degenerative step."

I'm not sure if that doesn't just muddy the waters, rather than clarifying anything. Interesting though... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:21, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, interesting. The ICNCP is relatively new, so to some extent the historical application of a cultivar name or a botanical name to this entity is not relevant. To be a cultivar now it must have "distinct, uniform and stable" characteristics which are retained when propagated. The history above suggests that plants with range of doubleness were called "officinalis", which implies either a botanical variety or a cultivar group rather than a cultivar in the ICNCP sense.
As for "notations":
  • The ICNCP allows a cultivar name to be used with a full botanical name or just with the genus or alone. So Rosa gallica 'Officinalis', Rosa 'Officinalis' or 'Officinalis' are all allowed (the last obviously needs a context).
  • The ICBN absolutely forbids the notation Rosa gallica officinalis. Article 24 covers infraspecific names: a connecting term is essential; also, like specific epithets, infraspecific epithets cannot be used alone. So Rosa gallica var. officinalis is the ONLY correct notation if it's a variety, although it can be abbreviated to R. gallica var. officinalis or R. g. var. officinalis.
I've edited Rosa gallica to use the correct notations, but I guess the article should say that both names are in use, which it doesn't at present. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've now also said that both names are in use, with references. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:26, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Imc (talk) 06:28, 26 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Need ID help - wildflowers

  • Cleome rutidosperma
    Cleome rutidosperma
  • Cyperus cf. rotundus
    Cyperus cf. rotundus
  • Commelina cf. benghalensis
    Commelina cf. benghalensis

Need identification help with the following wildflowers. Will try to create articles for them if none exists. All are from Mindanao island, Philippines. First one is possibly Trifolium, last one is possibly Chromolaena?-- Obsidi♠n Soul 08:54, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not an area of the world whose flora I know anything about (although I am familiar with some pan-tropical weeds, which the last probably is). As someone who gets quite a bit of e-mail which includes photos of local plants to be identified (because I run a website on a local National Nature Reserve), I would just make the point that you really need to include a close-up of the flower to have a reasonable chance of the plant being identified correctly. Most modern digital cameras will produce quite good close-ups – study the manual if you don't know how to do it! Peter coxhead (talk) 10:43, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Haha, sorry, will try to do that next time. These are all 'profile' pictures I guess, not meant for ID. I'll take a full photo next time then mangle it immediately afterwards for closeups of the morphology, heh. Camera sucks though.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 11:18, 27 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Hmmm, this is a difficult set of IDs. I'm thinking based on this that the third one may be Commelina benghalensis.Melburnian (talk) 03:23, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The hairs are not brown-tipped though... hmmm. Still, ID to genus level is already awesome enough. Thanks :) Requested renaming.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 05:32, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A couple more thoughts. The grass looks like a Digitaria; I've seen grasses like it in Malaysia, but never been able to determine the species. The flower in the first photo is nothing like a Trifolium; as far as can be told from the photo it seems to have 4-5 petals and be one-sided; definitely try to get a better photo of this! Peter coxhead (talk) 07:56, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I recognize Digitaria, very common here as well, but definitely not the same. The leaves are different. This one has slender (1cm or less in width), glabrous, and long leaves. Does not branch. Leaves are not spreading and arise from sheaths that more or less terminate near the base (such that they all look like they're coming directly from a single point in the ground). Inflorescence is compact (shorter than Digitaria but thicker), alternating, and overlapping and arises from a thin stalk (around 6 to 9 inches in length) that is triangular in cross-section.
Ah, right: triangular stems are fairly clear. Sedges have always been beyond me! Peter coxhead (talk) 14:19, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect it's a sedge (Carex). Very similar to this picture of Carex disticha or this picture of Carex fimbriata, except for the shapes of the inflorescence. Hmm... might be Carex tristachya based on this picture. I'll take better shots tomorrow, but... there are so many, LOL, and they all look the same. Dunno if it's worth it. Heh.
It may be Cyperaceae, but I don't think it's Carex, because that would have separate male and female flowers, which are normally readily discernible. It's more likely to be something like Cyperus rotundus (cf. this photo), but no doubt there are dozens of species in the area. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:26, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think you nailed it. Not sure about the species as well. I've seen the larger C. rotunda around (which has more spikes and usually grow well away from other grasses) and this might be a different species or just stunted from proximity with other plants. Anyway, this made me discover that we don't have an article on carabao grass (Paspalum conjugatum), the most common lawn cover around here. I'll make that my next project instead as this already has an article.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 16:42, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As for the first pic. I will. That would be easier than the grass, I would guess. I think it's definitely a legume though, you can see some of its pods.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 13:53, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
If it's a legume (pods are not clear enough in the photo to be sure), then presumably what's visible in the photo's solitary pale blue flower are standards & keel. It doesn't fit Trifolium though; this should have clusters of flowers and few-seeded pods. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:19, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]
And after much google-fu, I think I found what the first pic is! :D It's apparently the fringed spiderflower, Cleome rutidosperma. We have no article on it. Perfect. And you were right. Not Trifolium nor a legume, but Cleomaceae. The flower was too tiny to be of much help, heh..-- Obsidi♠n Soul 16:42, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Salvia hispanica

I would like neutral opinions on my attempt to add information to the Salvia hispanica article about the seed's use in Mesoamerica, based on academic journal sources. An editor keeps removing it and has placed it at Talk:Salvia hispanica#Mesoamerican usage for discussion. Thanks, First Light (talk) 05:50, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As three independent editors have supported the inclusion of this material at Talk:Salvia hispanica#Mesoamerican usage, I have put it back (and improved the citations to clarify that both are to reputable journals, although one is effectively pre-publication). Peter coxhead (talk) 10:12, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the WP:Plants quality rating of this article should be upgraded - I'm guessing either to a 'Start'-class or 'C'-class. I would just do it myself, but I'm not certain if there are strict criteria by which such things are assessed, or whether it's actually just a rough assessment? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 10:54, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

See Wikipedia:WikiProject_Plants/Assessment#Quality_scale (which could do with being more prominent on the project page). However, it seems to me that the criteria there are not really followed; most C-class articles I see do not contain "a lot of irrelevant material" or "still have significant issues or require substantial cleanup". Instead I think a judgement is made as to how far they are towards completion. My view is that Salvia hispanica is about C-class and I'll amend the rating accordingly. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:32, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A couple of areas that need expansion are the description of the plant and its position within this large genus. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:41, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you Peter, and everyone who commented there. That other editor has a long history of edit-warring without discussing on that article, so it could use being on more watchlists for a while. Much appreciated, First Light (talk) 14:20, 1 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Watsonian vice-counties

The article on Watsonian vice-counties is in severe danger of being ruined by zealots. It has been dragged into the "debate" (if I can dignify it with that term) over the use of the term "British Isles". As always, the best way to prevent damage is to improve the article, so if anyone here could add anything to it, that would be most appreciated. --Stemonitis (talk) 05:27, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One slightly tricky issue for me is the title of the article. It can reasonably be argued that "Watsonian" vice-counties are those of Great Britain; the VCs used in the island of Ireland are later and not, in one sense, "Watsonian". The correct title for the article is "Vice-counties of the British Isles", for which many sources are available, e.g. Stace (2010), New Flora of the British Isles, back cover. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:36, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I would be perfectly happy with a renaming, if that is inline with the sources; I had had the same thought as you, but didn't think I could have a serious discussion of it in the current situation. Please propose it there, and I will gladly support it. The more botanists there are taking part in the discussion, the better. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:46, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
See Talk:Watsonian vice-counties. I made some edits to produce a view which I think is more in line with the sources, starting to add more refs ("Watsonian VCs" = GB + Isle of Man; "VCs of British Isles" = GB + Ireland +/- Channel Islands). These were immediately undone by User:MacStep. I have reverted his changes, with an explanation on his talk page. We'll see what happens next. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:28, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
As far as I can tell, people are doing the right thing in terms of trying to discuss on the talk page and supplying sources. Too bad that MacStep isn't doing the same, but we'll see how it goes. Kingdon (talk) 01:21, 3 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Undo move

It's now necessary to undo a move to The Biological Vice-Counties of Ireland, or something Lavateraguy (talk) 08:54, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely. I have tried to discuss my edits with him, to no avail. I personally think we need to discuss changing the title to e.g. "Biological vice-counties of the British Isles" but this needs discussion and consensus. I've exhausted my three reverts on undoing his reversions of my attempted edits. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:57, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Undone as being without consensus, and being obviously inaccurate. Let's get a proper discussion going, where a clear consensus can be formed. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:17, 2 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cultivar names and trade designations (part 2)

The issue of how to handle cultivar names and trade designations was discussed at some length above, and some consensus reached, but no action was taken.

As this shouldn't be lost, I'll summarize here the current state of play, as I see it.

  1. According to the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants (ICNCP), trade designations should be set in a different font, rather than put in single quotes as cultivar names are. It was agreed that in Wikipedia, fixed space font was the only viable option. A template {{tdes}} was created, which produces text like this Iceberg. The advantage of consistently using a template is that it is easy to change the style if a different consensus is reached in future.
  2. Article titles are an issue. Current policy Wikipedia:Naming conventions (flora)#Hybrids, cultivars and provisional names implies that the cultivar name should be used as the article title. Often this works, but for some heavily commercialized plants, the cultivar name is a meaningless string of characters. Thus the rose sold in the UK as Royal William was bred by Kordes in Germany; all his recent rose introductions have cultivar names beginning 'KOR' – this one is 'KORzaun'. We agreed that in such cases it was better to name the article under the trade designation used in the first English-speaking country into which the cultivar was introduced.

Comments, views, please – the intention is to set up a WP:PLANTS policy on this. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:30, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On point 1, I don't much like {{tdes}}. I don't think many readers will understand why words that are particularly common to them are offset in a different font. In fact, since many of these words are so common in English, I don't see why it's necessary to follow the ICNCP point on this issue. We don't follow every aspect of the ICBN (especially the point on italicizing all taxa; italicized family names will always look strange to me) because it's not yet common usage. Is it common usage to follow this part of the ICNCP?
I agree on the second point. WP:FLORA should be updated to include trade names. Quite a few plants have nonsense cultivar names. I had originally titled Stylidium graminifolium 'ST111' under the trade name Stylidium graminifolium 'Tiny Trina' until I realized my error. For many cultivars, the trade name is the registered cultivar name, but for those that have commonly used trade names, we should title it at that name. So, in my example, would I move the article to Tiny Trina? And if it's a common word that requires disambiguation, should we suggest dabbing with the genus name (Tiny Trina (Stylidium)) or the common name of the taxon, which might be more practical for apple, rose, etc. cultivars? Rkitko (talk) 22:34, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
My initial appraisal of Peter coxhead's summary above is that it is the most workable solution to this issue. However a couple of points for consideration have sprung to my mind:
1) I'm not completely satisfied with the effect which the trade designation template has on the text characters, at least not in my pc/browser settings. I don't want to sound unappreciative of Peter's work on the template, and I'm possibly being too exacting over a problem with only limited solutions, however in Windows/Firefox I think when the text is highlighted in bold print the template has the effect of making the characters appear too strung-out and too over-emphasized. Some talk was made in the earlier discussion about using something called "Small caps", although this seemed to be dismissed as not practical. I don't have any programming/software knowledge at all, and hence am a bit in the dark as to why "Small caps" was a bad idea, although I thought its effect on the appearance of the text was quite positive.
2) We ought to be aware that for some plants (eg roses), the registered cultivar name of modern international introductions is almost never intended for general useage by the public, so most articles for such cases will predominantly be titled according to their trade name.
3) Some trade names fall foul of the "Precision" requirement for WP article titles, as they are not always unique. In such instances where 2 or more different cultivars have the same trade name, it might be worth stipulating that, in their article title, such cultivars have their true cultivar name in brackets after their trade name (this is assuming of course that their cultivar names are not applicable as article titles in their own right, for reasons outlined previously). PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 23:07, 12 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

1) Regarding point 1, I generally concur with what Rkitko and PaleCloudedWhite have written above regarding the template.

2) I think in cases where the trade name is more commonly in use than the cultivar name perhaps article titles in the format [Genus (species) Trade name] such as Rosa Iceberg and Stylidium graminifloium Tiny Trina could be used. This format would integrate with the alphabetical sort of categories of cultivars in the [Genus (species) 'Cultivar'] format. We should also recognize the current practice that food crop cultivars are titled at [Cultivar].Melburnian (talk) 08:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Like others, I'm not over-happy about the way {{tdes}} displays trade designations. I do however think that we should make some attempt to follow the ICNCP in distinguishing between trade designations and cultivar names. Reliable sources (e.g. the RHS databases and publications) do use a distinct font family for trade designations. However, it's clear that changing the font family won't work in an online encyclopedia, because the font family for the main text can be altered by the user, so it can't be guaranteed that the two are distinct. Three possibilities seem to exist:
  1. A fixed space font, which generally needs to be a little larger than the default, as per the present version of {{tdes}}, giving Rosa Iceberg. The problem is that the relationship between the normal text and the trade designation text will vary between platform, browser, user settings, etc.
  2. Small caps, giving Rosa Iceberg. It's trivial to change {{tdes}} to small caps if this is preferred. The variation between platforms, etc. seems to be less, but still exists. (WP:SMALLCAPS discourages small caps in text, but allows it in templates, so it's ok in {{tdes}}.)
  3. No font marking (but no quotes either), giving Rosa Iceberg. If this is agreed, I would personally still urge the use of the template to mark in the source that it's a trade designation, otherwise we'll find editors inserting quote marks for a cultivar. Again, it's trivial to change {{tdes}} to do nothing if this is preferred.
Of the three, I personally think that (1) is the least worst choice, but am happy to go along with the consensus.
The important issues, for me, are:
  1. agreeing to distinguish between cultivar names and trade designations in a systematic way, regardless of what that way is
  2. agreeing that meaningless cultivar names should not be used as article titles. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:04, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Peter coxhead on his last two points (immediately above), and also with his assertion that editors might mistakenly try to insert quote marks around trade names, if no font marking is used to distinguish them. However I wonder if using a 'do nothing' template might be insufficient to prevent this happening - if editors don't understand what a template does and why it's there, they may delete it out of ignorance. So despite its simplicity, I'm inclined not to favour option 3 of the ones outlined by Peter above. Looking to the other two options, is it possible to see what small caps (option 2) would look like over a whole article, so it can be more fairly compared to {{tdes}} (option 1)? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 13:12, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Compare Rosa Iceberg with this version. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:43, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've since realized that a disadvantage of no marking at all for trade designations is that this is the form to be used for a grex or a group rather than a cultivar. Cymbidium Clarisse Austin is not a cultivar with the trade name "Clarisse Austin" but the grex Clarisse Austin. If there were a cultivar with a trade designation "Fancy Pink" within this grex, its name should be written as something like Cymbidium Clarisse Austin Fancy Pink, not Cymbidium Clarisse Austin Fancy Pink. Similarly groups of cultivars are given names in plain text, e.g. Pelargonium Fragrans Group. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:03, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

These complications, to me, add support in favor of a laissez-faire approach. If you, a knowledgeable person who has read on this topic recently, didn't realize this until now, will our readers? Other editors? Altering the font for trade names does not seem to be common usage or commonly understood. And how many grex registries are there? Off-hand I only know of the orchids, though I'm sure there are more. And even though multiple cultivars can arise from the same hybrid cross, unless there's a grex registry, it only confuses the matter. (There was effort a couple years ago to try to establish a grex registry for Nepenthes, but hobbyists in the trade eventually did not support it.)
Grex names as used in Rhododendron in addition to in orchids.
To throw another ingredient into the mix, there are also cultivar groups, such as Meconopsis Sterile Blue Group and Meconopsis Fertile Blue Group. I advocate Malva sylvestris Mauritiana Group instead of the various ICBN names based on Malva mauritiana L. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:14, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In the example of Cymbidium Clarisse Austin Fancy Pink, why is the {{tdes}} necessary? In titling the article, I would think our existing guidelines would steer us toward Cymbidium Fancy Pink, disambiguated as necessary, if there's another Fancy Pink trade designation in the genus, with the grex in parentheses. And in writing about them in the article, I think it would be easy to make it clear in the intro paragraph which is a grex and which is the trade name. I think the ICNCP rule is to allow for brevity and easy identification in publications and databases. But as an encyclopedia, we're going to explain these things anyway, so we don't require the offset font style that, at the moment, would only serve to confuse everyone. Again, we don't follow every rule of the ICBN, even though some journals and databases do italicize taxa at the ranks above genus, we haven't yet followed suit. Let's leave it alone. Rkitko (talk) 17:34, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Let's talk about a real example with an article already: Phalaenopsis 'Kaleidoscope'. Clearly this is mistitled. It's original title without the quotes was more accurate, but still far off. It was written and then moved by two different editors that I respect very much. There's certainly a problem if even they missed the error! This particular article seems to be about both the grex Phalaenopsis Baldan's Kaleidoscope and the most common (or only?) cultivar, Phalaenopsis 'Golden Treasure'. I would prefer moving the article to the cultivar name. As far as I can tell, 'Golden Treasure' is the cultivar name and not a trade designation. If it were, then I would prefer Phalaenopsis Golden Treasure. But of course, any of these would be more correct that the current title. Rkitko (talk) 17:55, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There are two different issues here: what article titles should be, and whether to distinguish trade designations from grex names and cultivar group names. I was not suggesting that an article would be titled Cymbidium Clarisse Austin Fancy Pink were there such a cultivar. By their very nature trade designations tend to be distinct with in a genus at least, so Cymbidium Fancy Pink would be the obvious title, with or without the font difference to show that it's a trade designation.

Can I suggest that to avoid confusion, we separate the discussion into two parts.

Using trade designations in article titles

The proposal is that if (and only if) the unique registered cultivar name is a meaningless character string, like 'KORzaun', we give the article a title consisting of [genus (specific-epithet) trade-designation]. This is a variation on existing policy, which is that the cultivar name should be used. I don't think that anyone has objected to this proposal. If you do, could you please do so here, otherwise it appears that there is a consensus on this. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Distinguishing trade designations from grex and group names

This issue applies both to titles and to the body of articles and is independent of the choice of words in the title.

  • It's agreed that cultivar names are shown by the use of single quotes.
  • It's agreed (I believe) that trade designations do not have single quotes, nor do grex names nor cultivar group names.
  • It's not the case that we can just "leave it alone" as Rkitko suggested, because there are quite a few articles in which trade designations appear in single quotes, as if they were cultivar names, in both the title and the text, and this at least should be corrected.

There does not appear to be a consensus that trade designations should be distinguished in Wikipedia by some appropriate variation on the font. I personally would like a bit more explanation of why this would "only serve to confuse everyone". The whole point of the ICNCP approach is to distinguish between cultivar names (single quotes, normal font), trade designations (no quotes, different font) and the rest: grex names, cultivar group names and, most importantly, common names. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:53, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A clarification: I meant "leave it alone" with respect to font styles. Certainly the incorrect titles and text where trade names appear in single quotes should be corrected. I understand the reason for the ICNCP rule, but I find it unnecessary. I expect that whether it's an article title or in text, it will be clear from at least the introduction or an infobox (speaking of, we should probably incorporate a grex parameter into the {{Infobox cultivar}}) which terms in the name are the genus, grex name, cultivar name, trade designation, cultivar group name, or common names. I imagine a single sentence could take care of all of this. For instance, "Phalaenopsis 'Golden Treasure', commonly sold under the trade designation Example, is a popular artificial orchid cultivar of the complex grex Baldan's Kaleidoscope." I imagine that people that have no clue about the ICNCP's rule on font styling trade designations would be reading, then stumble over the odd font on the word "Example" in the previous sentence and instead of continuing to read, they would be left wondering why it's like that with absolutely no explanation or link. If I wasn't now aware of the reason, it would certainly break the flow of reading for me. In other font difference examples, people expect taxa at the genus rank and below to be italicized and they expect, at least on Wikipedia, that the article title upon first mention will be bold (along with a few alternative title names). People do not yet, in my estimation, expect or understand why trade designations would be in a different font, leading to confusion. I hope that explains my thoughts a bit more. Rkitko (talk) 20:54, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, your explanation is clear to me now. I agree that in your example text the lack of a font change causes no problems. However, I think that it's a bit different where there's a discussion of a number of cultivars of a species or a cultivar group, since you could need to repeat the information as to whether it's a cultivar or a trade designation. For example, I was reading an article in The Plantsman about Cortaderia in cultivation and those awarded an AGM. Suppose I wrote this up in Wikipedia. I think that this:
Plants proposed for an AGM included 'Evita', 'Monstrosa', Silver Feather and 'Sunningdale Silver'
looks better than this:
Plants proposed for an AGM included 'Evita', 'Monstrosa', Silver Feather and 'Sunningdale Silver'
which suggests that I've forgotten the quotes on one of them (a common mistake I quite often correct).
If there's no consensus for marking trade designations, there's no consensus, and it can't be a policy. However, as with capitalization or not for common names, it seems to me that editors are free to follow the ICNCP or not on an article-by-article basis. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:25, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for providing that example. I see how in some cases it might be useful, but I again think clear arrangement of the sentence is better in the long run. In this case, I would write it this way, "Plants proposed for an AGM included the cultivars 'Evita', 'Monstrosa', 'Sunningdale Silver', and the plant known under the trade designation Silver Feather." I disagree that in your examples the former looks better. The font change is jarring. Perhaps that's just my opinion; I have picked up an eye for fonts and text flow from my font-snob and print designer partner, having endured frequent rants about the usage of Papyrus and Comic Sans. At any rate, I'll shut up now and let other folks chime in on this point to build consensus :-) Rkitko (talk) 03:32, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, we could use Comic Sans: "Plants proposed for an AGM included 'Evita', 'Monstrosa', Silver Feather and 'Sunningdale Silver'." It is available on both Windows and Mac platforms (not sure about Linux), and is unlikely to be the reader's default font. :-) Peter coxhead (talk) 07:49, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I have formulated a few disparate thoughts/questions on this whole issue:
1) On the question of using a different font for trade designations, in different ways I agree with both Peter coxhead and Rkitko - namely I think using a different font is good in principle, but works less well in practice with the options explored so far (although I find Comic Sans less objectionable in presentation than the template - sorry Peter!)
2) It actually isn't clear to me what differentiates a trade designation from a cultivar synonym - older cultivars in particular often seem to have acquired alternative names which are merely considered as synonyms, yet when cultivars are given alternative names today, these are regarded as trade designations. Is this purely a case of historical precedence?
3) It also isn't clear to me whether there is a distinction or not between cultivar names, code names and registered names. I've been looking through some of my (non-academic) reference books on roses recently, and there is a certain amount of confusion on notation. For instance, the RHS Encyclopedia of Roses states that in its entries, "Cultivar names are in Roman type with single quotes. Registered or trade names appear in sans-serif typeface without quotes." However it also states that "Synonyms and code names ... are other names under which a rose may be sold or described. Code names are usually composed of three capital letters (usually an abbreviation of the breeder's name) and lowercase letters to give a unique word that identifies the rose." I note that these code names are then presented in the body of the encyclopedia as synonyms, they are given single quotes (as if they were cultivars or cultivar synonyms) but they are printed wholly in capital letters. However in Phillips and Rix ("The Ultimate Guide to Roses") these code names are presented using no quote marks, a standard font, and only the first three letters are capitalized. Also, what we have been referring to as trade designations are presented in single quotes [eg " 'Gertrude Jekyll' (also called AUSbord) "].
I did state at the start of part 1 of this discussion that I find this whole area rather confusing... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:30, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I notice that no other editor has commented on my musings immediately above. I'm wondering if this is significant - do editors feel I led the previous discussion down the garden path a little, with what were perhaps(?) rather confused earlier assertions of mine regarding 'code names' and 'cultivar names'? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 17:53, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, there is confusion in the conflicting source information which you have rightly highlighted. For the example of Gertude Jekyll, US Patents confirms this is a trade name so in that case the notation 'Gertude Jekyll' seems incorrect to me. For Ausbord, the same source gives [Rose plant named `Ausboard`] and [Variety Denomination (in accordance with the UPOV Convention): Ausbord (Trade name Gertrude Jekyll) ]. For our purposes, given that 'Ausbord' is a cultivar name, I think it should be presented with single quotes. With regard to your second point, I am also not clear whether certain older cultivar-style names should be treated as trade names or synonyms.--Melburnian (talk) 01:52, 21 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think that intention is relevant here. A plant may be given two cultivar names in good faith, i.e. each namer thought that his or her name was the unique cultivar name. (Btw, the correct term is "cultivar epithet", not "cultivar name".) Then it turns out that the plants are the same. So there are synonymous cultivar names, and the first is normally accepted. Cf Article 2 Ex. 17 from the ICNCP:
Pittosporum 'Margaret Turnbull' ... appears to be identical with P. 'John Flanagan' ... The International Cultivar Registration Authority for Pittosporum designated P. 'Margaret Turnbull' as the accepted name, with P. 'John Flanagan' as a later synonym.
Principle 6 of the ICNCP is clear that trade designations are marketing devices in addition to properly established names regulated by the Code. So someone who knows that the correct cultivar name, accepted by the relevant registration authority, is, say, 'Ausbord', can choose to sell the plant as Gertrude Jekyll. Gertrude Jekyll isn't a synonym because the namer never intended it as a cultivar name. The same is true if what appears to be a cultivar name is used in selling the cultivar after another name is accepted by the Cultivar Registration Authority. Thus the names Rosa 'Madame A. Meilland' and Rosa 'Peace' were established before the ICNCP was created. However, Rosa 'Madame A. Meilland' is now the accepted and registered name. When they appear in old publications, it appears that 'Peace' is a synonym for 'Madame A. Meilland'. When the rose is sold today in the UK under the name "Peace", then Peace is a trade designation [at least it is in ICNCP Article 17 Ex. 2].
The definitive source of cultivar names is the accepted Cultivar Registration Authority for the genus. For roses, this is the American Rose Society according to Appendix I of the ICNCP. Unfortunately their list of registered cultivar names is only available for purchase, so I can't check whether, e.g., it should be 'Ausbord' or 'AUSbord'. The cultivar name 'Ausburton' in this form is in the ICNCP [Article 31 Ex. 1], so I suspect that the capitalization of "AUS" is just a reflection of the rose breeders' convention that the first 3 letters designate the breeder, e.g. "Aus" = "David Austin", "Har" = "R. Harkness".
Re "code names". The ICNCP now allows cultivar names to be 'codes'; from Article 21.25:
A cultivar epithet may also be in the form of a code of up to 10 characters excluding spaces and that consists of no more than four alternating sets of a letter or letters and a number or numbers.
So '12AB34CD' is a possible cultivar name, but '12AB34CD56' is not. The key point is that the cultivar name is intended to be a unique way of identifying the cultivar, but need not be a name which could be used in selling the plant. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:35, 23 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's a limited preview of The Official Registry and Checklist - Rosa (American Rose Society) with a search function at amazon.com. Here is how they have listed some of the Rose cultivar-related names mentioned above:
  • 'Ausbord'
  • Gertrude Jekyll®
  • 'Iceberg', 'Korbin' 'Fée des Neiges', 'Schneewittchen'
  • 'Peace'
--Melburnian (talk) 02:03, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, useful, I hadn't found the "look inside". Two points:
  • This seems to confirm that 'Ausbord' is correct, not 'AUSbord'. The same applies to all of the rose cultivar names in which the first three letters refer to the breeder; the register always has lower-case other than the first letter.
  • However, some of the listings are confusing if not incorrect. If you look up 'Iceberg', it gives 'Fée des Neiges' and 'Schneewitchen' as synonyms, followed by a description of the rose. However, if you look up 'Korbin', it also gives 'Fée des Neiges' and 'Schneewitchen' as synonyms, followed by a much shorter description.
So which is the correct (established) name? It looks as though it is 'Iceberg', reinforced by looking up 'Fée des Neiges', which says "see 'Iceberg'". But this is unlikely, since Kordes gives roses cultivar names of the form 'Kor...'.
Furthermore, other sources have "Schneewitchen ®". If this is a registered trademark, then it cannot be a cultivar name [ICNCP, Principle 6], and can only be a trade designation, which should not be put into single quotes. So although the rose register repeatedly references the ICNCP in the Introduction, it doesn't seem to be following it reliably.
My conclusion is that although the ICNCP is clear as to theory, sources are confused as to practice. I think that User:Melburnian reached this conclusion some time ago; sorry to be behind the curve. Quite where this leaves Wikipedia editors isn't clear to me. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:31, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there does seems to be confusion out there. I do notice that Kordes themselves use Schneewittchen ® A question - why do you think Iceberg and Fée des Neiges are trade designations? Melburnian (talk) 08:11, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I was relying on the RHS database, which treats the names this way.
Note that there's a hierarchy. Any name under which a plant is sold is a trade designation or selling name, so there's no doubt that "Iceberg", "Fée des Neiges" and "Schneewittchen" are trade designations. The question is whether they are also synonymous cultivar names which requires the list of criteria in the ICNCP to be met. The Registration Authority is supposed to establish this, but appears to be wrong for "Schneewittchen" if not the others. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:46, 24 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Expert attention needed

See List of plants with edible leaves. A commercial website (www.leafforlife.org) had copied the plant list from Facciola's Cornucopia and added the claim that the leaves of these plants are edible. This is profoundly untrue; the list contains several plants whose leaves are fatally poisonous. Facciola lists plants where at least one part is edible, nonwithstanding of the edibility of the rest.

The other sources given often make no claim whatsoever about edibility.

This page might qualify for speedy deletion; in its present state it eventually get someone killed.

Each and every entry on this list needs to be reviewed, all sources need to be checked.

[The above edit was contributed by User:Dysmorodrepanis, but the Signbot didn't pick up that it was unsigned. This note added by PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 12:40, 13 August 2011 (UTC)][reply]
Even in the cases where the leaves are edible, important conditions are missing from the list. E.g. several species of Rumex have leaves which are edible if young and if well-boiled with the water discarded, but otherwise contain too much oxalic acid. I think the article should be removed promptly. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:11, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I hate some of these pages - "edible" (loosely defined) can mean almost anything which lacks a disagreeable taste and toxic compounds, which could cover an insane number of plant species.... Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:40, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Delete per Casliber? ;-) Rkitko (talk) 18:00, 13 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm surprised it's still there. I think that an admin should delete this immediately; it contains improperly sourced and potentially dangerous information. This is separate from the issue of whether a list of edible leaves would ever be acceptable as an article; I think it could be, but it would need careful sourcing of every entry, so the ratio of value to work would be small. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:30, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think it qualifies under WP:CSD, but WP:PROD might be a useful tool. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:00, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, have tried WP:PROD. We'll see what happens. (I'm not likely to be around to follow this up for the next few days.) Peter coxhead (talk) 08:41, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think deleting the whole thing is far too rash and radical. The best idea is not to delete the whole article, but to delete all the dubious leaves in this excessively long list, leaving only those which are well-known enough to qualify as edible leaves, like cabbage, spinach and lettuce.Xufanc (talk) 23:47, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The list should have a proper introduction stating the standards for inclusion in the list. Leaves that are consumed in small quantities as a spice like oregano or for medicinal purposes, like Common Lime, should not be included.Xufanc (talk) 00:09, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another alternative would be to redirect it to leaf vegetable or list of common leaf vegetables (which should probably be titled list of leaf vegetables). All are without references. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:59, 16 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I am working on the article now. The list of leaf vegetables is very small and many non-Western vegetables are missing.Xufanc (talk) 05:22, 17 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, this is a good outcome - I think the above page is a narrower defined list which is along the lines ot what people will be looking for then looking for plants with edible leaves. Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:00, 19 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that this is a good outcome. I think that List of leaf vegetables is a better title. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:18, 20 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ID of File:Trifolium longipes.jpg

Dear plant experts,

File:Trifolium longipes.jpg is supposedly Trifolium longipes, a species I have never seen, because I have not been anywhere within its distribution range so far. The image is used in Wikipedia and it is from the USDA photo collection, which is probably considered a trusted source. Unfortunately the clover on the image looks very much like Trifolium hybridum and does not have much similarity to Trifolium longipes according to [9]. The flowers look different and there are no long and narrow leaflets in the Wikimedia/USDA image (as the Colorado wildflower site mentioned above claims). There is also no similarity to some other pages with Trifolium longipes, such as [10] and [11]. So what does the USDA image show? Should it be moved to Trifolium hybridum or is this just a misidentified, not identifiable clover? Best regards, --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 07:38, 2 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know this genus well, and only spent a little time with the pages you linked. So I can't really say whether T. longipes is variable (perhaps based on subspecies) or whether the USDA photo in question is misidentified (a possibility which I wouldn't reject–there's nothing particularly authoritative about that database). The Jepson manual is at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/get_JM_treatment.pl?3691,4222,4267 and you can see all of the USDA photos at http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=TRLO . Kingdon (talk) 00:48, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, but unfortunately the Jepson manual does not seem to be very specific regarding anything that can be seen on the photo. I still hope that someone reads my question, who actually knows Trifolium longipes (and possibly even the possible alternatives for clovers from North America). I do not believe that subspecies could account for differences on this scale. I found Trifolium longipes in two books ["Pacific States Wildflowers" by T. F. Niehaus and C. L. Ripper and an old copy of the "Flora of the Pacific Northwest" by C. L. Hitchcock and A. Cronquist (5th printing, 1981)]. Both of them show images of the long, narrow leaflets (which are even mentioned in the text of the Niehaus book!) In addition the calyx appears to be much too short, compared to the corolla, for matching the key in the Hitchcock flora, which lists four "varieties" of the species. BTW: I know that there are some errors in the USDA photo collection. But I still have no clue whether there is the possibility to ask someone to check or even correct them and get an answer. I tried it with some other images with no result whatsoever. But may be I got the wrong mail address. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 13:11, 4 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There is an email link for the credited author/photographer of the image in the staff listing on this web page which may be worth a try. --Melburnian (talk) 03:58, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your advice. I sent a mail to the author. --Robert Flogaus-Faust (talk) 20:27, 7 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Palandokenensis

I came across this while stub-sorting: article on Androsace villosa subsp. palandokenensis . I'm not a botanist and don't know whether this is correctly titled - there is no article on Androsace villosa. Over to you! PamD 22:22, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find any valid publication of the taxon. The book The Plant Hunter's Garden by Bobby J. Ward says, "Androsace villosa subsp. palandokenensis (Primulaceae) was the preliminary name given in Josef's seed catalog for this plant collected in the Palandoken Mountains of eastern Turkey at elevation 10,200 feet (3100 m). It was such a good plant that he investigated it further and found it had been earlier named as A." and that's as far as I can see in the amazon.com "Look inside" preview. Frustrating. If anyone has this on their shelves, it might tell us what to do with the article. Rkitko (talk) 23:21, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
A Google book search gives the rest of that sentence,[12] even though there's no snippet view on Google Books. It says "...it had been earlier named as A. glabrata. Josef says that it grows on dry screes...". First Light (talk) 23:39, 5 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
IPNI tells me that Androsace glabrata is also Androsace olympica var glabrata. The Plant List gives it as a synonym of Androsace villosa. Lavateraguy (talk) 07:23, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I've created a start-class article on Androsace villosa. If it can be shown that Androsace villosa subsp. palandokenensis is a valid name, the limited information at the wrongly-named Palandokenensis can be added to it. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:35, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Nice work! I have no opinions on the taxonomy (A. glabrata → A. olympica var. glabrata → A. villosa). It seems it's a variable and widespread species, so I'd expect a great deal of synonymy. I don't think the information at palandokenensis is valuable now that we have Androsace villosa. I'll prod it. Rkitko (talk) 02:55, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for taking this on - I know I brought it to the right place! Might it be worth including a note mentioning this term (as an invalid proposed name or whatever) on the A. villosa page, with a redirect, not least to deter a future editor from creating the palandokenensis article in good faith? It would save us having to go round this loop again. PamD 07:08, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It's such an obscure name that was never formally published that I can't imagine this happening again. And usually we don't create redirects from subspecies names like this, mostly because there is often more than one plant that shares that same subspecies name. Sure, a mention might be worthwhile, given that we have a reference above. Rkitko (talk) 11:56, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Changes to {{Infobox cultivar}}

Hi all. There were some changes to {{Infobox cultivar}} that I recently reverted. If you'd like to discuss these cosmetic changes to the template, please check in on the discussion at Template talk:Infobox cultivar#August 2011 changes. Cheers, Rkitko (talk) 23:39, 6 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Recent renaming of article

Recently Polymnia (genus) was renamed to plant Polymnia (plant). Since there is more than one species in the genus, it would appear that this rename is contrary to WP:NC(flora). Before I revert this move, I wanted to check here for an expert opinion. Boghog (talk) 02:21, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(plant) is a common disambig term. (genus) can be ambiguous, since there may be a zoological Polymnia. In this case, a quick search did not turn up one. I'm not partial to either dab term. Rkitko (talk) 02:48, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The argument "Since there is more than one species in the genus" makes no sense to me. None of those species are named "Polymnia"; they are named "Polymnia canadensis", "Polymnia fruticosa", etc. Hesperian 02:52, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The Polymnia (genus) article is not really a disambig page since it contains more information than simply links to species within the genus. It also contains a taxobox. In addition, while WP:NC(flora) does not specifically mention naming conventions for genus articles, it does list Garcia (genus) as an example. I don't have any strong opinion on this one way or the other, but I thought this should be brought up for discussion. Boghog (talk) 03:10, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Polymnia (genus) is not even remotely a disambig page. I still don't understand the argument from "Since there is more than one species in the genus". Hesperian 03:31, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
OK, on further reflection, I agree my initial argument does not make sense. However the question remains how best to name genus articles. Ideally this should be specified in the naming convention. Boghog (talk) 04:03, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
The naming policy WP:NC(flora) is about the names of articles, not about the parenthetical contents used to disambiguate one article from another. There are many possibilities for text that would be included. In this instance, if there is only a single genus by the name of Polymnia, then I would prefer the original name because it is a scientific name. However, I have no strong opinion, nor a strong reason for choosing either name. I do not think there was a good reason to rename, and so I'm more inclined to keep the original through inertia than anything else. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:53, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In my view we should disambiguate using the most specific broadly familiar term. "Plant" is broadly familiar, and a lot of the time will be the most specific such term. Occasionally a more specific broadly familiar term will be available, such as "grass" or "bamboo" or "orchid". Using the most specific broadly familiar term is consistent with the use of "bird", "mollusc", etc, when "animal" would suffice. "Genus" fails this criterion. Hesperian 04:14, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I find the Polymnia (plant) title a little strange since it mixes scientific and common names and according to the guidelines scientific names with a few exceptions are preferred. On the other hand, Watsonia (plant) is also listed as an example in WP:NC(flora) with along with the formatting suggestion "{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Garcia'' (genus)}}" (as is already done with Polymnia (plant)) to differentiate the scientific from common parts of the title. Furthermore Hesperian's argument to the use the "most specific broadly familiar term" is sensible. Boghog (talk) 04:56, 8 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with what Hesperian advocates above. Kingdon (talk) 00:37, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Am I missing something when I ask why the article should be not renamed to Polymnia? The current disamb page Polymnia has two other uses; one appears to be a little used alternative version of the Greek Polyhymnia and the other is an insect species. Neither of these terms seems to be sufficiently notable to merit taking away the major use status from the plant.Imc (talk) 06:41, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Imc that in this case, the genus is the primary topic. I disagree, however, with Hesperian above. I think the best practice is not to use the most specific well-known term, but the most general term which is specific to that meaning. I think "(genus)" is a good choice of disambiguator in most cases. Obviously, where there are genera with the same name under different codes that won't be acceptable, but in most cases it distinguishes the genus from the mythological figure, or the Spanish town, or whatever. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:46, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
"most general which is specific", rather than "most specific well-known"... so, if you had to disambiguate the turtle genus Chelodina from the chiton genus Chelodina, you would choose Chelodina (deuterostome) rather than Chelodina (turtle). Hesperian 07:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Within reason! Obviously, the need for the disambiguating term to be familiar (i.e. guessable) is paramount. Given that, I think the most general term that still disambiguates is likely to be the best. The reader may not know all the details about the topic, which is presumably why they're looking it up in an encyclopaedia. We shouldn't presume that knowledge. If they know there's an insect called Iris, but can't remember what sort of insect (Was it a stick insect? A leaf insect? ...) then looking for Iris (insect) should succeed, and is more useful than Iris (mantis), which requires the reader to already know the answer to their question (Aaah, of course, it's a mantis!). It also largely avoids the entirely subjective question of what counts as sufficiently well-known. (Is Mantidae well known? Mantinae? Should we call it Iris (Miomantini)?) For most genera that need disambiguating, the fact that it is an entity of the category "genus" is more than enough to disambiguate it, and that requires very little additional knowledge on the part of the reader, for whose benefit the disambiguation is made. (In your example, Chelonia (genus) actually suffices, because the molluscan "Chelodina" is a sub-order, not a genus.) --Stemonitis (talk) 07:33, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see how it removes the subjectivity; it simply reverses its application. "Vertebrate" is more general than "turtle"; but is it sufficiently well known? The only way to remove "sufficiently well-known" would be to adopt a policy of "most well-known". But meh, as long as we agree that we should use a broadly familiar term that actually disambiguates, I'm not too fussed whether we settle on general or specific. Hesperian 09:19, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I'm still undecided in this debate, but would like to comment that "(genus)" appears to be the more common disambiguator for animal genera (in my very unscientific sampling). Regardless, it would be nice to have some consistency one way or the other. Kaldari (talk) 07:34, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If I imagine myself as a general reader who has no knowledge of any terms used in the biological sciences, and if I was looking up a plant that I had heard of, say on the radio, called Polymnia, then coming to a disambig page with Polymnia (plant) is going to be more helpful than Polymnia (genus), because as such a reader I'm not going to know what "genus" means. However, is there anything wrong with the compromise Polymnia (plant genus)? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:48, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think the problem with that style of disambiguation is that it requires two additional pieces of information, either one of which is enough to disambiguate (in most cases). Someone might know that there's a plant, but not know the type of name (e.g. "geranium" vs. Geranium), or might know it's a genus but not be sure it's a plant (rather than an alga or a fungus, say). There may be other reasons I've overlooked, too. I think it's safe to assume that the readership knows what a genus is (or is about to find out!); for a taxonomic article, that's very basic knowledge. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:00, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I work daily in a garden which is freely open to the visiting general public, and from the conversations which I have with them, I would say that actually it's safe to assume that most people have no idea of what "genus" means. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 08:17, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree, it often requires explanation.[13] Melburnian (talk) 08:32, 9 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I like PaleCloudedWhite's compromise "Polymnia (plant genus)". Redirects from "Polymnia (plant)" and "Polymnia (genus)" could then be added so anyone in principle should be able to locate the article. Are there any objections to renaming the article to "Polymnia (plant genus)"? Furthermore to ensure consistency, it would be desirable to add a recommendation for the naming of genus articles to WP:NC(flora). Boghog (talk) 08:42, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I think "plant genus" is awful. Hesperian 09:00, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]
But why is it awful? According to WP:PRINCIPALNAMINGCRITERIA, the compromise would provide consistency, precision, and recognizability but obviously it is not as concise. With redirects, the naturalness criteria is not quite as important. Boghog (talk) 09:26, 10 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Request

It's difficult to rewrite standard botanical descriptions without plagiarism, so I thought it best to call in an expert.

Can someone rewrite this


For Terminalia arjuna? That's an exact quote from [14], which should be a reasonably reliable source, though if someone has a suitable botanical guide covering it, that'd be better.

The article, as it stood, was a rather nasty coatrack - all about alternative medicine, nothing about the plant itself. I've trimmed the alt med stuff down to the most informative and supported bits. Once it has the actual botany, we could try adding in a little more of the research, but there's a tendency for these articles to list every crank website and tiny mouse study as proof the herb can cure every known disease. 86.176.222.148 (talk) 11:17, 12 September 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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