Talk:Corsia

A fact from Corsia appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 20 January 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Corsia is a genus of small plants which lack chlorophyll and parasitize fungi for nutrition?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2012/January. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Corsia.

Wikipedia

DYK nomination and translation from the German article

The following discussion (up to and including the contribution by Lavateraguy at 19:26 on 29 December 2011) has been copied from the WikiProject Plants talk page, where it originally took place (this notice posted by PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 19:59, 29 December 2011 (UTC)):[reply]

The new article on the monocot genus Corsia has been nominated for DYK (nom discussion here). However, as it is a little-known parasitic plant, and the text is pretty badly written, the article needs a lot of help. I can do a rewrite, but this would require a bit of research and writing work, and I'm trying to focus my efforts towards a different article that is taking all of my time right now. I'd rather not be distracted from that effort any more than necessary, so if there is someone here who can help, that would be wonderful. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:07, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The majority of the text is translated from a Featured article on German Wikipedia. It would be helpful if someone with a knowledge of that language could check the translation. Melburnian (talk) 05:17, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"Stipules" is clearly a mistranslation of "Nebenblättern". I'm not sure what to replace it with though, perhaps "scale-like leaves" in some places, which are mentioned in a discussion of a related genus here. Nadiatalent (talk) 16:09, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, don't have time to work on that translation now. I'd say the English Corsia page is definitely not ready for prime time. Nadiatalent (talk) 16:19, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

According to Wikipedia DE nebenblatt does mean stipule. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:32, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Which makes sense: "neighbour leaf". Google translate, when clicked for alternative translations comes up with "scale leaf" and "bract", but Botanik online is clear that "stipule" is how the German word is used. So how many monocot stipules does one expect to find? It seems that perhaps the German page, already lauded, may have a problem, and google translate's statistical translation has a similar problem. I'd hesitate to translate "Nebenblatt" as "ligule" without an authoritative reference for this genus.

this wondrous old dictionary translates English "bracte" as Nebenblatt. Nadiatalent (talk) 17:18, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My Langenscheidt English-German dictionary lists the translation of stipule as "Nebenblatt" (no umlaut on the 'a' - I think that's part of the plural). It doesn't list Nebenblatt (literally "near-leaf") in the German-English section, though interestingly it does have "Blattansatz" (literally "leaf-appendage" or "leaf-neck"), which (just to confuse things) it translates as "stipule". PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 17:22, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Goebel's Organography of Plants, of which I have only the English translation (Goebel, K.E.von (1905/1969). Organography of plants, especially of the Archegoniatae and Spermaphyta. translated by Isaac Bayley Balfour. New York: Hofner publishing company. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)), says in volume 2, page 359, "The expression stipule was used of by the older authors in no very sharply limited sense. They understood by it any small leaves or leaf-parts, as for example hypsophylls, or prophylls, or the intravaginal squamules in the axil of the leaf-base of many water-plants." (Now there's a mouthful to try to read rapidly.) Nadiatalent (talk) 17:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if the article itself gives a clue on the correctness of the translation - at the moment it refers to "creeping stipules", which as a non-botanist I'm finding hard to imagine. Do such things exist? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 18:02, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's a pic of Corsia ornata here, and it does appear to show leaves both on the horizontal rhizomes and the upright stems.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 18:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It looks almost sinister in pen and ink! But it does appear to be the rhizomes which do the actual creeping, and not the "stipules", which are just attached to the rhizomes. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 18:33, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just a guess: perhaps "creeping" might have started out somewhere in a description as "lying flat" or "sessile" or some such thing? Nadiatalent (talk) 19:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Heh, I've removed it. Then there's the mystery of "broadly ovate". Those rhizomes look anything but ovate to me. Maybe in cross-section?-- Obsidi♠n Soul 18:36, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it normal to apply such descriptions to how things appear in cross-section? Also, looking again at that sentence, I'm wondering how rhizomes can be "reduced" - reduced from what? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 18:49, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps big chunks should be removed to the talk page of the article ... Nadiatalent (talk) 18:55, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The description of the foliage of Corsia purpurata var. wiakabui from its original description in Sida 18 (IIRC, that's available on Botanicus) is "Leaves 1-5, spirally arranged, acroscopic, base sheathing; lamina linear-acuminate, conduplicate or with margins broadly revolute, chartaceous, 9-17 mm long, 4-6 mm wide, to 6-nerval, sometimes apiculate; venation visible as dark lines, not raised on either side". Lavateraguy (talk) 19:01, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That helps, for example "Ansatz", beginning, would translate as "base". Nadiatalent (talk) 21:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think perhaps the translation from the German is a little bit loose; rather than "creeping stipules" it perhaps should be "sheathed stipules", as Scheide means sheath, so I guess scheidigen means sheathed. If no-one objects, I'll copy the above contributions over to the article talk page. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 19:14, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

sheathing, rather than sheathed, I think. But their very existence is uncertain. I wonder if someone has misinterpreted the flabellum as a leaf. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:26, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure, "umfassen" would mean cover, so it seems odd to have both terms, but perhaps it is elegant writing that uses synonyms. Nadiatalent (talk) 21:24, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the leaves section, I think "drei-bis funfnervige Nebenblatter" translates as "three- to five-veined stipules" (in my dictionary, "nervig" does translate generally as "sinewy", but in botany it's shown as translating as "veined, ribbed". PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:17, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also whilst "umfassen" can mean "cover", it also means "grasp, grip; enclose, surround; embrace, clasp (around)". PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:38, 29 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tee-hee, that'll teach me not to use google translate: for "funfnervige" it offers "annoying", "irritating", and "sinewy". Five-nerved is just so much more sane. Nadiatalent (talk) 18:46, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a bash at verifying the translation of the "Distribution" section. My interpretation of the section translation is as follows:

"The genus Corsia has 21 of its 23 species emanating from its centre of diversity in New Guinea, with the exceptions being C. haianjensis and C.pyramidata (Solomon Isles), C. purpurata var. wiakabui (Bismarck Archipelago) and C. ornata (Queensland)"

If the numbers don't seem to add up, it's because C. purpurata has another variety which does emanate from New Guinea, and C. ornata can also be found in New Guinea - hence actually only C. haianjensis and C. pyramidata have no foothold there. However I'm not 100% sure of my translation - the verb "strahlen" seems to be in the 'wrong' clause (my knowledge of German is 25-years rusty and a bit shaky to say the least....) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 20:39, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

C. purpurata var. wiakabui has been promoted to species status; and a new species also from Queensland, C. dispar, has been described. Both recent and presumably after whatever source the de article is using. Given that specific geographic ranges are given in the list already from other sources (mostly from Kew), I think translating the German version word for word at this point would be a step back. I have already adapted it somewhat, but it still requires sourcing.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 20:58, 30 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]