Talk:Plant/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: Cessaune (talk · contribs) 04:40, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Hey, I'm going to review this. This will probably take a long time, so your patience is appreciated. Cessaune [talk] 04:40, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Many thanks! Chiswick Chap (talk) 07:48, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Cessaune: Do you have comments on this article, or a timescale for when they can be expected? Chiswick Chap (talk) 05:27, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

Very, very sorry, real life is just being a bitch right now. Will 100% finish before 12:00 Monday UTC. Cessaune [talk] 05:39, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

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Thank you for your exceptional patience.

I'm not at all knowledgeable about anything in this topic region. So some of the questions I ask or stuff I say may seem naive, dumb, wrong, etc. I don't really know what I'm talking about. Please feel free to critique my critiques.

I'm reasonably sure this is written in British English, so the template {{British English}} should be included on the talk page.

As a blanket concern pertaining to the whole article, I feel there is a general lack of soft pauses (commas, dashes, semicolons, etc.)

Yes, that's the language variant concerned; added the template. It may be worth saying that the article's diction is also inevitably, and I'd cheerfully say rightly and consistently, British; that may well sound slightly foreign to speakers of other language variants. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:10, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Cessaune: Many thanks for the review. I've replied to all the comments below. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:20, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Lead

Since the lead is the most visible part of the article, I will go into extensive detail.

Re-formatting:

Plants are eukaryotes, predominantly photosynthetic, the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae. Many are multicellular¹; they are predominantly photosynthetic. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi.; all current definitions exclude the fungi and some of the algae². By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin for "green plants"), which consists of the green algae and the embryophytes or land plants. The latter include (hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, conifers and other gymnosperms, and flowering plants). A definition based on genomes includes the Viridiplantae, along with the red algae and the glaucophytes, in the clade Archaeplastida.

Green plants³ obtain most of their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Chloroplasts perform photosynthesis using the pigment chlorophyll, which gives them their green colour. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, but asexual reproduction is also common⁴.

There are about 380,000 known species of plants, of which the majority, some 260,000, produce seeds. Green plants provide a substantial proportion of the world's molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earth's ecosystems. Grain, fruit, and vegetables are basic human foods and have been domesticated for millennia. Plants have many cultural and other uses, such as ornaments, building materials, writing materials, and, in great variety, they have been the source of medicines⁵. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology.

Somewhat edited version:

Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae. Most are multicellular; they are predominantly photosynthetic. Historically, as in Aristotle's biology, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; current definitions exclude the fungi and some of the algae. By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin for "green plants"), which consists of the green algae and the embryophytes or land plants (hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, conifers and other gymnosperms, and flowering plants). A definition based on genomes includes the Viridiplantae, along with the red algae and the glaucophytes, in the clade Archaeplastida.

Green plants obtain most of their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Chloroplasts perform photosynthesis using the pigment chlorophyll, which gives them their green colour. Some plants are parasitic and have lost the ability to produce normal amounts of chlorophyll or to photosynthesize. Plants are characterized by sexual reproduction and alternation of generations, but asexual reproduction is also common.

There are about 380,000 known species of plants, of which the majority, some 260,000, produce seeds. Green plants provide a substantial proportion of the world's molecular oxygen and are the basis of most of Earth's ecosystems. Grain, fruit, and vegetables are basic human foods and have been domesticated for millennia. Plants have many cultural and other uses, such as ornaments, building materials, writing materials, and, in great variety, they have been the source of medicines. The scientific study of plants is known as botany, a branch of biology.

Used this text.

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1. Many is not quantifiable or informative. For comparison, if the sentence There are about 380,000 known species of plants, of which the majority, some 260,000, produce seeds became 'There are about 380,000 known species of plants, many of which produce seeds'... it's suboptimal. If most is an equally true statement, then use most, as, at the very least, it tells the reader that an absolute majority of known plants are multicellular. If most isn't a true statement, or if plants are about equally split between multicellular and unicellular (this isn't the case as far as I'm aware), then the sentence shouldn't be included. In the body, most is the preferred word (Most plants are multicellular) However, a quick search online leads me to believe that the phrase has too much nuance to it to be leadworthy at all. The consensus seems to be that, under the strictest definition of plants, all plants are multicellular, but if algae is considered, only the vast majority of plants are multicellular. Rather than cramming this information into the lead, something about this should be included in the Alternative concepts section.
   1. Removed from lead. Added info on cellularity to the Alt concepts table.
2. All current definitions? This needs a citation.
   1. Removed.
3. Green plants specifically, or all plants? If it's only green plants that this is referring to (I'm like 70% sure that this is the case), then linking green plants (even though Viridiplantae is linked) would be useful for readers who are unaware that green plants and Viridiplantae are the same thing. I am aware of the phrase (Latin for "green plants") that is included immediately after the mention of Viridiplantae; I feel like an average reader would wonder whether or not "green plants" refers to Viridiplantae or to green-colored plants specifically. Worst case scenario: just switch green plants to Viridiplantae, and switch Green plants provide a substantial... to 'Plants provide a substantial...', which is equally true.
   1. Said "Vididiplantae (green plants)" so it's clear they're the same.
4. If plants are characterized by sexual reproduction, but standalone asexual reproduction is "common" (not quantifiable and only minorly informative), are plants really characterized by sexual reproduction? I would imagine that the vast majority of plants reproduce sexually based on the phrase characterized by, but it makes little sense to me that a group could be wholly characterized by X, yet Y is still considered "common" within the same group. Is there something I'm missing here?
   1. Edited. I wouldn't agree with the "wholly"; footballers are characterized by playing football, but they also eat, sleep, have babies, and all the rest.
5. This sentence is worded very weirdly. Potential rewrite: Plants are often used as building materials, writing materials, and medicines; they feature prominently in human culture (see plants in culture), and often hold symbolic and religious importance.
   1. Reworded.

Other stuff

1. Things I would add to the second paragraph are:
   • A quick definition of photosynthesis
   1. • Added.
   • A quick definition of parasitic plant
   1. • Already in that sentence.
   • Info on plant size variation
   1. • Added.
2. I would add info on the shifting definitions of plants, starting with Aristotle and moving forward. Those facts are very, very important and IMO more than just simply leadworthy. Lead-necessary.
   1. • Added Aristotle and discussed later definitions
3. All text from Historically, the plant kingdom to in the clade Archaeplastida should be moved. The second paragraph would be moved up, and would continue on from they are predominantly photosynthetic; the other text would become the new second paragraph. The contention over what should and shouldn't be considered a plant should come after the reader knows what plants generally are, and what they do/how they function.
   1. • Done; I'm a bit queasy about this as articles normally begin by saying what something is and then go on to functions and interactions; indeed, you yourself say "after the reader knows what plants ... are", which implies starting with definition not function.
4. The lead needs to mention other animals in relation to plants (food chain, herbivores/omnivores or the fact that animals consume plants in general, etc.)
   1. • Added.

Taxonomic history

Y Sources are adequate, and the prose is as lengthy as I think a GA requires.

Alternative concepts

1. What it seems like to me is that most articles focus on "plants in the strictest sense" (Embryophyta) while this article focuses on "plants in a strict sense" (Viridiplantae), without making it clear that other sources often exclusively focus on Embyrophyta when talking about plants. For example, the picozoa article states that [picozoa] probably belong in the Archaeplastida as sister of the Rhodophyta, which suggests to me that explicitly stating that picozoa are plants will confuse many readers. If you search online, some publications do not include green algae in plant classifications, while some do not consider them either plants or animals. Though not all the sources online that I read are reliable, the average reader may be confused by such a clear discrepancy. To combat this, more needs to be said about the disagreement over whether algae are considered plants, plant-like, animals, etc. This would then allow the article to state that its focus is on plants as defined by the clade Viridiplantae, and would clear up the algae isn't a plant! confusion. I guess the bolding in the table is supposed to signify this but I think that it needs to be explicitly stated.
   1. The GAN process focuses on just one article at a time, or it would never get anywhere. The table makes it very clear that conflicting alternative concepts exist, and these are all reliably cited, so the reader knows immediately that authorities can disagree. The text further makes it clear that this article focuses on Green plants/Viridiplantae, which it directly equates. We can't say "plant-like" or any such phrase, as that is circular, prejudging what the term plant means.

Everything else is fine; sources are adequate.

Diversity

1. I would rewrite the second paragraph: Plants range in scale from single celled organisms such as desmids (from 10 micrometres across) and picozoa (less than 3 micrometres across), to megaflora such as the conifer Sequoia sempervirens (up to 380 feet (120 m) tall) and the angiosperm Eucalyptus regnans (up to 325 feet (99 m) tall).

Reworded.

Everything else is fine; sources are adequate.

Evolutionary history

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Phylogeny

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Plant cells

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Plant structure

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Photosynthesis

This section is worded weirdly. Potential rewrite: Plants photosynthesize, manufacturing food molecules using energy obtained from light. Plant cells contain chlorophylls inside their chloroplasts, which are green pigments that are used to capture light energy. The chemical equation for photosynthesis is:

${\ce {6CO2{}+6H2O{}->[{\text{light}}]C6H12O6{}+6O2{}}}$

This interaction causes oxygen to be released into the atmosphere. Green plants provide a substantial proportion of the world's molecular oxygen, alongside the contributions from photosynthetic algae and cyanobacteria.

Reworded.

Growth and repair

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Reproduction

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Disease resistance

Y It could probably include a bit more but it's alright; sources are adequate.

Genomics

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Ecology

Y Ecology as a whole is good and I see no issues with the sourcing or the prose. I quite like the gallery of images included in the middle.

Importance

As a blanket concern, I feel that this section is too human-centric, and forgets about the fact that plants are important to essentially all living beings. This statement applies to all sub-sections.

The section is intentionally about human interactions with plants, so I've renamed it to "Importance to humans". The interactions of plants with other organisms is discussed in the section "Ecological relationships", with numerous wikilinks to subsidiary articles; I've added a "main" link there. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:19, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Moving on:

Food

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Medicines

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Non-food products

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Ornamental plants

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

In science

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

In mythology, religion, and culture

This section needs to be fleshed out a bit. I think it should generally mirror Plants in culture#Symbolic uses.

Ok, I'd beg to differ here, as that article has the human aspect as its entire focus, where this article's subject is plants as such; it therefore links and summarises subsidiary articles which provide additional detail. You have already commented that the "Importance" section gives rather a lot of weight to humans, which would be made worse by extending this subsection. I've added a "further" link to the article and section you name. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:15, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Well then, I would suggest using a better example of plants in culture than the relatively obscure columns of Ancient Egyptian architecture. Perhaps the World Tree mythos or allusions to paganism? Cessaune [talk] 14:17, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Ok, done. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:40, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Negative effects

Y Sources and prose are adequate.

Cessaune [talk] 08:56, 21 August 2023 (UTC)

Alright. As a final point, I really dislike the phrasing many cultural and other uses, but if you wish to keep it that way, it's fine. Cessaune [talk] 01:44, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Reworded. Chiswick Chap (talk) 06:15, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Alright. Good job! I think this article satisfies the GA criteria.

Are you going to do a DYK nom? If not, I wish to do so. Cessaune [talk] 15:16, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

You're very welcome. Chiswick Chap (talk) 15:28, 23 August 2023 (UTC)