Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants

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[edit] Categories

Many plant articles are not assigned to the least inclusive taxonomic (Wikipedia) category. For example some articles on Rhus and Toxicodendron are in category Sapindales, rather than category Anacardiaceae. I've fixed a few (e.g. in Liliales and Malvales), but it seems to me that a bot could be set loose on this - the taxonomic ranks can be taken from the taxobox, and compared to the assigned category, and the categories that exist. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:49, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

This might be just plain dumb, but can the category be added via the taxoboxen? Then the bot would only be removing the non-taxobox category. -- carol (talk) 03:18, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
That would be a pretty complicated algorithm to decide which taxon is used to generate the category. Consider first of all that plants aren't the only taxa using the Taxobox. Further, the category isn't always the final taxon; a page on a taxon above the level of genus but below the rank of family would cause problems. Also, the category won't always match the taxon name; for example, there are cases of identical names used for both plant and animal taxa, and there are cases where a common name is used for a category. It's a good idea in principle, but it would be very complicated to carry out. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:44, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
They use 'if' which could cause it only to work on everything in the plant kingdom or even lower in the taxo chain. It would quickly make all articles beneath whatever starting point be uniformly categorized. Perhaps start with a genus to see if it works -- many of the Senecio species have been put into Asteraceae and I am quite certain they don't belong there; I was going to move them as I worked on them. -- carol (talk) 04:34, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, not really. There are still a lot of articles for which this information is not correct. I'm still cleaning up incorrect ordinal classification in the monocots. Much of this was the result of PolBot adding pages that used a different classification system. Until the taxoboxes are all cleaned up, a bot might just make things worse. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:15, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
There is a half-way house - a bot which reports articles with apparently the incorrect categories, leaving it to a human to decide what to do. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:38, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm... something like that could work, but I think it would be most useful if it did a single order or family at a time, or at least generated a list so divided, rather than doing the whole of the plant kingdom alphabetically. --EncycloPetey (talk) 22:28, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
There's even quite a few situations that I've come upon where we have both classifications (e.g. Cat:Tiliaceae and Cat:Tilioideae; yeah, I know, I created both of them. One was a Polbot quickfix and the other I came upon independently and haven't known what to do with either. Help sorting out which taxonomy should be kept would be appreciated.) or where Polbot created really small genus categories and placed them in family categories that don't exist. By the way, I dug through Polbot's contributions and all of the plant categories it created are listed at User:BotanyBot/sandbox2#Polbot categories if you want to sift through them. Let me know if you think BotanyBot can help in any way, since I already have bot approval to monkey around with plant categories. Cheers, Rkitko (talk) 23:22, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Glancing at that, it looks to me as if Ipomaea chrysocalyx and Cat:Ipomaea are orthographic errors (for Ipomoea. Lavateraguy (talk) 23:42, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
Agreed on that. Polbot (or, its source info, the IUCN database) had a few errors like that. I'll make the necessary changes. Thanks for spotting that! Rkitko (talk) 23:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
A reporting bot could go through the files and work out what categories should exist, according to some rule set, such as all orders have categories and families and genera with more than, say, 20 pages have categories, and what category pages should be in compared to what pages they are in; it could also identify taxa for which the taxoboxes are inconsistent (e.g. species in family taxobox differs from that in genus taxobox). Such a report would hopefully help with taxobox cleanup.
One problem with taxomically based categories is that it requires original research to produce a classification on which to base categories - we could (and mostly have) based orders and families on APG II/APG III/Stevens (but even that has objectors - see Berton), but competing classifications exist (e.g. the new Heywood et al), and there's no clear source for genera.
BTW, a while back I went and moved all the Ilex pages in Cat:Ilex, as they were half and half between there and, IIRC, Cat:Aquifoliales. Salvia, for example, is another genus in a similar situation. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:27, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
Category:Asteraceae seems to be an even bigger mess. A significant number of articles one genera and species are categorized there, with no category for genera. For a small family, that might work, but Asteraceae is not a small family! Even those genera that have categories are not consistently categorized; the genus article itself may not even be in the category. I've done a little cleanup, and have started several tribe categories to help with organization. Lavateraguy has noted that there are often competing classifications, and Asteraceae is replete with those, but at least having some start will help. It's easy to move a generic category between tribe categories, if that becomes necessary. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:10, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Organizing related categories into logical hierarchy

Please take a look at Category talk:Gardens for a discussion on organizing categories related to this subject. Looking for comments on a proposed category scheme. Thanks! FieldMarine (talk) 19:05, 23 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Categories: Higher taxa

I agree on the problem of categorizing the higher taxa above genus. The scientific solution would be to create the categories each with a sensu. That is a family could be in "Category:Malvales sec. APGII" and in "Category:Malvales sec. Heywood et. al. 2007" (see User:Berton/Malvales. In fact, I believe that ultimately the article "Malvales" will end up as a non-classification article, combining an overview with a disambiguation to different classification systems. Vigilius (talk) 08:14, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not what categories are for. They are for organizing the articles, not for carrying content. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Categories: Genera

Here we could make it much more automatic. It seems unfortunate, that the taxoboxes create links into the general link space, where the list of all articles referring to a genus contains the species as well as student societies etc., and that the categories, which could be more robust in list all species, end up at the bottom of the page. Any way around that?

Can this be integrated into the taxaboxes? Also I note that in the taxoboxes the list of lower taxa is manually created. Any way to automatically displaying a list of lower categories (e.g. species in a genus) by using the category mechanism? I am too new to WP to know that, I haven't seen it. I imagine something like a special version of the list displayed on category pages. Vigilius (talk) 08:14, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

No, the categories are a separate structure. The taxobox is lists content, and happens to serve as a navigational aid as well. The categories are a separate structure that is common to all articles on Wikipedia. The categories do not necessarily reflect the classification, so we don't have Categories for Gingoopsida, Ginkgoales, Ginkgaceae, etc. because most of those categories wouldn't contain much. We also have the problem that there are some names used for both plant and animal taxa, so automatic categorization isn't feasible. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:23, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Amaranthus brownii

I would welcome some fresh eyes on this page as I continue to expand it. Thanks, and feel free to contribute. —Viriditas | Talk 08:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The page mentions 3 and 12 endemic species. I guess that this is 3 species endemic to Nihoa, and 12 species native to Nihoa endemic to Hawaii, but it'd be nice to be clear on this point. Lavateraguy (talk) 10:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Correct. Can you make the changes? —Viriditas | Talk 10:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Plant article stubs

Is there a need for a stub that clearly states that the article was written by an illiterate pleb please expand?

Also, I can see a future where the need for a stub claiming that "parts of this article were translated from latin by (once again) illiterate pleb, please expand.

What would be a good image for stubs like these? -- carol (talk) 23:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Now there's a stub category that would quickly become overpopulated. :-) But seriously, I think this is sufficiently covered by Wikipedia:General disclaimers, which is linked to from the very bottom of every page served: "Please be advised that nothing found here has necessarily been reviewed by people with the expertise required to provide you with complete, accurate or reliable information." Hesperian 23:45, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Although I'm sure most editors have had these thoughts from time to time, it's really not going to work to create a template that directly disparages the personal abilities of other editors. Instead of creating still more templates, why not spend the time adding actual content instead? Some of my old articles have been decorated and redecorated and re-redecorated with templates dozens of time, but no one has actually added any new facts... Stan (talk) 04:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I have been attempting to translate some latin (month three in thonline school of botany?). So far, it is incredibly interesting how either I lost interest in the leaf description at the same point that others lost interest -- or at the point where the description actually is incoherent and contradictory. Does anyone know when we (humans) stopped tasting things to learn about them? It is really easy to make these long since dead authorities look like pillars of their society; I just can't help thinking that the person who wrote this one (which I think describes the hairs on the leaves and then says that the leaves are bald) got a little drunk or filled up with poppy seeds or whatever while writing this. I am trying to figure out the difference between doing this online and via the free encyclopedia vs doing this for a class at a university. I am using free dictionaries and scans of a rare book. At a university, I would have bought a reproduction of the book and would be using whatever pet textbook the instructor or department advocated and perhaps a dictionary dedicated to the language and its translation. The reliability quality of these sources is kind of equal (but different) and the main thing missing is a known local authority on the subject and a due date. Oh, and the testing afterwords! I got so I liked college except for the homework and the tests. All that being said, I really wouldn't mind something that says first time translating latin (at least, I think it is latin) in the case that someone who knows what they are doing might look it over and people reading it would at least be warned. And I understand that it is the nature of wikipedia to be written by amateurs, but look at what happened today, earlier here! The stub could be something like this article was not written by a poser (from wordnet: a person who habitually pretends to be something he is not). As soon as a poser edits it, the stub can be removed.... -- carol (talk) 08:03, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I hope you have a copy of Stearn by your side. I'm sure there is something in what you say about the quality of botanical Latin in some of these old texts. The revered Robert Brown was notoriously awful at it. If it is possible to murder a language that is already dead, he did so in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae. Hesperian 11:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Heh. While it seems appropriate to start and end my response with a simple respectful heh, I must say that I appreciate a pointer to a poorly written document as much as to a good one -- thank you very much! I think that all I need now is the source to a pig latin translator and this stuff could be fun, easy and somewhat automated.... -- carol (talk) 22:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
There is actually a botanical Latin translator floating around. It is not very good, but helped me a little bit when I was trying to nail down an old circumscription.[1] I don't think it does Pig Latin but. Hesperian 01:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh I get it now - you want to warn people about the limitations of your own efforts. I usually just add a note to the talk page, where I can explain the situation better. I have a bit of misgiving about attempting to translate old descriptions from Latin though - are there really no modern sources? Even if the translation is well-done, I'd worry about perpetuating assertions that were later found to be mistaken ("always hairy" changed to "usually hairy" after a disjunct population of variants found recently, for instance). Stan (talk) 20:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I am attempting to expand a stub that was autogenerated using information from the ICUN -- an organization which already challenges my faith by demanding it. The fact that one of their mysterious Ecuadorian species has a page in one of the books in Botanicus is... well, I don't know what it is more than two online sources which meet the criteria of a source here at wikipedia and I do not have the ability to dispute and not much more than that. And what is with them and their lists? Some are online, some are in books that are online. In the eighties, they were selling star (the celestial gaseous masses) names the same way they sold pet rocks in the seventies, except at least the pet rocks were more honest in that it was obvious that it was kind of funny. In the late nineties, they were trying to sell font registration the same way. I was going to put the OCR text that I attempted to translate in comments on the page -- the stuff that I think I translated and the stuff that I couldn't make sense of. A mention on the talk page is probably good as well. The interesting thing about my tranlation so far is that for the life of me, I have described almost perfectly the sow thistle that are growing abundantly nearby. If I don't find that there is a disc involved in the flower head, I will not save the text -- sow thistle is not in the same genus and the family is way too large.... -- carol (talk) 22:28, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Scope

I notice zooxanthella (a Chromalveolate) was under the plants banner. Surely this project is limited to actual plants, not just any phototrophic organism? Of course, I realize we have very few WikiProjects in this area (in fact, for these taxa the nearest taxonomic WikiProject is the Tree of Life itself), but this doesn't make them plants. Richard001 (talk) 22:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I could attempt a long essay on why we might draw the line one place or another, but it is probably better just to note that the project page says "all species belonging to the kingdom Plantae" and that seems to also be existing practice (so, clearly not Alveolata like zooxanthella). Incidentally, the monophyly of the Chromalveolates is far from established (see Burki and Parfrey references on that page), but I'm probably digressing even further... Kingdon (talk) 03:23, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
If we had phycologists participating in our group, then, given the historical inclusion of phycology within botany, the various groups of algae might come under our project. As it stands, we don't have any such persons in WP:PLANTS, so only a few articles on Algae ever see any attention from this group. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
The definition of plants isn't exactly agreed upon either. Some would include the red algae, while others would limit them to the embryophytes. Bruising as it may be to any essentialists lurking around, there's no ontological entity out there that corresponds to the word 'plant', so it's really a somewhat arbitrary matter where we draw the line. It would be nice to have a project covering the non-plant/fungi/animal eukaryotes, perhaps simply a 'WikiProject Eukaryotes', but specializing in taxa not covered by other projects. There is only really the very broad tree of life project, which also covers classification, and the similarly broad microbiology and molecular and cell biology projects, which are not even about specific taxa. I feel somewhat embarrassed that there are so many projects about specific vertebrate taxa while there isn't even one for the large majority of eukaryote higher taxa; indeed, the vast majority of living things. Richard001 (talk) 10:53, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] expert need ed on Hermann Theodor Geyler

Hi all, we made a stub on this guy. He has done something with conifers in 1867. Some clues on talk page, for which my botanical knowledge is insufficient to do it justice. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, one work mentioned in the stub article is paleobotanical, but he's not mentioned in Beck's Origin and Evolution of Gymnosperns, and his name isn't in the index of any of the three paleobotanical textbooks I have. The title Ueber den Gefassbiindelverlauf in den Laubblatt-regionen der Coniferen I translate roughly as "On the vascular-conductivetissue-course in the broad-leaf region conifers". I'm not sure what botanical structure is specified by "Gefäß" refers to vascular bundles, and it sounds like morphological work on vascular tissue patterning or development, but he's not cited or mentioned in my texts on plant morphology or plant anatomy. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:39, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Lists of flowers

This category seems to contain a hodgepodge of lists of flowers; lists of flowering plant species according to flower characters, such as flowering season; and lists of flowering plant species defined in other terms, such as distribution. Would it be appropriate to move articles like List of Minnesota wild flowers across to a new Category:Lists of angiosperms? Hesperian 01:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd favour scrapping Category:Lists of flowers, putting the articles directly into Category:Lists of plants and then developing additional subcategories within the latter such as ...by distribution, ...by taxonomy, ...by use etc. Melburnian (talk) 04:02, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Add'l info in articles

[Moved from project page. Hesperian 03:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)]

What about adding when to plant, time it takes to grow and when to harvest, and whether edible parts of plants grow above or below ground? Sewnmouthsecret (talk) 03:50, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Subject to WP:NOT#HOWTO, this kind of thing should generally be in the Cultivation section of the article for any cultivated plant. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Template for more suggestions. Kingdon (talk) 15:45, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I imagine it'd meet the above guidelines. I checked the WikiProjectPlants Template and didn't really see any way to change the template. Could a request be made to put such information in a template? Sewnmouthsecret (talk) 18:48, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
There is another way to expand on the horticultural aspects. The wikibooks instruction manual, A Wikimanual of Gardening, has a Hortibox template for this data. The 'how to' info can be moved or created there, then linked from the encyclopaedic article here. cygnis insignis 20:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Also please try to make it generic ("spring" is not in April in the southern hemisphere), or else be sure to name the region, if the info is region-specific. Stan (talk) 17:49, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Plant image missing.png

Does the Wikiproject have any need for ? If not, please delete. Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 17:20, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] WikiProject Banksia mentioned in scientific study

This study on the use of scientific citations in Wikipedia found WikiProject Banksia's use of scientific references to be so good that it skewed the results:

"The total scientific citation pattern in Wikipedia is quite comparable to the total citation pattern seen between journals, though there is some tendency for Wikipedia contributors to cite high-impact journals, such as Nature and Science, more than journals that receive a lot of citations, such as Journal of Biological Chemistry. “Astro”-journals are often cited — more than would be expected from statistics from Journal Citation Reports. The Astrophysical Journals was found to be the most cited “Astro”-journal. Many citations also go to Australian botany journals, seemingly because of the Banksia Wikiproject that has made well-referenced articles for this genus of plants with the beautiful flowers. A number of the articles for these plants has become so-called “featured” on Wikipedia: Coast Banksia, Brown's Banksia (this Banksia is listed as endangered), Heath-leaved Banksia and Banksia epica."

Thanks to Cas for finding this. Hesperian 01:37, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Flora and fauna in the Canary Islands

This category is under discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 April 14#Category:Flora and fauna in the Canary Islands. A notification was posted here, but the notifier then changed their mind and removed the thread. Hesperian 05:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Splitting plant taxon articles out of plant product articles

In line with what I believe to be longstanding WP:PLANTS policy, I split an article on the plant species Annona reticulata out of the fruit article custard-apple. I was reverted five minutes later.

Does this need to be revisited? Is everyone still firmly behind the idea that plant taxon is not the same as plant product, and these merit distinct articles? Have I misunderstood our position? Or is this just a matter of educating/convincing the reverter?

Hesperian 05:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

And now the reverter has stalked through my contribs list reverting the other splits I did today. :-( Hesperian 06:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I was not aware of any previous discussion on the issue. In cases where it was one species=one item I thought one article was better, but as soon as there was disparity (eg 3 coffee species, rose species doubt etc.) then splitting is preferable. I'll have a look at the old discussion Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Well I've been reverted at Apium graveolens too, even though that species is the source of both celery and celeriac. Hesperian 06:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
(sigh) - where I am the pages are taking a very long time to load. Saffron is a Featured Article - be good to see how the food FAs handle it. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Just for the record, there was extensive discussion here, leading to guideline formation here and a guideline was produced here Melburnian (talk) 06:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh right, there I was thinking that the common name took priority over the scientific name (but keeping together) and now I have seen this. Hmmm. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:59, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If we take A. graveolens as an example, the idea is for the taxon article to take the taxobox, and to cover information about the plant itself, independent of its uses; for example: plant morphology; phenology; taxonomy; phylogenetics; distribution; habitat; ecology, e.g. pollination, soil nutrition, diseases. It would essentially be a article on the botany of the plant species. The "Human uses" section would mention that it is the source of celery, celeriac, celery seed and celery oil, but not go into detail.

The celery article, then, would be an article on the vegetable, and cover culinary significance; nutritional information; allergies; production economics; the production lifecycle, including cultivation, harvesting, post-harvest treatment, transportation, marketing.

The point of the convention is that plant taxon and plant product are distinct concepts, and that, for plant products of significance, the combination is too broad to be covered in a single article. My rule of thumb is: if the plant product is important enough that I'm not comfortable moving the article to the scientific name in line with naming convention, then the plant product and the plant taxon are distinct and independently notable entities that merit distinct articles.

Hesperian 07:12, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I have bowed to the apparent necessity of having this discussion all over again for each article I want to split, and have posted essentially the same rationale as above, at Talk:Celery. Hesperian 07:23, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
I am surprised that celery is still considered to be food. Are you certain about this point? -- carol (talk) 09:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
Sometimes people can get obsessed with having "good-sized" articles, and will work against a sensible split because it results in two smaller articles. Even so, it's something to discuss on a per-article basis, not to mass-revert without any prior discussion, and I've added my warning to ones Badagnani has already received. Stan (talk) 13:21, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Custard-apple was reverted to an article on both fruit and taxon, but Annona reticulata was not reverted to a redirect, leaving us with duplicate articles covering this taxon. I'm damned if I'm doing to undo my own efforts by reverting A. reticulata to a redirect, and I don't wish to edit war at custard-apple, so I am unable to fix this. If someone would please sort it out, however they see fit, that would be much appreciated. Hesperian 23:27, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Duplication (at least in this case) is not necessarily the worst outcome, especially if the eventual goal is to have separate articles. Given the small amount of content in either article, I'm afraid I'm even less excited than usual about whether it is one article or two (either way). And then to see the thing spill over into unrelated articles is just silly (as far as I can tell, both sides of this debate contributed to blowing this out of proportion). Kingdon (talk) 05:54, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] 3rd opinion in Ailanthus dispute...

Hey everyone. I am currently involved in a dispute with User:Blechnic here. Essentially the user is arguing that, in the opener, the section relating to the tree in Chinese culture should be mentioned before the section on its introduction and subsequent invasiveness. He bases this on history, stating that since the former happened first, it should be mentioned first. I hold that per WP:UNDUE, the latter should be mentioned first because there are bout 50 times more sources for invasiveness than its cultural role in China, and subsequently due to the fact that the article treats ecology and invasiveness to a greater extent given the more numerous sources. Any input at the talk page would be appreciated. Thanks! DJLayton4 (talk) 16:12, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there is an absolute necessity for the lead to accurately reproduce the order in which the informations are presented in the article. Indeed, quite often, once condensed, it might be easier to introduce elements in a different orders because the absence of formal headers make other structures more accessible for that information. Circeus (talk) 16:25, 17 April 2008 (UTC)
I would generally agree, but given that, I don't think the user gives a strong argument for why the order should be changed. I feel that WP:UNDUE can at least be applied for keeping the status quo. DJLayton4 (talk) 16:34, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok well that dispute fissiled out, but another has arisen about the length and scope of the intro. I think the current revision is way to simple and even misrepresents the information because of it's simplicity. For example, it states that it is found in many parts of the world because it spreads aggressively, which is wrong. Please give your opinions if you can. It's here Thanks! DJLayton4 (talk) 05:57, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] language policy?

I'm always unsure whether I should add the name of a plant in a non-English language if it's range is significantly in the region where that language is spoken. This can lead to an obvious slippery slope, e.g. almost every European plant, but for North American plants I am often tempted to, and often do add the French names for plants present in Quebec. I also sometimes add Chinese names for plants found there as most are culturally significant or endemic anyways. Do you think we should have a standard for this, or is it preferable to use one's best judgment? DJLayton4 (talk) 17:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

The Alum article has acquired Thai and Filipino names for the substance. I was a little tempted to remove them, on the grounds that "wikipedia is not a (multilingual) dictionary". Apart from that, what I see as a potential problem is the scope it offers to vandalism - for most languages few people other than native speakers of a language can tell whether or not a supposed name is correct. An intermediate position is to require citation to a reputable source. Lavateraguy (talk) 17:16, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I think it is a good idea to include an indigenous or non-English name only:
  1. if the non-English name is important in early documentation of human knowledge of the plant, such as in a quotation from a classical Latin text or early Chinese writings
  2. if the species was first published in a non-English publication, and the non-English name is important for correlating the article with the source.
  3. if the non-English name gave rise to the English or scientific name.
I personally think that article about plants primarily from Latin America could reasonably give the Spanish name. However, for most other regions, it is unlikely that the plant will be common enough and exist only in a region with one language. Russia, China, and India have numerous local languages, despite having a smaller nummber of "official" languages. Europe and Africa are total patchworks of languages.
Therefore, I think that in nearly all cases, the name of a plant in another language should be placed on the corresponding Wikispecies article and/or the corresponding Wiktionary article. The Wikipedia article should not be burdened with translations. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:49, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
Besides, interwiki links automatically give the common name in other languages. JoJan (talk) 17:58, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
That is true, but there must first be an article about the subject in the other language. If no such article exists, then there won't a link. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
I would tend towards the "wikipedia is not a multi-lingual dictionary" point of view, but some judgment is needed. For example, as far as I can tell, even when writing in English the term cina is quite common for Stenocereus alamosensis. Some editors will try to go well beyond listing a few of the most common/relevant names, and list the plant's name, and pronunciation, in a very large variety of languages (well, or a large number of editors each add one language, more commonly). I don't always try to fight it (one the one occasion when I tried, the editor seemed quite emphatic about the point and I dropped the subject), but I would generally favor their removal. Kingdon (talk) 02:21, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
Oh, and I wouldn't mind some kind of policy (WP:NOT#DICTIONARY is the closest I know of, but it doesn't really address this particular topic), but I'm not sure a plant-specific policy for this makes sense. Kingdon (talk) 02:27, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Another reason to have non-English names is for aboriginal languages, especially those that may never have a Wikipedia for lack of a group of fluent writers or speakers. Again, it is a judgment call; it would seem excessive to list every Native American name for a plant found over most of North America, but specific examples may be useful.--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:29, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] plants.am - wikipedia offshoot

Hi, I've been working on a plant wiki ( http://www.plants.am ) for over a year, which is a plant encyclopedia from a gardeners point of view. Obviously, the overlap with wikipedia articles is great, but also obviously, the articles serve a different purpose, with cultivation, zones, propagation and pictures being of primary importance. There are thousands of articles already, but many more are needed. Anyway, what I'm wondering is how does a site become a "sister site" to wikipedia - somewhat like wikitravel.org appears to be? It would be an ideal way to leave the encyclopedic aspects of the plants to wikipedia, while drawing gardeners to the site at the same time. Here's an example article: http://www.plants.am/wiki/Abelia - anyway, any direction regarding "sister sites" would be appreciated! --RaffiKojian (talk) 20:50, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inappropriate page changes

For some time now, I have noticed on-going improper edits and page changes by User:Verisimilus, and would appreciate some help explaining correct article separation to him. In particular, he often merges one taxon into a taxon of a different level (such as an order into a class), even when the circumscription of each taxon is quite different from the other. This is at odds with WP:PLANTS practice. The latest problem is that he insists on taking the perfectly good article on the genus Lepidodendron and converting it wholesale into an article about the order Lepidodendrales (which includes several other genera). This needlessly replaces the hard work of other contributors with his own work on a different topic. I have tried to explain this on previous occasions, but he doesn't seem to get it. I have the strong impression he doesn't understand taxonomy or nomenclature. Could some others help? --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:55, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

My own run-in was over some tag-hanging; see [2], Talk:Spermatophyte#There are lots of molecular suggestions, and User talk:Verisimilus/Archive 4#spermatophyte and gne-pine. I got the impression, based on a quick browse of his contributions, and his lack of response to my question about his tag, that he was the kind of editor who just makes a lot of edits and doesn't spend much time on each one. That he actually complained on the talk page about the Lepidodendrales thing is, perhaps, a step forward. As for where the article(s) should be, both of you seem to have some precedent/policy on your side (see the paragraph or two starting at "Not all species need have separate articles." at WP:TOL), although the biggest problem with this kind of reorganization, for me, is that it is easy to half-reorganize things and end up with something which is disorganized or just plain wrong (because statements accidentally get attached to a different group than what they were written for). On the plus side, he seems to actually be trying to do something about fossil plants, mention of which has been sorely lacking in articles like Spermatophyte. I also suspect that a different mindset may be needed for fossils than for living plants in terms of how we approach taxa: for example paleontologists have lots of ichnotaxa (and quasi-similar things for plants, like taxa for cones which haven't been matched to the rest of the plant). Kingdon (talk) 16:02, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rosette

A few of the Reference Desk volunteers got roped into trying to fix up the article Rosette (botany), and we're doing our best, but we don't know what we're doing. It would be great if a botanist type would take a quick look at it and the article's talk page and straighten us out. --Milkbreath (talk) 14:16, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

I've responded at Talk:Rosette (botany). Thanks for the work y'all have put into this. Kingdon (talk) 05:06, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Amelanchier alnifolia

I just reverted a cut and paste move of this article back to its common name, which seems to be against consensus. Some of the user's other contribs look questionable, but I'm not an expert on the plant name guidelines, so I'm pointing it out here in case someone wants to check it out. Happy botanizing! Katr67 (talk) 19:36, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

User:TheEditrix2 seems to be on a rapidfire tear of bad cut-n-pastes, I blocked so we can sort things out. Stan (talk) 20:12, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
I went through the contributions and corrected all the bad cut and paste moves that I could find. The user also created Cat:Berries and placed several strawberry articles into it. Should we remove those and treat the category as the botanical definition of a true berry (thus also creating Cat:False berries), or should we go with common conception of the term, meaning mostly anything with "berry" in the title? --Rkitko (talk) 22:52, 25 April 2008 (UTC)
Botanical berry, as useful as it is as a term in the description section of particular articles, doesn't seem like a very useful category to me. I don't see why we'd want a Drupe category either. Popular/culinary/whatever berry might be a category which helps readers, but as you point out I'm not really sure where we'd draw the line ("any of numerous small and pulpy edible fruits" is what the first dictionary I consulted said, which seems to agree reasonably well with the non-botanical definition at Berry). Kingdon (talk) 00:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Stan, I had noticed one of the edits and the "don't interrupt me while I'm editing" note on the talk page, and wasn't sure what to do (but then I thought it was just policy disagreement/ignorance; I hadn't noticed the cut-and-paste moves which are a whole different level). Asking the user to slow down long enough to discuss the matter seems like an eminently reasonable tack. Kingdon (talk) 00:27, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the actions of TheEditrix2 (talk · contribs), but wouldn't a note to her talkpage have been appropriate, before a block? I'm not seeing any warning. Last comment to her page was on April 17, and then the next note was today, telling her that she'd been blocked for 3 hours.[3] Per WP:BLOCK#Education and warnings, a cautionary note is recommended unless there's an urgent problem. --Elonka 07:10, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
In this case I think that there was an urgent problem. She was engaging in a unilateral restructuring, contrary to an agreed policy, of large chunks of article space. Lavateraguy (talk) 08:14, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
No, there's a naming convention guideline, which is not a policy, and further, the guideline even says that it is different from common practice everywhere else on Wikipedia. See WP:NC(flora). I think that folks here in the WikiProject should remember this, and give the benefit of the doubt to other editors. As near as I can tell, TheEditrix2 was genuinely operating in good faith, fixing things that she thought were broken. She's a longterm editor with thousands of edits. She shouldn't have been blocked without warning. See WP:AGF. --Elonka 08:37, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think anyone thought that TheEditrix2 was not acting in good faith. But acting in good faith shouldn't give one carte-blanche. I don't want to second guess Stan's judgement with regards to a block rather than a warning, but I do think it would have been better if he had explained the problem in more detail at the time. Lavateraguy (talk) 10:52, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I have posted a full report on the situation at User talk:TheEditrix2#Uninvolved view. I hope that the members of the WikiProject here will review it, as a cautionary tale, as I don't think that TheEditrix2 was well-treated by this project. I sincerely hope that this was a one-time miscommunication, and not representative of a pattern? --Elonka 09:11, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with Elonka's view. The purpose of blocking is to protect Wikipedia, and from Stan's description, that's just what he did. When tolerating lost page history and broken redirects is more important than possibly hurting a long-time editor's feelings, it's hard to imagine a good outcome. And it would be interesting to look at the cumulative editing time of all the editors who took care with those articles and their redirects, and whose feelings were not considered by Elonka at all.--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:07, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I've learned my lesson - next time it's going to be somebody else's problem. 1/2 :-) Stan (talk) 12:55, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Need feedback on quality or lack therof on article

Hello everyone,

I have created an article about the Hairy Puccoon and was wondering if I needed more information, less information, or if it is just fine the way it is. I realize it is a minor article and does not rate high on any scale, yet I am using it as a template for other plant articles to see how to make them in the future. Any help will be appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vancali (talk • contribs) 23:20, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Vancali, here are some suggestions:

  • Plant articles are generally titled with their scientific name - see WP:NC(flora) for full details:

>Lithospermum caroliniense

*In the text body, "var." should not be italicised >Lithospermum caroliniense var. croceum. Also take out '"the" before latin names

*Taxobox -add variety and trinomial name - example in this article: Banksia spinulosa var. collina

  • Description

-The description should be in your own words, rather than quoting someone else's description

  • "Cultivation and Uses"

>"Cultivation and uses" per Wikipedia:Manual of Style

Its worthwhile having a look at the featured plant articles in Category:FA-class plant articles as a guide. Melburnian (talk) 01:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

  • In the text capitalise Midwest and Great Lakes
  • In the text capitalise either both or neither of hairy puccoon (there may be a convention for capitalisation, but I don't know it)
  • You don't need piped links (A|B) when A and B are the same.

(I've copy edited the cultivation and uses paragraph.)

Lavateraguy (talk) 08:42, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ID needed

Could someone ID this flower please? Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 10:09, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Nymphaea. Hesperian 11:09, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Wonderful. That confirms my initial observation, but can we tell which species? Obento wants to label it. Viriditas (talk) 12:07, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I suspect it may be a hybrid of Nymphaea, of which there are a formidable number of cultivars [4] Melburnian (talk) 12:23, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I see the problem.  :) How would you recommend labeling Image:Purple_Flower_-_2006.JPG? Please make the necessary changes. Thanks. Viriditas (talk) 12:52, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I've updated the image page description --Melburnian (talk) 13:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Much obliged. Viriditas (talk) 13:57, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Another ID Request

I was wondering if someone could help me identify the flower in these two photos? I assume it's some type of phlox, but I simply don't know enough about the subject to identify the species. I'll be uploading the first of the two pictures to Commons, I just wanted to ID the plant first so I could get the filename correct. Thank you. Ken Thomas (talk) 14:33, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Not Phlox. It looks more like a viola, but I cant tell. How tall are the plants and when were they blooming? Hardyplants (talk) 14:37, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I took the photos yesterday while trout fishing on the Gauley River in WV, so I guess the When? would be Now. As for the height of the plants, I can only give you an estimate, but I'd guess they averaged between 6 and 8 inches. - Ken Thomas (talk) 15:04, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Its a Viola species. you have more violas that I have here so can't be that helpful in the species with out a picture of the folaige....I also need some help. I toke this picture and lost the notes for it....its a tropical hanging vine. Could it be a thumbergia?

Forgotten Vine
Forgotten Vine

Hardyplants (talk) 15:10, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

The flowers of the tropical vine look like dead ringers for those of a plant I photographed some years ago. That plant was labelled as Thunbergia grandiflora. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:11, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you lavateraguy, it looks like it is an aggressive weed in diverse parts of the world. Hardyplants (talk) 17:26, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, your tip about the flower being a Viola species was what I needed to find them. Looks like they're Birdsfoot Violets (Viola Pedata). Thanks for the help. - Ken Thomas (talk) 22:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Contributions

Hi. I just made stubs for 10-20 white and blue flowers found in Norway. Having compiled a list of wanted articles, maybe two years ago, I just grew tired of waiting and created the articles. The point: Someone might want to review the contributions, as I'm not very knowledgeable in this field. Punkmorten (talk) 21:13, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I glanced at a few of them, and didn't see problems. Thanks for your contributions, and thanks for letting us know. (If anyone wants to look more closely than I did, please feel free. As these are stubs, there is plenty of work if anyone wants to take it on). Kingdon (talk) 00:54, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Guaba of Ecuador

The Taxobox for Guaba of Ecuador needs to be filled out by someone who knows about such things. Thanks. GregManninLB (talk) 21:17, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Could it possibly be Inga edulis? A variation of the alternative name given in the article popped up on this page. --Rkitko (talk) 21:45, 30 April 2008 (UTC)
What does the word dendroculture mean? -- carol (talk) 00:03, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
WOuldn't that be tree cultivation? Circeus (talk) 00:18, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
It is not in the dict server dictionaries and a search gave less than a page of results for the word (no link to a definition) and those pages were mostly about orchids or web logs (maybe even web logs about orchids). Is that evidence of invention? -- carol (talk) 13:04, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
There appear to be only 3 independent usages of dendroculture found by Google, with three different meanings. (The orchid page is a red herring - the only occurrence there is in the file name, where it represents an abreviation for Dendrobium culture.) One occurrence is an self-acknowledged neologism for the keeping and breeding poison arrow frogs of the genus Dendrobates in captivity (coined by analogy with words like aviculture and pisciculture). The use in the blog appears to be equivalent to a tongue in cheek usage of arboriculture. Which leaves the use in WikiPedia. That might mean sylviculture, arboriculture, or even horticulture or permaculture - more context is needed to pin down the usage. For further investigation material on the use of Inga edulis by Amazonian cultures needs to be studied. Lavateraguy (talk) 15:07, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
I've re-written that sentence to say more about what people grow the tree for. We don't really need to guess about what the wikipedia author meant by "dendroculture" when we can just consult the cited source (which is online and moderately specific). Kingdon (talk) 15:57, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Heh -- let me know if anyone finds an incidence of a tongue in cheek use of a word that means the keeping and breeding of poison spear frogs and I will do what I can to rewrite that ;) -- (thanks!) carol (talk) 16:06, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, it appears to be Inga edulis Melburnian (talk) 07:25, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Bot for redirects

Is there a bot for plants or anywhere else on Wikipedia or a script for fixing redirects after moves? I moved Mulberry to Morus (plant), and there are quite a bit of links to Mulberry that should be made to direct wikilinks rather than redirects. A few other pages that I should tend to of this nature, and there are some plants I'm not bothering with because of the redirect issue. I would rather not do tasks like this. --Blechnic (talk) 07:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I think what you're looking for is WP:REDIRECT#Do not "fix" links to redirects that are not broken. Hesperian 07:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
But the double redirects should be fixed --Melburnian (talk) 07:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
It is very rare when there is a long list in the 'what links here' lists that I have gone through that all of the links were meant to link to the plant (or in this case tree). Some of the links were plainly and obviously wrong. Going through these lists manually is a PITA and it doesn't seem to win any points or favor though -- just little games with fruits and vegetable name changing. One day, bots will be able to understand what we meant to do instead of what we did do, maybe.... -- carol (talk) 18:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Hesperian. If there's no bot, and it doesn't matter, I won't think any more about it. --Blechnic (talk) 02:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Author abbreviation and disambiguation pages

Hi guys. I think it is terribly misleading that there are pages in the category Category:Disambiguation plant pages without proper author abbreviations (especially as to the species of Hieracium). Colchicum (talk) 10:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Browsing that category, I find that one of the meanings given for Ice Plant is Hylotelephium spectabile, but that the article for this plant is at Sedum spectabile. Does anyone happen to know which way round we should be putting the redirect? Lavateraguy (talk) 10:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
Two references suggest Hylotelephium spectabile[5][6] --Melburnian (talk) 11:14, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
OK, I've moved it. Turns out it resolves more redlinks that it turns links into redirects. (Even the Sedum article had it in Hylotelephium.) Lavateraguy (talk) 12:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
I've removed Candelabra primrose from the class of disambiguation pages. Assuming that Candelabra primrose and Candelabra primula (which I think is usual British usage) are the same, the name is of broader application, and applies to a taxon of the rank of section. Lavateraguy (talk) 12:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] When a stub has more templates than content

Please see Talk:Metzgeriaceae#Request for Third Party and comment. I'm sure others here have been baffled by this same phenomenon. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ID request: lupine

I was sure enough that this was Lupinus argenteus that I named it that way, but can anyone confirm or deny that it is? Thanks. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:53, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Lupines are pretty hard to identify as to species, oftentimes it depends on obscure characters like fruit hairs and such. How many species are in the area that you took the picture? Around Las Vegas there are at least five. Stan (talk) 14:34, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
For a minute I thought you meant the real Las Vegas, but I see you live in Nevada. Anyway, I have no idea. I was hoping someone here had a wonderful flora of New Mexico that they could use to answer such questions. If it helps, the plant was by the side of a road in a pine forest at, I suppose, about 7000 feet in northeastern Santa Fe County a bit east of Cordova, New Mexico. And if the ID is going to depend on my going back there, I may have to change it to "unidentified Lupinus". —JerryFriedman (Talk) 00:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

A search in the USDA plants database [7] for Lupinus in Santa Fe County New Mexico produces the following list of candidates:

Thanks, I didn't know you could do that. It solves the problem. All of those are in my Peterson wildflower book, and concinnus, kingii, and palmeri are easily eliminated (as I recall from looking at them at home). Then Stubbendieck et al. say caudatus has strigose stems, which seems to be quite different from the dense whitish ("silvery") hairs on the stem of argenteus and the plant I photographed. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 17:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] ID Requests

I think its a daisy, but otherwise have no clue

Aquilegia as an amateur gardener, I would have called this cultivar a 'double' and it might be a triple. I like the wild ones....

Once again, at a loss for ideas

They sure are pretty, whatever they are

Just three four to ID, the last second one on from the right is also at Wikipedia:Picture peer review/Collection of Flowers. Thanks guys! Qb | your 2 cents 15:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC) edit: adding one more... Qb | your 2 cents 15:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't know the species, but I can get you to genus on three of these. The second one is an Aquilegia, third is a Viola (possibly V. tricolor), the fourth is Pelargonium. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
I would assume that the Pelargonium is P. ×hortorum. I've been through my image files. I've got photographs of two plants labelled as 'Light Pink Splash', one of which is a pretty good match, and the other has much smaller red spots (environmental variation?). Similar cultivars (varying mostly in the intensity of petal colour) are 'Catford Belle', 'Greta Garbo', 'Casanova', 'Tiffany' and 'Melody' (not to mention the other cultivars which I haven't seen bit which probably exist). Lavateraguy (talk) 18:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
For the record the first definitely is a daisy (family Asteraceae), and if I remember the distribution of traits correctly the distinct ray and disc florets makes a member of subfamily Asteroideae; with the signs of finely divided foliage I'd guess at something in tribe Anthemideae. Lavateraguy (talk) 18:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Monticello lists many of their garden flowers currently in bloom here. I think we can be pretty sure that the viola is indeed V. tricolor, known to people like me as "Johnny Jump-up". I don't see the other three, but you could try the people at Monticello. Since they provide that impressive "In Bloom at Monticello" service, they might answer e-mail queries. (If you want a guess, maybe the daisy is Chrysantheumum coccineum.) —JerryFriedman (Talk) 01:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maesaceae

According to sources i've found the Maesa genus has been raised to family status and named Maesaceae. Should i copy its page over and rewrite it in the form of a family rather than genus, or leave it where it is? Ironholds (talk) 20:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't seem to be covered at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (flora), but my understanding is that the usual practice is to redirect the family article for a monotype family to the sole genus, e.g. Acoraceae, Callitrichaceae. Note that has resulted in Cat:Plant families containing the names of genera. Does anyone object to me going through and moving the category plant families to the redirects, i.e. under the family names? This does work with current Wikipedia mechanics - see for example an italicised entries on the category page. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
?? WP:NC(flora) says: "If a family contains only one genus, the article should still be at the genus name, as that is more likely to be commonly recognised." Note that categories are for articles, not for redirects, despite the unfortunate consequences. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Although it is uncommon, a few categories use redirect categorisation for stuff like . I think moving the categorization would indeed help curtailing misunderstandings, and that this is almost a textbook example where we'd want to use redirect categorisation. Compare Category:State highways in New York. Some of those even links to pages in entirely different categories. Circeus (talk) 01:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. Categories are for whatever we choose to put in them. I've created categories chock full of redirects, e.g. Category:Banksia taxa by common name. And I think it is a good idea for Lavateraguy to move the categories onto the redirects in this case. Hesperian 01:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
APG II agrees about recognizing the family, but are you sure it's the only genus in the new family? If not, then a separate article should be created. If the family is monogeneric, then the article should remain at the genus name Maesa by our normal naming conventions, but a redirect should point from Maesaceae to the genus. We favor the genus name over higher taxa in cases like this, where the higher taxon is monogeneric (with exceptions in some cases, such as when there are extinct taxa, etc.). --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
APG II says a new monogeneric family Maesaceae Lavateraguy (talk) 22:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
Yes, but is it still monogeneric now? APG II was published five years ago. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Moss problem

In a perhaps ill-advised moment of enthusiasm I created Bryoerythrophyllum caledonicum aka Scottish Beard-moss and I am now perplexed by the Taxobox. According to the ZipcodeZoo.com source, "Bryoerythrophyllum (Genus): Taxonomy" the Subclass is Bryidae and the order Pottiales. However the Wikipedia Pottiales page insists that this order is part of sub-class Dicranidae. Any advice gratefully received. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 17:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

Zipcodezoo should never be used as a reference for taxonomy. I believe it parses information from many sources automatically and frankly, most of it is wrong or out of date. I've found plant genera listed under kingdom Animalia! User:EncycloPetey is our resident bryophyte expert and will surely be along to help you on the taxonomy. Cheers, --Rkitko (talk) 18:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Moss taxonomy has undergone a major revision in the past two decades. Fifty years ago all mosses were in subclass Bryidae. Then, the obviously different groups like Sphagnum and Polytrichum were moved to new subclasses. More recently, these subclasses were elevated to class rank, and a new set of subclasses were created out of the old Bryidae. So, what Zipcodezoo calls subclass Bryidae is now considered class Bryopsida, and the group has been subdivided into new subclasses. The most recent comprehensive classification of the mosses was published as: Buck, William R. & Bernard Goffinet. 2000. "Morphology and classification of mosses", pages 71-123 in A. Jonathan Shaw & Bernard Goffinet (Eds.), Bryophyte Biology. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press). All the high-level moss taxon pages have been edited to reflect this particular publication, since it includes recent molecular work and is the result of combined efforts of dozens of bryologists. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
Understood and thanks. If you could take a quick look at Pohlia scotica to check for any similar problems it would be appreciated. I will try to get hold of Buck and Goffinet (it may not be easy), but in the meantime I may have been overbold at Bryaceae where I added the ZipcodeZoo genera list. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 08:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Done. Pohlia is now in the Mniaceae, and I've updated the Bryaceae list of genera. --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Many thanks again. Ben MacDuiTalk/Walk 07:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Petey, I would have grabbed you a few weeks ago, when I wrote my first moss article, had I known you were our resident expert. Would you mind casting an eye over Calymperastrum, and also checking whether the arrangement at Mosses of Western Australia is up to date? Hesperian 13:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

I've made a start, and will have to check the rest later. I've checked everything I can up to Orthrotrichaceae, although there are a few genera I don't recognize (mostly Pottiaceae). Taxonomy in the Pottiaceae is difficult and under much debate. I'll need to see whether these are genera that have been recently created, recently subsumed, or what. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Thank you very much indeed for your efforts. Hesperian 23:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
Now finished. There are several old names in the Pottiaceae (I've added reference to the two Zander articles where the changes were made). Other than that, the only taxonomic name I know is wrong is Bartramidula pusilla. I've added a reference for the synonymization of Bartramidula with Philonotis, but I don't have a copy of the article to know what the new combination is. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks again. I pulled the article out of JStor; Bartramidula pusilla is now Phylonotis australiensis. Hesperian 00:53, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Project scope?

Additional input is requested at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Assessment#Items to include in a discussion on the scope of the project with regards to botanic gardens. Thanks! --Rkitko (talk) 00:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A Category for the External link Plant templates

I just found the templates; they are kind of cool :)

One of the category they are located in has a suggestion about the need for subcategories (Category:External link templates) and I probably would have just made one and moved the ones that I recognize into it but I have been stuck on the name for it. Help with the name? Good reasons to not do this? Or even a "Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out" would be a considered opinion, if it gets posted here. Thanks.... -- carol (talk) 09:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

A subcategory along the lines of "Flora external link templates" would appear useful --Melburnian (talk) 14:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fruit article titles

I've been asked what the policy is on the naming of fruit cultivar articles, whether the name should include the fruit, or only include the fruit in parentheses for disambiguation. This has come up for Hass avocado vs Hass (avocado). There are two "schools of thought" at the moment:

Name+fruit:

Name only (followed by fruit in parentheses where disambiguation is required)

I would like to find out what others think, and whether we should include a specific guideline in WP:NC(flora). Melburnian (talk) 14:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

I just looked at Category:Banana cultivars and Category:Bananas they both seem to be logical and filled with useful articles about the subject of the category. Missing is the article for the genus Musa which to me should and can be separate from the article Banana. Having an article about the genus and the species and separate articles about the cultivars that come from the different species and the useful parts of each would have been really nice and helpful when I was a gardener. One is a plant product and the other is a group of plants. Banana leaves are included in recipes, so each species has different leafs as well? In the example of Hass avocado, an article for Persea americana instead of the redirection that exists now would avoid having to work through the problem that was mentioned, I think. -- carol (talk) 20:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hope no one minds...

... a few more IDs.  ;) Feel free to just go right ahead into the gallery and add an | to the pic name and name it. Might keep the clutterness and confusion down. Thanks so much guys! Qb | your 2 cents 00:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


0 Iris

1 Lilium (cultivar is 'Stargazer')

2 Aquilegia vulgaria hybrid cultivar, many strains have this double shape, plants hybridize readily and the purity of the strains is quickly lost when grown near other Aquilegia.

3 Passiflora vitifolia

4 Petunia x hybrida

5 looks like #9 #13

6 Geranium

7 some Nigella maybe

8 Trichostema? Certainly Lamiaceae its a Salvia, most likely Salvia pratensis, out of haematodes.

9 Papaveraceae, possibly Stylomecon (Almost certainly Papaver atlanticum Flora Plena, sometimes sold under other names, a semi to double form that comes true from seed)

10 Aquilegia formosa? may be Aquilegia canadensis

11 Aquilegia formosa?

12 Iris

13 Geranium could be a hybrid involving G. endressii and G. versicolor

14 Brassicaceae? most likely Hesperis matronalis

15 Commelinaceae? or
Tradescantia Spiderwort (maybe) not (actually it does look like a Spiderwort... the upper leaf bracts do look like that.
Yeah, the spider in the name is about how the flowers look when they first appear -- this is a great photograph of that. I had the one with the thin leaves, iirc.)

16 Digitalis purpurea

17 Rose

Bauhinia purpurea? Taken on 1 March on Lantau island, Hong Kong, if that helps narrow it down...
Added some IDs to gallery --Melburnian (talk) 00:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Once the photographs are identified, they should be renamed. -- carol (talk) 04:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure 2= Aquilegia cv., 9 = Papaver atlanticum, 14 = Hesteris matronalis, and 15 = Tradescantia. Speaking of IDs, we've got a bit of a backlog at v:Bloom Clock/Unknown Plants, including a bunch of (mostly weedy) plants from Pennsylvania that I uploaded. --SB_Johnny | talk 14:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Also fairly certain that "1" is cv. 'Stargazer' (and a much better photo of it than the ones currently on commons). --SB_Johnny | talk 16:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
If thats the case then feel free to throw these images into any articles you see fit. I've already started with some into galleries, but I dont feel right replacing the infobox pictures. You guys know much more than I ever will about plants and horticulture. By leaps and bounds. Qb | your 2 cents 17:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Added another one in the hope someone can ID it... — iridescent 19:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Is there a template?

Is there a template that says "Thanks for taking time from your busy life of voting for new admins to upload a bunch of photographs that will need identification and categorization on another wiki and so far have not found a good place here for"? It should be polite and extremely personal in look and feel if one exists. -- carol (talk) 05:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

How about something like this (I borrowed it from a busy user talk page):

Hello {{Username}}, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your upload of photographs to commons:Category:Nonexistent which were blah blah blah with a final tally of # of no where images. Wiki Users are both shocked and honoured to gain so much support from users whom we admire and trust, and we hope we can avoid breaking that backing by being the blah blah blah we possibly can. We sure hope to improve over the coming months and years. Once again, thank you! Wiki Users Everywhere HH:MM, DD Month YYYY (TZC)

-- carol (talk) 05:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

So what's the actual issue, then? --SB_Johnny | talk 13:48, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Too many. This is probably spam. In defense of the spammer, she was sober and somewhat stuck in a giggle about some conflicting translations of Culpepper when compared to here and else where.
Which seems seems more genuine, btw "blah blah blah" or "yadda yadda yadda" or perhaps something else? -- carol (talk) 22:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I actually take issue with this, and believe this template to be directed towards myself due to the conversation I've had with this user on my talk page. I do not sit around all day and simply vote for admins. I actually do article work, and have been taking pictures lately to help with that. Mostly around the Wikiproject UVA pages. Please do not assume that I've taken these pictures only to make your life harder. They were taken to help with the encyclopedia, however now I feel pretty dejected. Qb | your 2 cents 22:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, what would seem more genuine to you then? 'blah blah blah' or something else? -- carol (talk) 23:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Maps

Concerning this, I think we have to discuss such changes. With all due respect to the work of the people who draw such maps, I think they make Wikipedia worse.

1) Such maps are misleading. Unlike the list it replaces, such a map reads as if the plant was spread all over the countries in question, which is normally not the case, especially w.r.t. large countries like the U.S., Canada, Russia or China. For a more illuminating example, see Hieracium canadense, which certainly does occur in Russia, despite that map. Furthermore, unlike maps, lists don't necessarily imply that the plant is absent from other countries. They may well be silent about that. Therefore translation of a list into a map shouldn't be that straightforward.

2) What is even worse, a map is much more difficult to correct or update for a less experienced editor as it requires an account on commons and special graphic software to do so. Any suggestions?

Colchicum (talk) 16:33, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

I agree with those disadvantages, and I'd also add that it is harder to add references (especially if the distribution data is assembled from more than one source).
Now for the advantages of maps:
  • It is much easier to absorb information from a map (especially if you are looking for a rough idea; both maps and lists are kind of problematic if you want a really detailed notion).
  • The map takes up less space.
  • The convention of filling in political subdivisions which contain the plant (although it is not found everywhere in that country/province/etc) is a familiar one at sites like PLANTS. As long as the reader is aware of this convention, they can treat the map accordingly.
How do I balance these considerations? I guess I come out somewhat pro-map, although I'm not sure I have a lot of good ideas about how to ameliorate the problems with them. I suppose I should mention Wikipedia:WikiProject Maps. Kingdon (talk) 17:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
In general, I'm a fan of maps, being a visual learner, and I've made my share of range maps, some of which are published in refereed journals. That said, I find them problematic for the reasons given, and more:
  1. A range map most often depicts a binary variable, occurs/doesn't occur. In some cases, the boundary can be rather precise: Many plankton species are abundant off Huntington Beach, California, but absent a kilometer inland. But in other cases, even an ideal boundary represents the point along an environmental gradient at which the conditions are no longer adequate to support the species. This implies that the population densities just into the "occurs" side will be extremely low.
  2. Related to this, in practice people often extend the range of a species, but, except for species of conservation concern, few people contract it, meaning that an outlier population can extend the colored envelope on a map, but it takes someone going there and confirming that the population has disappeared in order to pull the envelope back.
  3. Although it is common for maps of bird species ranges to show permanent and migratory areas, it is much less common for plant maps to show native and introduced ranges, although the mapping technology is the same (it can even be done in black and white). Of course, in many cases there is disagreement whether a species is native or introduced in a specific area.
  4. In terms of data source, the best maps are based on museum vouchers, and I imagine a world in which every voucher is georeferenced, and the maps are point clouds. The worst maps have no data sources identified. In the case of Arabidopsis above, an unreferenced list was replaced by an unreferenced map, so I'm not sure a lot was lost. But had the list been referenced, it would have been another matter altogether.
--Curtis Clark (talk) 19:48, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
I like the idea of point clouds if we have data which is amenable (I can imagine various ways of collecting such data, most of them imperfect). Starting to make me wish there was a Christmas Bird Count for plants (my local native plant society does tend to make species lists on hikes but for a variety of reasons they aren't widely published)... Kingdon (talk) 21:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
funny more than useful? and perhaps not so accurate.
funny more than useful? and perhaps not so accurate.
I really enjoyed the PDF from I think Curtis Clark that I got here a while back TDWG geo2 and the maps that I made from that are a little different. I split some countries in Africa, Asia and Mexico -- United States also is in three different zones now. Russia is my biggest problem for completing what I was doing with the maps. The best maps that are available here are divided to some level of political division that makes Russia equal with well, pick any country that has a small land area. I am not good enough with the software yet to put the good map of Russia (with the smaller political divisions) onto that awesome world map -- round things becoming flat for presentation purposes being the problem. I found or it was put into my path this great map of africa, a relief map in shades of gray -- to print this thing at 300px per inch it would be 35 inches long poster. Since then, I have been trying to spend a few minutes every day trying to figure out how to put latitude and longitude on it. At that size, it will be best to do this efficiently and correctly the first time, it takes about half an hour to duplicate a layer, for instance. -- carol (talk) 22:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
What I have done is kind of cool, at least to me. At the commons, the Afrotropic and the Nearctic being the most complete (due to simplicity of the divisions even more than my familiarity with the areas). The commons already had a relatively uniform category system in place where each country had a Category of "Nature of". For some weird and not that interesting reasons I had to start to make a "Flora of" and "Fauna of" category for each country, but it was not so difficult to start to collect the different areas and the subjects that are interesting and useful for Botany or Zoology and to put them with the Ecozones that are divided into Biocountries there. Problems that I faced were well, problematic. "Brazil" is the name of a biocountry and it is also the name of a country -- so occasionally a new category name appears "Brazil Biocountry". Two of the maps there have image maps also and I put the code on the talk pages associated with the image page. Some of those are a little sloppy in my opinion of my own work there. From a software making point of view, it should be no problem to script this -- this is something that is said (probably) at the beginning of any thing like this and might not be accurate. Such an easy task though, that I started to remove the country codes from the maps because of how much I do not enjoy the circumstances that I find myself in right now, in life and such. The removal of those codes makes it so that the maps are for human use and not for script writers.
And, on a personal note, "Yeah, what about those birds?" -- carol (talk) 22:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I am going to explain the reason that there is a "Plants of" and "Flora of" for many of the politically divided category that are at the commons, so that there can be some consistency. There is a little war between Category or Gallery there -- I don't know where it came from but I am more interested in ease of maintenance and uploading for contributors (especially unpaid volunteers) and am of the Category frame of mind. The two can exist within the software easily, the two have problems existing together among the users. So "Plants of" category are for galleries and are managed by the gallery making people. Flora of collects both categories and "Plants of". Some galleries there are really nice, very informative, laid out really well and give a lot of information. Some galleries are just pasted lists of images so the presentation in the gallery actually gives less information than the presentation in a category where at least the file name and file size are displayed. I am a 'category' person because I am also one who doesn't want to spend a lot of time making volunteers do a bunch of work that they are not that interested in. The two different types of presentation can exist together -- I would like to not have galleries made unless the people making them are really 'in to' the idea of making them nice. So, when uploading images, a simple [[Category:Genus]] or [[Category:Species name]] should get the image to a location where they can be found. -- carol (talk) 23:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Euphorbia labatii

Should articles like this be deleted on sight? Hesperian 02:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
No, a taxobox with a sharp picture trumps a red link anyday. Melburnian (talk) 04:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Curtis and Melburnian. All species meet our notability requirement. This one not only has a pic and a taxbox, it also had a CR status. My sense is that if you find an article like that, just drop a note here. Someone will bring it up to the status of a stub, and the world will be a better place :) Guettarda (talk) 04:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I added the CR status a moment before posting here. I agree it is notable; the issue for me was whether an article with a taxobox but no text, would not be better off as a red link. I have my answer. Hesperian 04:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
This is a temptation, I think. -- carol (talk) 05:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
What's far more problematic is the fact that it sat without text for a couple months, then someone changed the stub tag and it sat for a second year without text, after which the BotanyBot updated the stub tag and another Bot edited it in March. And then it sat until Hesperian found it.
It makes me wonder how many more articles there are out there with taxoboxes but no text. We should urge anyone who finds one to bring it up at the appropriate WikiProject. Guettarda (talk) 05:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, then pay attention to Bochkov (talk · contribs)'s contributions of May 4. Colchicum (talk) 09:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the tip. I think all of them now have at least one sentence and one reference, and are added to this WikiProject (they're still all stubs, though, so there's plenty to do if someone wants to expand them). Kind of a fun exercise, in that I learned much more about the genera Ornithogalum (star of Bethlehem, and related) and Pilea (in the nettle family, including one weed/volunteer which I think I might have in my garden) than I otherwise would have known. Kingdon (talk) 06:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image name

Is there a way to change the title on a image, I uploaded the wrong picture under the title poison-ivy (Image:PoisonIvyspring.jpg) when it should have been Aralia nudicaulis- the picture is in the taxbox of that page. or do I need to re-upload the picture under a more correct name - then how does one have the incorrect one deleted? Thanks for any help. Hardyplants (talk) 05:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Re-upload it under the correct name and drop me a note once it's done so I can delete the old version. Guettarda (talk) 06:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] A list

I think the List of species described by the Lewis and Clark Expedition needs some attention. The list of plants seems completely wrong, to put it mildly. Colchicum (talk) 10:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Maybe going back to an early version of the page will help. It seems the page was derived from sources and has accumulated "extras" along the way. Hardyplants (talk) 18:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
I would also ad that the expedition described already know plants and animals, as they were found along the coarse of travels. which is valuable because different plants "look" differently in divergent environments including from different latitudes and altitudes. Hardyplants (talk) 18:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Another list

Genus members of Senecioneae whose articles are named with the (or even a) common name

Not too many at this level :) -- carol (talk) 03:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I moved one to Petasites, moved the target of Lachanodes to Lachanodes arborea, and deleted the redirect from Lachanodes—we don't want redirects from non-monotypic genera to species. Hesperian 03:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, that was very quickly accomplished! "non-monotypic genera to species" <-- what is that in English? And any version of english from this or the last century will probably work. I suspect it means that there is only one species in the genus, but the quick translation my mind made -- it didn't translate that way. If it does mean what I suspect, shouldn't a redirection go from the genus to the species as well? -- carol (talk) 04:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, the best I can do is Pirate-Latin: "Yarrr! If a genus contains more than one species, then we ought not redirect the genus title to a species article, matey." Hesperian 04:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
That is a nice clean up -- the only fuzzy stuff is from the people who should be knowing what is going on (ie, one flora is not recognizing the genus but the herbarium does). G'day? -- carol (talk) 05:13, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
-- carol (talk) 06:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
    • Moved the species to the scientific name, but left the genus redirect because this one seems to be monotypic. Hesperian 06:41, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
All I can find that indicates that the genus is monotypic is that an online search does not provide information about any other species in the genus. And here is another question, how come in nature 'he' is always prettier than 'she' -- even here where another species from another kingdom was doing the naming?
I made a genus page for the species, but I have no problem moving that information as well as the nice photograph to the species page if it really is monotypic. -- carol (talk) 07:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Need help

Is Xanthosoma sagittifolium or Xanthosoma sagittifolia the correct name? If sources can be found, please move the article if needed. Badagnani (talk) 04:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

[8] Hesperian 04:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
Heh, so the answer was yes? -- carol (talk) 04:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
The base noun of the genus name is "soma", which is a neuter third-declension noun of Greek origin. Neuter nouns take a neuter epithet, so the -um form is correct. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:59, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] User:Brya

Some of you may remember the antics of User:Brya (now banned from the English Wikipedia) for pushing a very particular and peculiar personal viewpoint. As an alert to the botanical community here, Brya is now actively editing taxoboxes, links, and interwikis for multiple Wikipedias in other languages (e.g. French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, etc.). This has the potential to screw with the bot iw link edits here as well, so I thought I'd inform WP:PLANTS. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:10, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] "articles"

I keep coming across the term "articles" in reference to chenopod morphology; e.g. "Spreading or erect shrub to 50 cm high. Articles globular to obovoid, mostly 3–5 mm long; lobes entire. Spikes terminal, the articles circular or compressed...." It isn't the kind of term that one can Google up, as a search on "chenopod articles" turns up chenopod articles, rather than chenopod articles articles! Does anyone know what this term means? Hesperian 06:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

"articulate: jointed; usually fracturing easily at the nodes or point of articulation into segments or articles" [9] --Melburnian (talk) 07:00, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
It was similar to that in 1913:
8. (Zool.) One of the segments of an articulated appendage.
       [1913 Webster]
-- carol (talk) 09:00, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Hesperian 13:04, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] personal defaults not so good for light blue wiki areas

For more than 20 years now my personal default color choice is primer gray. I won't and perhaps can't change this, but it is being a problem (to me at least) making a not so appealing wiki area (I don't know what the name of the section is that is above the list of subcategories and pages in a category). Perhaps someone could change the color of the table that is recently located at Category:Flora of Northeastern United States or if you prefer Category:Flora of Eastern Canada, I will default to those choices instead and be grateful as well before taking on the rest of the world flora categories. Thank you. -- carol (talk) 09:00, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

The dark grey does look dreadful. I fooled around with some oceanic blue e.g. #9EC7F3, but there wasn't enough contrast with the mid grey. White is an improvement though.... Hesperian 13:12, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, the white is nicer. Thank you. -- carol (talk) 13:34, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Botany expertise needed at FPC

It seems we don't have the expertise for judging this picture. Maybe you could take a look at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Forest in Autumn. Thank you. Papa Lima Whiskey (talk) 19:54, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

I've responded there, although I'm not sure whether botany knowledge, in this case, has a whole lot to do with the matter. Kingdon (talk) 20:34, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Collaboration - shall we can it or give it another run?

OK folks, I have forgotten about this but there was relatively little action on Ginkgo biloba. Shall we give the collaboration another run (say, nomming andvoting over two weeks) or can it for the time being? No biggie either way. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:15, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I think it's worth another go. Melburnian (talk) 09:03, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
The collaboration talk page was confusing to me -- is a vote considered to be the collaboration? I attempted collaboration which is not a vote at the articles for Ginkgo biloba and Jasmine. Ginkgo biloba -- it would be kind of cool to get photographs of those four trees in Hiroshima; I was very sorry that the commons does not seem to have that yet. I found a url for the 'verification needed' suggestion there from a university instead of a journal -- I have no idea if that qualifies as a reference for the same content or as verification of the original citation. The article Jasmine annoyed me because the title should be the genus name. I expanded the taxonomy box and I think that I learned that I am either not using the citations correctly or I am using them differently. I think it is kind of cool that with the chapter attribute in the book citation, it is possible to cite different locations in books that are online and have a url that has the potential to go directly to that page. What I saw there seem to be more like references that would be printed on paper where a hyperlink is impossible. The Metcalfe reference there really 'looks' better than mine, but it doesn't do as much. The article Banana annoyed me so much that I did not click through. I would like to see the fruit article separate from the genus article and the work required to separate the different kinds of information into fruit and genus articles was much much much more difficult than it should have been in my other experiences so far.
Also, I have enjoyed this collaboration project so far, including the annoyances. -- carol (talk) 06:53, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Caro about the confusion. The vote was to work on the Ginkgo article, but the new Ginkgo biloba article was selected instead. --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, the vote was for the Ginkgo article, which was renamed Ginkgo biloba as the original page was about the species and for plants, the scientific name should be the article name, hence the move. The genus was then recreated at Ginkgo to hopefully cover more taxonomy, fossil material etc.

The idea of a collaboration is people select one or more and nominate it on the collaboration page. Then the one with the most votes is the 'winner' for a month and everyone tries to polish off that one as much as possible to get it up to Featured standard. The ones left there at the moment, like Jasmine, are the unsuccessful candidates. I leave 'em there for 3 months and maybe folks will vote for them later. For instance, if the deadline for choosing a collaboration was right now, then Eucalyptus would be the winner and official 'collaboration' for a month. Its a kinda cool way of getting everyone working on the same article. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:40, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

So, in theory, perhaps the fruit articles, which need more than one not so enabled person to split out into genus/species and fruit-and-plant parts/history/uses/cutivation-and-cultivars 'could' be the collaborative goal that month?
Like the pasting of a template that says 'this needs references' onto an article -- finding the references seems to be more productive and actually seems to fill empty brains. Anyways, I didn't vote, I tried actual collaboration; this method achieved some improvements to the articles. The following conversation about the use of the word 'ancient' seems to be more like an edit count though and on many different levels, somewhat rude. I am not a part of any edit counting dealies though, I suppose this makes me somewhat an unattractive observer of a system and not a valuable participant, but if that is so, so be it. After looking at the collaboration page though, it did seem as if voting is the best way to actually accomplish a collaboration. -- carol (talk) 04:42, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Don't be put off; you have been making valuable contributions. Also keep in mind that this is only the formal colaboration being discussed. Informal collaborations are always welcome. I find that one of the most productive collaboration runs I've had on Wikipedia happened informally and quite by chance. A great deal was accomplished, and even though the Seed article still needs a great deal of work, it is now has considerably more useful content than before the collaboration began. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:02, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Absolutely. I often find anything listed is fair game and oftentimes several articles get a bit of a spit'n'boot polish. It does take a pretty concentrated and significant effort to really work one u for GA or FAC so I guess an official collaboration is a way of channelling concentrated effort. all good. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:26, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Equisetopsida

How do we feel about adding the word "ancient" or "primordial" to a plant article as a means of providing context? I have been having a rather unhelpful conversation with User:ENeville (see User talk:EncycloPetey#Cooperative venture) over the addition of the word "ancient" to the Equisetopsida article. ENeville beleieves "ancient" adds some sort of context to the article, but I disagree because (1) it is grossly imprecise, (2) all plant classes, as well as many orders and genera are also "ancient" (Maples have been around since the Cretaceous), (3) Wikipedia frowns on "weasel words". ENeville also believes that by repeatedly adding the word back (or a synonym), that he is compromising. The entire process is slowed by the fact that he seems only to be editing when I am offline. Thoughts? Help? --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

I've responded at Talk:Equisetopsida#Ancient. Kingdon (talk) 16:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ajuga reptans

I started here Ajuga reptans, I cannot remember the reason for that. From there to Ajuga to Ajugoideae to Teucrioideae to Teucrium and lastly Teucrium fruticans. It was supposed to be a simple type species to Family edit or stub creation. GRIN listed Teucrioideae as a subfamily and UniProt put Ajuga in that subfamily but GRIN put Ajuga into the subfamily Ajugoideae and I found an old book that put it into the tribe Ajugoideae.

This account of what happened may or may not be accurate as well since it seems to be more difficult to reconstruct than it was to make the articles. It really needs a review from someone (or several) more qualified than me, perhaps, to sort through it. Thank you :) -- carol (talk) 10:16, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

The American Journal of Botany (American Journal of Botany. 2002;89:1709-1724.) states in the caption of figure 1 : Ajuga groups within subfamily Teucrioideae, but the subfamily is listed here as Ajugoideae since this name has priority over Teucrioideae (Cantino, Harley, and Wagstaff, 1992; Advances in Labiate Sciences, 27-37, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew ) [10] JoJan (talk) 12:49, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
For what it's worth (people can disagree of the division into subfamilies so a classification including both names is at least theoretically possible), the Angiosperm Family Website has Ajugoideae rather than Teucrioideae for the subfamily containing Ajuga and Teucrium. The tribe containing Ajuga is Ajugeae - calling this Ajugoideae is an error. (At least some authors included Teucrium in Ajugeae as well as Ajugoideae. Lavateraguy (talk) 13:04, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
For those among you who can consult this journal, I found also this link : Wagstaff SJ, Hickerson L, Spangler R, Reeves PA, Olmstead RG. 1998 Phylogeny in Labiatae s. l. , inferred from cpDNA sequences. Pl. Syst. Evol. 209. 265-274 JoJan (talk) 13:11, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
For an example of a paper recognising both subfamilies see Acta botánica malacitana 27: 159-187 (2002). (Unfortunately the [journal has only been online since 2004, so only the abstract is readily visible.) Lavateraguy (talk) 14:10, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Cultivar articles (again)

We're going to be generating a large amount of Bloom Clock related plant stub articles over the next few weeks (there will be more than one of us this time... I'll leave a link to the contribs pages if that would be helpful). I'd also like to start doing them for cultivars as well, but wanted to check one more time about the idea, and need some help designing the template for them (we're using User:SBJ/ps to make species articles, but we'll need a modified version for cultivars).

So here's the questions:

  1. Most cultivars from large genera (like Rhododendron, Hemerocallis, Rosa, etc.) are referred to "in the trade" as simply "Genus 'Cultivar name'". In fact, I often am unsure of the species (and for genera like Hemerocallis, cultivars are often hybrids of hybrids of chance seedlings found in gardens full of hybrids, etc.). Is it better to just use that naming convention? If a species is known as well, should there be redirects? This would not, of course, apply to varieties and formae.
  2. What should the taxobox look like for a cultivar? I.e., where do we add the cultivar name, etc.

Text I'm considering for the template would be something like this:

''[[<Genus>]]'' '<cultivar name>' is a [[cultivar]] of <Genus>, selected and grown for its <attribute>.

Not a lot of content, but at least it will have the taxobox and create a stub to grow on. --SB_Johnny | talk 15:38, 5 June 2008 (UTC)

Just a quick reply to #2: Cultivars don't receive taxoboxes but instead use {{Infobox Cultivar}}. --Rkitko (talk) 22:51, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
Sadly its not going to be nice and easy across the board, those plant groups like hosta and iris and lilies, that have many cultivars are most often groups derived from complex hybrids: so are best named "Genus 'Cultivar'" some have known parents and could be named "Genus species 'Cultivar'" and others are know hybrids and could be named "Genus x hybrid 'Cultivar'" There are a lot of misnamed plants out there in the "real world" -so documentation and references might be problematic. For cultivars the genus and the name are whats important - the species is often secondary, most gardeners don't pay attention to species and the same goes for many plant breeds and those that introduce new plants, though I would say this is changing slowly.Hardyplants (talk) 23:05, 5 June 2008 (UTC)
But keep in mind that cultivar epithets may occur multiple times within a genus. Here are a couple of examples I've previously mentioned at Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (flora):
Euphorbia 'Variegata' could be:
Euphorbia amygdaloides 'Variegata'
Euphorbia characias 'Variegata'
Euphorbia milii 'Variegata'
Euphorbia submammilaris 'Variegata'
Salvia 'Alba' could be:
Salvia farinacea 'Alba'
Salvia greggii 'Alba'
Salvia japonica 'Alba'
Salvia jurisicii 'Alba'
Salvia microphylla alba
Salvia verticillata 'Alba' Melburnian (talk) 00:34, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
The above is one of the problems when form names are converted to cultivar names Salvia farinacea form alba is more correct than calling them Salvia farinacea 'Alba'. A cultivar name like Salvia farinacea 'Victora White' is a cultivar derived from Salvia farinacea form Alba. Hardyplants (talk) 01:02, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
As I understand it "form alba" is not a formally published name (i.e. botanical epithet) and, that being the case, 'Alba' would be the correct notation.[11] Melburnian (talk) 03:52, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The question then is, what is it the correct epithet for? White flowering individuals or for a specific human propagated selection or cultivar? In one case above I would say it covers any white flowering plant while in a specific sense S. farinacea 'Victoria White' is a specific selection given a valid cultivar name. Hardyplants (talk) 04:21, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I suppose by definition alba / 'Alba' has been human-selected to enter the horticultural trade, and it would presumably have certain consistent characteristics beyond having white flowers to be sold under this (or any) particular name, as there are other differentiated white-flowered cultivars of this species in cultivation. --Melburnian (talk) 09:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I notice that I caped 'Alba' above when I meant to use a lower case "a", the case of the letter makes a distinction that I should have clarified early on. Hardyplants (talk) 04:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, terms like 'alba', 'rubra', 'atropurpurea', 'fastigiata', 'pendula', etc. are usually reserved for formae. In general modern cultivars don't use botanical latin (though older cultivars often do, see e.g. Rhododendron 'Roseum Elegans', for which I haven't found a species yet).
The cultivar infobox looks ok, but it could be improved greatly by separating genus and species to allow a standard way to link between taxa. Is that template conformed to an interwiki standard like taxobox? If not, it could use a bit of cleaning up. --SB_Johnny | talk 10:03, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Whether you trust them or not, there are people on the web assigning Rh. 'Roseum Elegans' to Rh. catawbiense. (The Hillier Manual, in contrast, says that it's a hybrid of Rh. ponticum. Lavateraguy (talk) 17:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, that's the problem in a nutshell :-). For example, when I was studying perennials years ago, we used to have Salvia x superba, which seems to have disappeared, so now old cvs like 'Mainacht' (or 'May Night') are apparently classified as S. nemorosa. Likewise I would tend to think of 'Roseum Elegans' as one of the ironclad Catawbas (certainly looks like one), but then some say it's a hybrid. --SB_Johnny | talk 01:32, 7 June 2008 (UTC)
The American Rhododendron Society call it a catawbiense hybrid. [12]. Being a hybrid, the name should be Rhododendron 'Roseum Elegans' -Melburnian (talk) 01:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Minor change to {{Infobox Cultivar}}

Going by the comments above, I modified the template so that you can either enter genus or species (if you enter a species, it will ignore genus). It could be changed to use genus and species together, but we'd need a bot to update old uses first. This will allow linking to the genus from the box in articles about hybrids or cultivars where the specific species is unknown. --SB_Johnny | talk 15:46, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh by the way: that template is not currently protected. Should I protect it? --SB_Johnny | talk 15:49, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Edelweiss

So, right now Edelweiss has one article for both the genus and what is perhaps the most famous species. I will stipulate that we want articles at Leontopodium and Leontopodium alpinum, but which one should Edelweiss redirect to (or, I suppose, is it even famous enough to have another article focusing on the cultural significance, although I don't know if this is one of those cases)? Sources seeming to point to L. alpinum: [13] [14]. Sources seeming to point to the genus: [15]. Other sources: [16]. I assume this is one of those cases where we need to take due care to consider the plant in human culture, heraldry, etc, not just botany (per Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible and all the usual caveats). Kingdon (talk) 05:53, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd say redirect to the species. It's the only one very widely known as "edelweiss", and use {{redirect}}:
"Edelweiss" redirects here. For other Leontodium species, see Leontodium.
. Circeus (talk) 07:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Looked at Rose Article...

I was over at the rose article and i noticed some weird goings on. Checkout my comments on Talk:Rose RyanTMulligan (talk) 13:18, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Category:Perennial plants and others

Hi, there. I have a question regarding the newly created category. When translating the article of Perennial plant for Korean wikipedia, I noticed that it is just categorized with Category:Plants and Category:Gardening. But I want to see related species to the plant taxonomy, so created the category with an intention to make similar categories later, such as Category:Annual plants and Category:Biennial plants. However, I'm not a native speaker of English and ignorant of Botany (well any science as well), so I don't know whether it is right one or Category:Perennial plant would be correct. In addition, I originally intended to add the new category as seeing links of "Special:WhatLinksHere/Perennial_plant", but it is much huger than I expected and almost impossible task for me (I don't own a bot). Moreover, I don't know among of which Category:Allium, Category:Alliaceae or more higher level in a plant hierarchy is suitable to have the category. If you think the category is too broad to have its value, just let me know. Any input would be appreciated. Thanks.--Appletrees (talk) 22:44, 7 June 2008 (UTC)