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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)

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)

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)

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 ) [1] 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)

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.[2] 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. [3]. Being a hybrid, the name should be Rhododendron 'Roseum Elegans' -Melburnian (talk) 01:45, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

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)

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: [4] [5]. Sources seeming to point to the genus: [6]. Other sources: [7]. 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 Leontopodium species, see Leontopodium.

. Circeus (talk) 07:02, 7 June 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the suggestion. I have done this move/split, so if anyone wants to look for loose ends look at Leontopodium and Leontopodium alpinum. Kingdon (talk) 20:51, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

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)

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)

Perennial or annual or biennial are not taxonomic groups and many families have species that have all three in them- some species even have different populations that are represented by all three.

Perennials would be the largest group, including all the woody plants like trees and shrubs, and all the fern (are there any ferns that are not perennials?) Your taking on a huge task, it would be easer to do the other groups, or limit your scope to perennial plants grown in gardens. Hardyplants (talk) 15:25, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, some plants are annuals under one condition (quite often in nature) but perennials when subjected to different conditions (such as in cultivation). The line is rather blurry and I'm not sure how useful it is. --Rkitko ^(talk) 20:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

I suppose that it would be a useful category for ornamentals, but the cat: name should reflect that fact. For that matter, it would also be a useful subcat: for food crops. Sadly, we can't reuse subcats (now wouldn't that be a good idea? "Cat:Gardening/perennials" anyone? But yeah, I know, cats are not strictly hierarchical). Guettarda (talk) 21:13, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm, all sound like I should nominate the category for WP:CFD due to the low value. I agree with all concerns that the category is too broad and blurry. However, I don't know what to do...--Appletrees (talk) 21:52, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Haven't done it myself, but I think all you need to do (in this case) is remove the category from any pages which have it, wait 4 days, and then add {{db-catempty}} to the category (this is based on WP:CFD, the part starting "If the category is empty for more than four days"). Unlike for articles, I didn't see any special procedure for the author (where there is only one) to request deletion. Kingdon (talk) 21:19, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Need some help with Centaurea

I've been looking around in the genus Centaurea and went to try to improve Centaurea moschata. What I've found is that taxonomists are now calling it Amberboa moschata (its pre-Linnaean name). I found this article:

• "Flora of North America: Centaurea".

discussing a recent rearrangement of the genus, but as I only play a botanist on Wikipedia, I'd like a little assurance that following that article (or for that matter, any other) is going to be OK. Mangoe (talk) 15:09, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

If you could give examples of articles that do this, it would help. My guess, based on what little there is hinted at in the FNA link you provided, is that: Since the genus appears to by polyphyletic, one clade has been recognized with a new generic name. However, this is only a guess, since the FNA does not explicitly meantion Amberboa or any other newly recognized genera. It sounds as though the taxonomy (and thus the nomenclature) is currently under much dispute. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:31, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit conflict] :FNA is a good source, but may be dated in some areas, I did not see were it talked about the specific species you are interested in. Amberboa moschata is not "prelinnaean", the genus name Centaurea has "problems" because the linnaean type species for the genus name is no longer placed with in the genus, so instead of changing all the centaurea names to reflect the fact that centurea was named after a species no longer belonging to the genus, there is a proposal to change the type species - so the name can be maintained for the larger group of plants.Hardyplants (talk) 15:39, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

For the record, Amberboa itself is discussed here in NFA. Circeus (talk) 18:29, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I missed that. Hardyplants (talk) 01:00, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I've seen the mentioned pages in FNA. I was hoping for a (semi-)professional evaluation of them. At the moment I'm inclined to make the page moves needed to establish Amberboa as a genus containing A. moschata; I just didn't want to make such a move without review. Mangoe (talk) 22:07, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

Dave Keil is as good an authority on Asteraceae as you can find short of someone who actually does research on Centaureinae, so I would be inclined to accept the FNA treatment.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:38, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

deletion flags

One of my favorite articles has been flagged for deletion. So far, in the template that was used, I cannot find where there is to be or is a discussion about it. Wildflowers of Soldiers Delight. At any point in my day, details of instructions and guidelines might possibly not be clear to me and this is perhaps not an exception; added to that a not good first experience with using a suggested template in a similar situation.

So, what to do here? And are the suggestions for deletion accurate? I personally found that when I read that article the first time that I felt I had a much better feeling for the area because of the list of plants that were there. When I changed the references into citations and reviewed the authoring history -- this article really did have a lot to do with the way I think an amateur encyclopedia could work at its best; reminding me of Johannes Kepler working with the stargazing logs that were kept by Tycho Brahe and in its own way, feeling "real" in a way that a published paper can fail at establishing this feeling sometimes.

If I might make this comparison, that list seemed like a pre-wiki bloom clock. -- carol (talk) 10:41, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Right - it needs a parent article detailing the area, which I can't find for a start. I will remove the PROD as it seems a bit severe. You need a book or published reference for the parent article. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:58, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

An elegant solution to a trivial problem. Thank you for the suggestion. -- carol (talk) 15:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

There has been past discussion at Talk:Wildflowers of Soldiers Delight concerning this article. The discussion seemed to focus on peripheral points, but it isn't really surprising that someone's first reaction on seeing the article might be "what is this?" Anyway, writing a parent article seems to help that situation a lot, and CarolSpears has done a fine job with Soldiers Delight. One nit: do we know what the source means by cedar? If we can believe Woody Plants of Soldiers Delight to be exhaustive, then it would be Juniperus virginiana, but I have so many scars from past cedar wars that it would be nice to avoid vagueness here. Similar comments about scrub oak; my Peterson guide says that scrub oak (in this region) means Quercus ilicifolia (also known as bear oak) but if we have a more definitive confirmation that would be great. Kingdon (talk) 22:21, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I did not look at those other lists and it is paste from the Maryland DNR. The redirection for scrub pine was a disappointment after seeing all of the options at scrub oak. That being said, a simple look at the same listing of the woody plants in the area would have been what I should have done.

The contents of that reasonably well cited article certainly does give the citation templates an extremely good workout, eh? -- carol (talk) 00:24, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

templates at the commons

I started to work with the existing taxonomy navigation template at the commons and I think that what I have there now should work easily enough. They are collecting in a category there Category:Plant Navigation Templates I started with Asterales and the templates are all the same down the hierarchy until they reach the tribes, using the existing template and requiring 'name' and 'auth'. I am kind of happy with how well things are working with what I have there now. The worst thing about the templates that I can see so far is that they do not use the words genus and species according to the convention. The templates add the taxonomy navigation and a sortable category to each gallery or subcategory they are added to. The templates do navigate via category there; an alternative navigation could be put in place for a gallery navigation -- that would be a productive option to complaining about what is there. I did not make the category navigation that exists now, so far, I have mostly just enjoyed it.

I just managed a category with them to demonstrate with here:

• commons:Category:Xylorhiza, an easy demonstration model because there are only images from one species there. Common names, synonyms, the wikispecies interwiki link and additional categories are not part of the template. I put the synonyms and common names there simply to assist for users who might be searching for the different name or the common name.
• commons:Category:Xylorhiza tortifolia the species there

I am documenting each genus with something to paste and a demonstration of how it works: commons:Category talk:Xylorhiza and at least one of the tribes I have worked with also commons:Category talk:Gnaphalieae.

The category for the templates has been organized with any template that is subfamily or 'above' with a '.' in front and the one publication template there has a '#' in front of that. This was done to keep the tribe and 'species' templates in the alphabetized listing.

The things that have slowed me down for this template making and using is the categorizing of species into my other mapping project, eg. commons:Category:Ambrosia acanthicarpa. The ease of categorization for the images there also makes mis-categorization of images easy -- my time yesterday was spent moving Washington, D.C. images out of Washington category, for instance -- I have also seen similar problems with galleries though so it is two of those and a couple of the other to me.

I really was honestly quite disappointed to go from a well written article into an image dump, and some of the galleries were just dumped lists enclosed by some gallery tags as well. It is something that I might have done if the of uploading images for my article became too cumbersome. This was an attempt to make it somewhat easy both for making logical sub-categories (and galleries) and maintaining what is there. Works for me only goes so far it seems, so I would be interested to see if this gets used by wikiplants people and then the opinions, thoughts and other ideas of improvement from those who try it.

Thank you for the tolerance and good reads -- carol (talk) 15:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

subclasses

Carol Spears has just added subclassis Asteridae to the taxobox for Asteraceae. As there isn't a generally accepted contemporary division of angiosperms into subclasses would we want to eschew specifying subclasses in flowering plant taxoboxes? Lavateraguy (talk) 18:11, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

I am certain that Carol Spears didn't do this for any other reason than the wikilink existed and the taxonomy thingie was there to be used. -- carol (talk) 18:20, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

To elaborate, since Carol has asked me what is the problem, unless the new Heywood et al has provided a division of flowering plants into subclasses, for s large proportion of flowering plants there is no agreed answer to the question which class it belongs to. (The Cronquist subclasses are inconsistent with more recent knowledge.) Asteraceae is one of the simpler cases, the only sensible options are Asteridae, Rosidae (in the sense of eudicots or core eudicots) and Magnoliidae (in the sense of euangiosperms - but I'm not sure that concept has been published.) If we include subclasses in flowering plant taxoboxes we'll end up with inconsistencies, and people committing original research. As subclass is an optional rank, and as the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group doesn't use that rank, it seems to me to be sensible to avoid using that rank in taxoboxes, until a consensus taxonomy that uses that rank appears. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:13, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

We should certainly omit subclasses on articles other than for orders, per "Other minor ranks should be omitted" at Wikipedia:Taxobox usage#Classification I would say we should omit them for orders too, just because it is a big can of worms (as Lavateraguy points out), and the benefit seems minor. We have enough trouble with the class itself. Kingdon (talk) 20:52, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

WELL, alright then. It is good to know that Asteraceae is a simple case!! -- carol (talk) 21:26, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

However, that family is only a simple case because the subclass name will come from the same root by default. There is no current system in use for which the subclasses match what we know about angiosperm phylogeny, and the systematists contributing to APG II have reservations about naming any large-scale clades as of yet. There is simply too much uncertainty about the deepest branchings. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:42, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem with infoboxes is they take what is often a complex topic, and attempt to present it in a neat, compact bundle of simple factoids. We need to be using our taxoboxes responsibly, and in this case that means not presenting taxonomic groups that are in dispute. This is also an argument against the widespread and continuing use of "Order: Magnoliopsida", which (I daresay we all agree) is a big joke, but no-one is interested in fixing the 25,000 misuses of it. Hesperian 23:45, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Since order names never end in -opsida, those should be corrected. Where have you seen Magnoliopsida listed as an order? --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:07, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm rather ignorant of higher taxonomy, but if it were ever decided in a discussion I could point to in an edit summary, I could set up BotanyBot to remove it from the taxoboxes. --Rkitko ^(talk) 00:06, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

Petey: Sorry, that should have been "Class: Magnoliopsida". The point is that Magnoliopsida is not considered a good group by any serious systematist these days, so having it gracing 25,000 of our taxoboxes is an embarrassment.

Rkitko: the discussion would need to settle on an alternative - I'm all for "Unranked: Eudicots" etc per APG-II. But the obstacle to doing it with a bot is you wouldn't want to make the change in articles on other unrecognised taxa. e.g. if a family is only recognised under the Cronquist system, then it is proper that the taxobox in the article on that family be laid out per Cronquist (if the article is to have a taxobox at all). Hesperian 13:32, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

I like "Unranked: eudicots". As for doing it with a bot, the bot would have to know which families (or, perhaps, orders) are eudicots and which are magnoliids, and which are neither (I note that Nymphaeales currently has "Class: Magnoliopsida", for example). So I'm not sure that telling the bot about non-APG-II families would make things significantly more difficult. Kingdon (talk) 03:58, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, lower case "e" is better. Hesperian 06:23, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Something a bot could do is go through all the articles with plant taxoboxes, collect the names at the various ranks and present it as a table, sorted alphabetically by rank. If we had that we could identify unwanted bits (such as subclasses in genera articles), missing bits (such as aubfamilies and/or tribes in Asteraceae), misspelt names, etc. Lavateraguy (talk) 17:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Magnoliopsida might be considered a good group, if it was either coterminous with flowerng plants (which is more conveniently considered as division/phylum Magnoliophyta or subphylum Magnoliophytina) or with magnoliids sensu APG. I think it makes reasonable sense to make the 8 principal angiosperm clades classes, and the major eudicot groups subclasses. That leaves superorder for goups like fabiids, malvids, lamiids and campanulids. Lavateraguy (talk) 17:34, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

While subclasses are usually unwanted in genus articles, they may be worth keeping in moss genus articles. The bot collection of current plant taxobox contents is a good one, though, but it would probably be most helpful if they were first sorted by Division/Phylum, and then alphabetically. Most folks here aren't familiar with current classification of non-flowering plants.

I meant alphabetically by division, then class, order, family, genus and species (and intermediate ranks) in order. That way misspelt names would, for example, stand out. Lavateraguy (talk) 23:06, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm still uncertain whether we're thinking the same thing. Are you talking about ordering the list as a hierarchy, or separate alphabetical lists for each rank? What I mean is that orders, families, and genera of ferns should be separate from lists for mosses, separate from lists for algae, separate from lists for flowering plants. That is, the first way in which the lists should be organized is by the division to which they belong. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:29, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Ordering the list as a hierarchy Lavateraguy (talk) 00:40, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as naming the angiosperm clades as classes ourselves, doing so would violate WP:NOR. We may use a published classification system, but creating one of our own would be highly inappropriate for an encyclopedia that does not permit the publication of original research. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:47, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I carefully refrained from suggesting that WikiPedia use it. Lavateraguy (talk) 23:06, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

SO! Does this mean that just because the taxonomy boxen can do something it doesn't mean that I am supposed to make it do that or what? -- carol (talk) 20:04, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Correct - as previously cited by Kingdon see Wikipedia:Taxobox usage#Classification. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:56, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

You do realize that providing that link implies that reading this here was useless? -- carol (talk) 22:06, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Species question Papaver

Is Papaver somniferum var. giganteum correct or Papaver giganteum? If the former, is there a link to a variety as an example page. If the latter, is there anyone interested in editing the really crappy article created on it? If not, let me know. --Blechnic (talk) 06:14, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

It should be Papaver somniferum var. giganteum I looked at the new page and all the info on it is incorrect- it should be deleted.Hardyplants (talk) 06:38, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Lol :). Yeah, garbage. (In fact, it's perfectly legal to grow P. somniferum, just not legal to scar and harvest). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 10:28, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I {{prod}}ded it; if there were anything worth saving, it should be added to Papaver somniferum.--Curtis Clark (talk) 12:28, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Should it be mentioned in the article that the seeds for this are to be found in most grocery stores? Learning how to harvest from one of the three main broadcasting network national news shows makes me think that it is okay-fine to mention their availability (may Peter Jennings rest in peace).... -- carol (talk) 19:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all for taking care of the issue. --Blechnic (talk) 22:30, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Page created in 2005. I don't remember the wikilink that shows where the project would like the article names to be the species name and not one of the often many common names, but when I bought those seeds, way back when, they were called breadseed poppies. The events and the study back then that lead to me finding out how common that plant was was kind of fun. To have the article named as it is seems to be very limiting both to the many uses of the flower and also to the mentality of the species: wikipedia user. I was invited recently to mention article names that should be moved on an admin talk page -- wouldn't it be more convenient for everyone to make a list somewhere so that anyone with administrative capabilities can assist? -- carol (talk) 22:47, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

This one can be split with medicinal and intoxicant information in one article thus named, and another article about the botanical plant, which is how WP plants does it at this stage. For this plant it makes sense, as the one article on drug can probably be much larger than the one on the plant, whose botany is also very well known. --Blechnic (talk) 02:06, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Chamomile soup

I am up to my Anthemis in chamomile articles right now.

1. Matricaria perforata is the type species for Tripleurospermum and the article should be named Tripleurospermum inodorum. It would be nice if that could be moved so the edit history is maintained.
2. German Chamomile and Matricaria recutita, I split them out -- taking the taxonomy box from the article about German Chamomile and leaving the Herb and Spice navigation with it. My goal was to make that article more herb oriented. I should apologize perhaps for the list of names that occurs on Matricaria recutita -- this is what I found when I started to dig for non-gardening information about the species, the sarcasm of that paragraph of names probably shouldn't stay there, but a list of names that the plant has been called might be relatively informative and entertaining. As it is right now, the finding of all of these names is still very fresh in my mind....

I think that there was more to this, but I am really in a soup of this incredibly not that exciting herb/plant articles.... -- carol (talk) 19:24, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

If Opium poppy is to be the article name for Papaver somniferum perhaps Dog-finkle is a better name for Anthemis cotula, simply because it (perhaps) has the appearance of being something that might be more interesting to read. -- carol (talk) 22:55, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd suggest moving the list of common/alternate names for Matricaria recutita into a subsection, since it's so long. Incidentally, did you see the article for Roman Chamomile? It looks like the same species; maybe you could merge the articles. As far as renaming the Anthemis cotula article, the plant article naming conventions call for using the scientific name unless the common name is "culturally significant enough". Opium poppy is fairly significant; I don't know about Dog-finkle. I would just leave it alone. :) Looks good, though. Indeterminate (talk) 23:02, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

Chamomile tea is a food and I rather like to have articles about food and scientific articles about the species and the two interlinking -- with some warnings with Roman Chamomile about how much it looks like its family members. This species has been consumed as food for centuries and has found a place in fiction and in popular culture -- the likes of which do not belong in a scientific summary of the plant (in my opinion) but make for very interesting reading about history and culture and food. When I studied the plants, on my own, before worldwide documentation occurred, this information was presented much the way I just described. If I were attempting to get the article into shape for another set of requirements, keeping the popular culture stuff and the history with the scientific stuff would be perhaps the goal-oriented move but my mind is more on a logical and good presentation since working with this family. And, this is where my mind is with this -- I admit that I haven't read plant article naming conventions yet -- the nudge is easy enough to follow.

My suggestion for Opium poppy has as much to do with putting the joy of discovery back into the darker corners of this world as it does with following any guidelines or rules. I learned so much extremely valuable information about plants when I was studying them and the moment of it 'coming together' in my studies was something that I don't want to take from the next generation and the one after that. If I had the opportunity, I would love it if I could do for the admin who are going over my articles with their fine-toothed combs what I did for the waitresses I worked with -- and that was share an eyedropper of valerian tincture in a shot of cola with them. I would have to say that out of approximately or probably 30 waitresses, only 1 had a bad experience from it. As far as testing medicinal things like this goes, I was there with her as she suffered that evening; I will never forget it and the memory of the strong waitress with the one bad reaction remains with me more than 10 years later. You can keep your opium, try the valerian.... -- carol (talk) 01:37, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, you don't have to tell me about valerian! I love the stuff. And yes, the admins could certainly use a bit. I'll have to try making tinctures, though... I've been an amateur herbalist for a few years, but I've never worked up the courage to try tinctures. I've never really studied chamomile, either, so I apologize for my mistake. I saw Anthemis nobilis on the list of names for Matricaria recutita and thought they were the same species. Feel free to disregard my suggestion for merging the articles. :)

Personally, I don't agree with the plant article naming conventions - I think the common names are much more interesting and tell a richer story than the scientific/binomial/Latin names - but I suppose I can see how it helps avoid duplicate articles. Still, if the discussion to change it ever comes up again, I'll definitely weigh in. Indeterminate (talk) 23:46, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I think that the ribs on the seeds have to be counted to determine the difference. And, I really really loved the lore; I really really did and do. It drives my motivation to split the articles out and much because the lore is not scientific! There is nothing so boring as the classification of plants by chromozone count. It should put an end to the name games though. For making tinctures, a little extra not sunlight heat was really good. The little area above the pilot light on the gas stove was excellent. Recently, I use the network gizzmo here -- that thing is really quite warm for slow cooking. Homebrew valerian is far superior to store bought and whiskey as a solvent is tastier than vodka. -- carol (talk) 00:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Could the exact location of the plant articles at Chamomile be sorted out here, please? ie. By those who know plant naming conventions on Wikipedia. Any admin moves over redirect needed can be put on WP:RM. Thanks. Carcharoth (talk) 08:58, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

List of herbaria

I've made a good start on this new list, though I have yet to add major herbaria from China, Russia, and to expand the Europe and North America lists. What is particularly exciting about the list is that the tables by continent are sortable (a feature I only recently discovered was possible). That is, you can click on the little icon at the top of any column to sort that table according to the information in that column. So if you have javascript enabled, although the tables are organized by herbarium size, you can reorder the list alphabetically by name of institution, by country, or by code abbreviation to help find the information you're looking for. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:10, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Question

Does anyone else think this is seriously dodgy? Hesperian 07:27, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Is it needed? -I think not! A clear case of the solution doing more harm than the problem it is supposedly correcting. I have a hard enough time putting " " around names, not going to add all that extra notations too. Hardyplants (talk) 08:12, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

That template appears to be for quoted text from other languages, for the purposes of screen-readers and such. As scientific names are still considered English (right?), and those names are hardly pure, quoted Latin, it seems like an obvious (though well-intentioned) misuse. JohnnyMrNinja 08:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm discussing this on Rjwilmsi's talk page now. My view is summed up in the question "A scientific name published by an English-speaking person in an English-language journal, derived from a Greek root, and used by all botanists irrespective of their native language and the language in which they are writing, qualifies as Latin how?" Hesperian 11:49, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

There's a moderately long discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Language tags (the short summary of which is that there is no consensus). The tags might be used by search engines (although no one speaking up there is too sure, and I'm not how useful this could ever be to search engines) and by screen readers (which strikes me as a more persuasive reason). As for what language to tag them as, classical Latin versus New Latin is definitely a can of worms (if we are doing this for screen readers, that distinction would affect screen readers), but scientific names do correspond to the orthography of Latin, not of Greek, English, etc. I agree with your sense of horror, in terms of how much work this would be and how cluttered the pages would look if we did. But it might be one of those things where it is best to ignore it and hope it blows over (or a simpler solution eventually emerges, if there is any real problem here). Incidentally, it isn't just a wikipedia issue; the "lang" attribute in HTML (which this template expands to) has been standardized for a while and sometimes used (although I've always been a bit skeptical). Kingdon (talk) 14:33, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, We don't consider scientific names of species as "Latin" words on Wiktionary. The components are Latin, but the overall species name is considered "translingual" (cross-lingual) rather than belonging to a single language. They do often turn up in English text, and in the text of many other languages, and yes, they are italicized by convention, but that doesn't make them "Latin" words. They're in "Botanical Latin", if anything, which is not a complete language and needs no language formatting tags any more than computer languages do. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:10, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

::Rjwilmsi states on his talk page what it accurately says about Latin and scientific names, that all words are treated as Latin for purposes of grammar, to which I point out that, "treated as Latin for grammatical purposes" is not equivalent to "is Latin language," the edit should simply be reverted to not establish a precedent of make-work that is not supported by any evidence and will lead to wheel spinning, I believe it is called.[8] In addition, in his/her edit summary of the edit in question, he/she states it is to prevent spelling corrections. I have never seen the Latin name of a plant accidently spelling corrected on Wikipedia. I suspect the spelling patrol of being among the smartest and sanest on Wikipedia. It's not a problem, don't install a system based on a faulty assumption (that treating it grammatically for number and gender makes it Latin) to prevent what isn't happening. --Blechnic (talk) 19:20, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

"Treated as Latin for purposes of grammar"? That's flatly untrue. If it were, then it would be inflected to the accusative when the name appears as a direct oject, and would appear in the genitive or dative when used with certain prepositions. Species names are used invariantly as proper nouns when they appear in English texts, just as names of famous Roman rulers or writers. To say they are "Latin for purposes of grammar" is both misleading and wrong. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:58, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Maybe some perspective: I first encountered him when he used AutoWikiBrowser to change Cornus florida to Cornus Florida; evidently AWB though the US State had been improperly capitalized. I pointed this out to him, and he tagged it as Latin.--Curtis Clark (talk) 00:15, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

My reading of the edit summary was that he was adding the tags to make it easier to (semi-)automated spelling corrections. Ref tags make for horrible editing, but they're a necessary evil. In this case, the cost outweighs the benefits. Guettarda (talk) 00:26, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

As for using the rationale: "for accessibility purposes: screen readers need language info to provide correctly audio output" - no, we don't pronounce scientific names as if they were Latin. Think about the way you pronounce Pinus. Guettarda (talk) 00:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

['pinus], PEE-noose, just like everybody, right? --Curtis Clark (talk) 00:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Yep. I came across a story of a professor in the department where I once was who insisted on this pronunciation, much to the discomfort of his students. I'm really not certain who it was, but based on what I've read about him, I suspect it was this guy. Guettarda (talk) 01:17, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Ficus aurea

This plant article has been nominated for good article status. This would be a good time to include an image, add references, and improve the prose to help the article along the way. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:02, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

A quick image search and all I found is Image:Ficus aurea.JPG. I don't know what I am looking for though. I do know the category is a mess and this species does not seem to have a gallery for it. -- carol (talk) 20:13, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, that one's in the article already. I just don't think it's the best pic for the taxobox - it has no leaf detail or anything, it could really be any strangler. Guettarda (talk) 20:26, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I found one, uploaded it -- it is only a little nicer than the other for the purpose. The table needed some love also. My question now is if that image should get some rotation -- I am not certain it will improve it so much as it will lose information which it doesn't have a whole bunch of anyways. -- carol (talk) 20:46, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I've just uploaded three images to the Commons:Category:Ficus aurea. Hope it helps. JoJan (talk) 21:05, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

Yet another ID request: New Mexico mountain shrub

Would anyone care to identify this shrub or small tree: and ? Seen in southern Rio Arriba County—the altitude must be something like 8000 feet, in mixed conifers. I feel like I've gone through all the species at the PLANTS database for the shrubs and trees of Rio Arriba, but I'm probably missing something easy. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 03:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

It appears to be Jamesia americana, which isn't recorded for Rio Arriba on the PLANTS database, but is recorded for adjoining counties. Melburnian (talk) 11:20, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! In time for me to calmly identify it to the people on the birdwatching trip I'm leading tomorrow. (And I'll make sure that area is in Rio Arriba before I e-mail the PLANTS people.) —JerryFriedman (Talk) 02:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Urtica aestuans

I would like to start an article on this plant as it appears to be the natural host of a major crop plant virus. I am confused by the nomenclature in IPNI. Can someone tell me what the correct title for the article should be? --Blechnic (talk) 04:09, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Urtica aestuans is a synonym of the West Indian woodnettle (Laportea aestuans) (L.) Chew (accepted name) USDA GRIN and ITIS and Calflora. JoJan (talk) 04:59, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Flora of North America (here) also calls it Laportea aestuans. Kingdon (talk) 05:48, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I was impatient to start so guessed at Laportea. I added Urtica as a synonym, added the common name, and made both these redirects. --Blechnic (talk) 06:32, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Chamomile

German Chamomile and Roman Chamomile are at their (somewhat oddly-capitalised) common names. Other chamomiles are at their species name. I'd suggest we make these consistent. Since many of these have numerous common names, species name seems best. Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 09:06, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

It's already our naming policy. Circeus (talk) 14:58, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Weel, then, just have to find someone to move 'em, then =) Shoemaker's Holiday (talk) 16:02, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Roman chamomile can just be moved, but due to the controversy surrounding Carol Spears' edits of the German chamomile I've proposed its move formally in the controversial moves section, so no one can start banning editors for moving it. Please note the discussion on its discussion page and agree with its move, then propose Roman chamomile for non-controversial move over redirect by admin, or ask Rkitko or some other plant admin to do it. --Blechnic (talk) 19:52, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I fixed the Roman Chamomile one. The redirect that was impeding the move only had minor history (two edits) so I deleted it per Wikipedia:Moving guidelines for administrators. The page might need tidying up at its new location though, and the other move still needs people to say something over there. Carcharoth (talk) 21:49, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

And the German chamomile has been fixed, also. --Blechnic (talk) 03:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

A primrose problem

I'm having difficulties figuring out the correct name of a plant. Some sources show it as Oenothera berlandieri, others as Oenothera speciosa 'Siskiyou'. Anyone have an idea of which is correct? --SB_Johnny | ^talk 10:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

For the record, the full alternative treatment is, more specifically, Oenanthera speciosa var. berlandieri (Spach) Munz e.g. [9]. There may be some useful details here and here. Circeus (talk) 16:16, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks :-). I don't have access to jstor, but you're saying that's what it says there? (I usually try to use the PLANTS database, but couldn't make heads or tails of it in this case). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 18:20, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

No. I don't ahve access to JSTOR anymore (;__;). I'm saying there might be discussion of it in those papers. Circeus (talk) 04:01, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Request review of Sesame article

Please would an expert review the Sesame article. I'm not a plant expert, I am a home chef reading up on sesame. I've put a dispute in the "Origins" section for the following reasons:

1. I find it unlikely that the sesame plants were developed in Leeds, England yet also have been found in Egyptian toombs
2. The plant can either grow to 2-3 feet tall or 7 feet tall. If there are several varieties, it should be specifically noted.
3. I find it difficult to believe that a book written in 2000 contains results of a study commissioned in 2006.

I'd fix it, but I don't know right from wrong on this topic.--Paul McDonald (talk) 18:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

It was unreverted vandalism from late May. I've fixed it.--Curtis Clark (talk) 20:30, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Name game Euryops chrysanthemoides

Can someone confirm the name choice for this article, it seems like Euryops chrysanthemoides should be the current name, rather than Gamolepis chrysanthemoides. Thanks. --Blechnic (talk) 01:49, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree, although from a brief perusal it would seem that one could make a case for either name.--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

For what it is worth (probably not a whole lot), PLANTS and ITIS call it Euryops chrysanthemoides. Kingdon (talk) 03:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Okay. I try to find African plants in the French or South African data bases, but I don't have access this week. I'll leave it, until some expert comes along. Thanks for the copyedits, Kingdon. It was a sloppy copy and paste. --Blechnic (talk) 03:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

CarolSpears' contribution

Speaking of copy and paste, if the consensus is to delete all of CarolSpears' new article contributions, this may take away some useful work, namely writing the taxoboxes at least for the plant articles. This does not seem necessary. Would it not be better to delete most of the text and leave the taxoboxes and stub materials? I posted a list on the RFC talk page of the articles she created, and I've crossed out some that are just stubs and should not, imo, be deleted for the text is too limited and neutral. Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/CarolSpears --Blechnic (talk) 03:50, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't fully understand the RfC process, so between that and not knowing what to say about the larger situation, I guess I won't try to weigh in on what kind of response, in general, is called for. I agree that it would be nice to salvage what can be salvaged. The lists of sources are more interesting to me than the taxoboxes, although I guess the latter also have interesting pieces like lists of species in a genus. Kingdon (talk) 05:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I thought of this, also, the sources might be more important and more work to duplicate than the taxoboxes. The taxoboxes and sources ought to be saved. I hate making taxoboxes. I don't know anything about the RfC process except it looks like it's used to hammer down on editors who irritate established editors. Some of the recipients appear to have spent a lot of time doing harm, but having been bashed on Wikipedia since day 1, I won't participate. --Blechnic (talk) 07:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there a bot that can do this? It requires leaving just the markup (taxobox and references) and from the References section on down:

• Senecio johnstonii to --> Talk:Senecio johnstonii/Temp

--Blechnic (talk) 07:24, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much for looking things over, cleaning up the "plantin" (plant latin....) and coming to a conclusion similar to the one I started with. I have actually been concerned that some of my non-original rewording of material I referenced might reword itself into the original text that was uncited in the text I had faithfully referenced. It is like the million monkeys typing Hamlet problem but with the plants, the language is limited enough that the statistics for that to actually occur change significantly enough -- the probability goes way up for that. Well, probably it does, I had a difficult time sitting through statistics and this is one of the reasons I did not graduate from college.

I am also regretting the times that I typed thank you at other places in this instance of a wiki and did not mean it because I mean it this time for certain. -- carol (talk) 08:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The rationale for deleting an article with copyvio is that even if the text is deleted, replaced, or refactored, the original copyvio remains in the page history. It is an extreme measure. I have simply reverted cases as bad as, or worse than, the worst attributed to Carol, and a lot of the examples cited aren't really copyvio (the amount used would fall under US Fair Use laws, just like many of the images on en:wikipedia) but rather plagiarism. IMO a blanket deletion of the articles she created is an insane overreaction. (Please note for the purposes of NPA that I am not accusing any editor of being insane, but rather that the overreaction lacks sanity.)--Curtis Clark (talk) 12:51, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Some of the articles have already been expanded since then and are not copyvio anymore. Be careful. Colchicum (talk) 13:01, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, in my opinion, they should simply be rewritten, particularly since the plagiarism/copyvio is generally well sourced. But this would require they be done by hand, by plant editors. My botany is good enough to rewrite some of them, but there are an awful lot--see my list of just the newly created articles that need rewritten on the RFC talk page. By the way, the small Senecio stubs don't need rewritten, but I checked one on its taxonomy and it didn't agree with the source. Is there anyone who can check just the small Senecio articles that point to a prior genus name, and confirm these name changes? --Blechnic (talk) 15:58, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Cushion plants

I started the article that others are writing about cushion plants. I know almost nothing about them, except that they contribute disproportionately to sub-Antarctic island ecosystems. I did hear that in California there is a species, or there are some species, that send out buds before the snow melts, then put up huge flowers fast, or they start their growth one season, putting out buds, then flower the next season, or something that would make a good DYK catch. Can anyone provide this information? I find it outside my abilities to search for this information. --Blechnic (talk) 04:56, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

At the risk of stating the obvious, the article is Cushion plant. I did a bit of searching for your California thing but I just found some stuff you already knew (such as Colobanthus as an example of a cushion plant), some non-cushion plants which flower when the leaves are covered in the snow (Caltha introloba from Australia, and I think Erythronium grandiflorum from California), and other assorted distractions. Kingdon (talk) 06:07, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Creeping zinnia

Should probably be moved to Sanvitalia and checked for plagiarism and plantin problems. -- carol (talk) 08:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

This looks OK now, thanks to Shoemaker's Holiday (talk · contribs) and Melburnian (talk · contribs). Kingdon (talk) 15:17, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Bloom clock solstice update

The Wikiversity Bloom Clock has continued to grow over the past months, with well over 700 plant profiles and data collected from 3 continents and several regions. The vast majority of the data is still coming from the Northeastern U.S.

Wikiversity

Wikiversity's Bloom Clock has collected data for Erythronium americanum, from late winter to early spring

The big news is that we're starting to come up with "global-temperate seasons" for plants logged in temerate zones (temperate here meaning regions where it gets below the freezing pint in the winter). These are done using DynamicPageList-assisted comparisons of regional data (see, for example, this comparison, which will lead us to key "Hampshire/May" plants to "Global/Temperate/Mid Spring"). As we are able to match more regions to the global keys, we will start using a modified version of {{wikiversity-bc}} to report this data on the Wikipedia articles (yes, it's OR, but it's only to be found in the interwiki template... scholarly review probably won't happen for a few years, and would take a few years to do in any case).

We are of course looking for new loggers (though please be careful, since it's been reported to be addictive), especially from regions with different climates. We also need some help from knowledgeable "plant people" to help further develop the keys, since while it's nice to have so many plants to compare, we're rapidly creating a backlog when it comes to "narrowing things down" so that we don't end up with 100 pages on a key (unless someone wants to look at all 100 and/or doesn't have enough data to drill down). Missing data is tracked through categories... see v:Bloom Clock/Maintenance, or just drop me a note on my WV talk. Also, anyone with both a knowledge of plants and who understands templates would be most welcome, since more regions mean more alterations and creations of the templates.

Finally, over the next few weeks we'll be working on mirroring the bloom clock to the Czech Wikiversity, with a hub on beta.wikiversity to coordinate forks among all the languages. Data will continue to be shared between the projects, but the descriptions will be in the local languages. We especially hope to get this going in Spanish, since data from southern South America should be enlightening. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 09:40, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

This is odd

See Galium aparine, under the edibility section. Are those supposed to be footnotes?

I don't have time to look into it, but if anyone contacts the contributors in question, lease mention that they can do OR on Wikiversity (see Wikiversity:What shall we do with Wikipedia? for details. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 10:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I've redone that section with a citation to Mabey, and moved the discussion ("footnotes") to the talk page. Someone might like to tweak the page formatting so that the references are listed with numbers. Lavateraguy (talk) 11:04, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

Well, it is likely that it will be difficult to write plant articles avoiding some sort of copyvio or plagiarism. Therefore I suggest to consider the idea of creating our own standard templates not only for taxonomy and conservation status, but also for morphology, distribution, habitats, uses and so on, because the implicit templates are the only things that are really original in botanical descriptions and can be copyrighted, the rest is fairly standard. Sorry if I don't explain this clear enough, I don't mean templates in the technical sense (like the taxoboxes), I mean just an implicit pattern of text structure, sort of questionnaire and standard answer options (leaf arrangement: alternate, opposite etc., inflorescence: spike, umbel etc.). If it is created by Wikipedians rather than borrowed from the sources in each particular case, it will be licensed under the GFDL. Colchicum (talk) 13:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

That's actually what the bloom clock templates do now (see v:Template:Bloom clock plant bottom... you'll need to know a bit of parser code to understand its full use), though they just add categories for machines to read, rather than text for people to read. The "stub creator" a couple of us have been using (User:SBJ/ps) actually runs off of fields in the profile templates, converting them at least in part to text for Wikipedia articles. It should be fairly to create a template that takes the entire bloom clock bottom template and creates a "physical description" section (including header), by just using the input on that template to create text (the template would be used with subst, so the only thing that would appear in the edit would be the descriptive text). Might be a good way to organize plant-descriptive input in both places, generating more than one dead bird at a time :-). --SB_Johnny | ^talk 14:11, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I am writing this now because of the little laugh I just had and not too much more than that. The reason that it is a wiki is that it is easy for human beings to edit it. There are actually tons of software that create html that don't need to reach through the wiki generated html framework that is there to make it easy for humans to edit and add to html pages.... -- carol (talk) 06:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I am trying to grow a Yellowwood tree from a seed and so naturally turned to the internet for information. I found this article http://www.plantzafrica.com/plantnop/podocarplati.htm which is far far richer than the one Wikipedia has. I would like to 'get involved' with Wikipedia in such situations by contributing research such as this to enrich articles. How do I go about it without copyvio? I am also afraid of editing articles and then having my work deleted (1) without explanation from the person deleting it (2) because the person deleting it has different information and we disagree about whose information is right and whose is wrong, etc. Jkjambsj (talk) 05:53, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

New articles by Carol Spears

Can WP:Plant editors ask Carol Spears to not create any new articles at least until all are checked? It's tedious and non-rewarding work, when I personally would rather be creating new articles in my area, but was willing to deal with this problem. [10] Now I feel that I've been had, thoroughly, because I was willing to do the grudge work to save some of these articles. Oh, the taxonomy on the ones I've checked has not been verifiable or has not been in the referenced sources. I'm sorry plant folks think hundreds of potentially inaccurate articles are valuable. --Blechnic (talk) 08:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Sanvitalia procumbens is an example of a type species stub. I was extremely careful to not include any information which could possibly be interpretted, perceived or evaluated as plagiarism. I have "throttled" the creation of new articles by being certain that all of the whole genus have their image instances categorically sorted for taxonomy and native location at the commons. It should not be difficult to proof the less than 30 words there for plagiarism, which is what editors are supposed to be looking for -- unless there are things I am not being told. If the latter is the case, perhaps I should be told what those things are. -- carol (talk) 08:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I am not adding content to any articles -- only auth initials, taxonomy things like type species and the occasional request for a citation in articles where none has occurred before. I have noticed that much of the 'checking' of my articles which is occuring and the "cleaning" that is happening is to strip text which was online in other languages -- I find it really difficult to figure out what is plagiarism from a translation of an Italian web sites content. It is perhaps a limitation in my experience and an experience and understanding which the reviewing editors know of but cannot articulate. I suggest that the best way to streamline the review process is to await for the lawyers which the offended parties will have paid to review the text instead of having qualified botanists review things for imaginary lawyers. I am from a life which is short on funding and long on regulations and restrictions though -- it might not be that efficient of a method in the long run. Most content which I have seen undergo a copyright problem online; the removal of the content when requested by the owners of the content seems to be all that is required to to satisfy the parties (people or groups) who are actually legally offended.

Then don't use Italian websites. If you don't know how to use it without plagiarizing, don't use it. It's that simple. Plagiarism is not so hard to grasp, when you're dedicated to not claiming others' work as your own. You'll gain experience in not plagiarizing by not plagiarizing.

If you want to discuss lawyers, take it to a lawyer. --Blechnic (talk) 15:04, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I would also like to add that I have checked in here on several occasions and asked for a review of what I had been doing and was given messages like "you are doing good work" and similar. I promise to only make genus and type species articles which contain no content. I have, since the block and since the inquest started, found one species which did not exist in any of the databases but was included in the genera list of species -- I think that this kind of editing is not bad(?). -- carol (talk) 08:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Why don't you stop making any new articles while others are cleaning up the mess you already made? This way, a point can be reached where people can say, "all of Carol Spears' articles have been checked. If you continue to make them, that point cannot be reached. This is simple. --Blechnic (talk) 15:04, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Rosinweed to Silphium (genus)

Can the article Rosinweed be moved to Silphium (genus)? The Edit history claims that there is only one author for that namespace.

I moved the article to Silphium (genus) which was a redirect (I removed your link above as it now points to the moved page with its multiple edits). Melburnian (talk) 06:09, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Also, since it happened to me, where a file was moved and the edit history may or may not have been checked -- and then I requested the same sort of move without reviewing the edit history.... It hurt when my edit history was deleted and also because of the people involved with its deletion. So, if the same hurt was felt by anyone who had been involved with Creeping zinnia and Sanvitalia the same way, I really apologize -- the edit history should be looked at before deletion and I didn't do this. -- carol (talk) 11:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

That one was also just moved over a redirect so no content was lost. --Melburnian (talk) 06:09, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the move and I am going to believe you about the other move. I don't mind if these moves wait a few days so that people who lurk the Plants project page can (if they are being blocked for not very good reason or even if for good reasons) can have a chance to say where it can be read: "Please look in the edit history before you delete it!" -- carol (talk) 07:01, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

C-class

For those that assess articles, you might be interested in the discussion over at Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. They're implementing a new class between Start and B. The bot that takes care of updating our assessment counts will be able to recognize this new class. I haven't sifted through all the information over at the page, but I suppose the question is, should we adopt this new class rating? --Rkitko ^(talk) 02:19, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I have never seen an article where I would hesitate between Start- and B-class (Stub and start, now that tends to be thorny), and I voted very much against the implementation. I thought it had clearly no consensus, too. Circeus (talk) 03:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent about the issue. While I can certainly understand and agree with Circeus, I also feel that what constitutes a "B" article is a very, very large range of quality. I think the "B" range is significantly larger than any other, so there is room in "quality-space" to accomodate another category. --EncycloPetey (talk) 11:03, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that no formal attempt was made at defining the precise difference between C and B. All we know is that "B" is now "B" and "C". It's not even listed yet at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment. Until the assessment has been formally defined enough to be of actual use, I staunchly oppose its use in our articles. Besides, we have much, much more stub (24k) and start-class (2k) articles than B ones (370~), so it's not like we have much use for it. Circeus (talk) 12:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

There is work underway to write a definition and a bunch of other things (see Wikipedia talk:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment#Implementation of the new C-Class). As you point out, plants have even less need for this than some projects apparently do, so there's no rush. Kingdon (talk) 14:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Aloe vera

Hi All -

I've been rewriting and referencing large pieces of the Aloe vera article with a view to moving it towards good article status. Given the widespread use of the species it's probably the Aloe article of most importance. I'd appreciate any proof-reading or contributions towards bettering the article. Cheers MidgleyDJ (talk) 03:44, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, first the direct link to the page, to make it easier for people to take a look: Aloe vera. Looks like you've done a lot of good work. I'll follow up on Talk:Aloe vera with a few more specific suggestions. Kingdon (talk) 04:13, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

confusing text vs single sourced information vs allegations of plagiarism and Botany Intelligence Quotient measurements

Can I hear from the world of botany how exactly a "this is confusing template" is also a "this is plagiarism" and a suggestion of how to manage areas of the science which have limited sources.

Also, perhaps I am in need of taking a taxonomy IQ test (a BIQ!!), and I wonder if there is one that is available (elsewhere, of course) so I might get a handle on how much I have learned and how much is left to learn. -- carol (talk) 08:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I think what you are looking for is a Botanical Experience Quotient (BEQ, which is also Bachelor Enlisted Quarters). Even very intelligent people can make blunders in botany, by assuming what they know of other subjects is equally operational there, and people of modest intelligence can do well through experience.--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:53, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 1663 articles assigned to this project, or 5.9%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 18 June 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 12:08, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Rosidae/rosids etc

The higher levels of (eu)dicot systematics need to be straightened out; presently the information is strewn about and most articles are stubs. How about merging Rosidae and rosids? Under which name doesn't matter fron this user's POV; arguably "rosids" are better under the "if there's an unequivocal common name, use it" stance, while Rosidae would avoid taxobox problems.

For most of those who'll stick to ranked taxa will simply use APG II rosids -> subclass Rosidae ("most" because there'll always be researchers who against evidence to the contrary want to promote their private taxonomies). It is unproblematic, the changes are minor. And since Wikipedia uses ranks, "our" Rosidae ought to be = APG II rosids.

Same for Asteridae and asterids.

It would be better, because all these articles are presently stubs (though they are not marked so, there is hardly any content except a list of taxa contained) and it is not likely that this is gonna change anytime. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 14:51, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Making Rosidae = APG II rosids, like making Rosopsida = APG eudicots, would be original research. Both are sensible taxa to include in a ranked classification, but we're not supposed to generate one ourselves. (I've checked the new Heywood and it, apart from some arbitrary differences from APG II, doesn't use supraordinal ranks either.)

So unless you think the policy of don't let the rules stop you doing the right thing applies (and you can achieve a consensus in support) ... Lavateraguy (talk) 15:20, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

The original research problem is there whether we have merged or non-merged articles (the current, separate articles make assertions about the relationship between APG rosids and Cronquist Rosidae). Kingdon (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree that an observation that most of Cronquist's Rosidae fall into the rosid clade, or an outline of those Cronquist taxa which fall into the rosid clade, rise to the level of original research. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:43, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm not too worried about the current wording either, but think we can find a wording on a combined article which makes the distinction sufficiently well. A redirect doesn't imply synonymy any more than having Pepys Diary redirect to Samuel Pepys means that those two things are the same. Kingdon (talk) 17:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Now that we have the clade name Rosidae published we can either have Rosidae (ICBN) and Rosidae (Phylocode), or one article covering two concepts. rosids would redirect to wherever we describe the latter. Lavateraguy (talk) 18:05, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I would definitely favor the one-article approach, for the folowing reasons:

• I never would propose "Making Rosidae = APG II rosids" or such; this is indeed OR. But I think articles should not be about words (we have Wiktionary for that) but about concepts. And the concept is pretty clear here: almost all (post-Darwinian) authors have suspected that there are two major lineages of eudicots, and accordingly they have attempted to circumscribe them. Basically, one lineage with fused and one with free petals (there are exceptions, but that's the basic layout). No matter what you call them, the idea stays the same; the concept, though delimitation has varied, is still valid (unlike tertiates or such)
• The present situation is bad. Very very bad. Information pertaining or relevant to a single concept is dispersed among several stub-like articles.
• So I suggest a merger along the lines of articles like Soul: therein, the evolution of a particular idea is traced. And the situation here is wonderfully suited for this too: to show how the monophyly or "naturalness" of these groups was long suspected, and how different authors disagreed about the details and internal structure, culminating (as of now) in the APG II+ (APG II and subsequent adjustments).
• For the scientifically-minded reader, this will do away with the mess we have at present (I can never remember where to find which information on those higher-level clades; information I need for writing about the systematic and taxonomic history of Malpighiales for example is just strewn about in any case). For the non-scientifically minded reader, this will present an interesting story in a compact version.
• So I think the articles ought to be merged - at least until they have grown to 5 times the present length or so! I am generally wary of tables due to layout issues, but I made one in "Corvida" to contrast an obsolete and a current systematic understanding, and a similar approach can be used here to contrast major systems of plant taxonomy (irrespective if one perceives them as obsolete or not).

Actually, I discovered a major publication this week that formally defines several of the better-suppoerted tracheophyte clades and defines them under the new PhyloCode. The authors do not assign a rank to any of the names they've tackled, but the authors include several APGII participants. One catch: the print version is a shorter summary; the electonic edition of the journal has a version that is nearly twice as long as is the preferred version to use. The article is:

• Philip D. Cantino, James A. Doyle, Sean W. Graham, Walter S. Judd, Richard G. Olmstead, Douglas E. Soltis, Pamela S. Soltis, & Michael J. Donoghue (2007) "Towards a phylogenetic nomenclature of Tracheophyta". Taxon 56 (3): E1-E44. (The "E" indictaes electronic version")

The paper is so significant, I printed out a copy for use at home. It includes crown-group definitions, apomorphy-based definitions, and total-clade definitions for the major clades that are well-supported by published studies, including Isoetopsida, Monilophyta, Leptosporangiatae, Angiospermae, Magnoliidae, Monocotyledoneae, Eudicotyledoneae, Caryophyllales, Rosidae, Asteridae, and many others.

With this paper, we can avoid the pitfall of WP:OR in defining some of the key high-level clades in the flowering plants. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:56, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I would support a merge (probably according to the Cantino et al paper nomenclature, as Taxon is pretty much the gold standard and the authors seem to be active in this field, although the caveat is to be cautious about anything new). Moving some of the information to a History section (as in, say, Monera or Angiosperm) might be a good way to organize material which is not currently used in systematic papers (although Cronquist and the like are currently used in other contexts like organizing species lists, herbaria, etc). As for whether the rosid/asterid articles are destined to permanently remain stubs, if that is so, I suppose the whole thing could be merged into eudicot but I'm not sure whether I'd go quite that far (depends, perhaps, on whether there is much to say about the biology/botany of one group which is cleanly separable from the others). Kingdon (talk) 16:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

The Rosid and Asterid articles wouldn't have to remain stubs. There is significant information available, such as good synapomorphies and many published phylogenies specific to these groups. Both pages would be good places to have a nice section showing the high-level phylogeny of included taxa. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:26, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I've seen (the electronic version of) that paper. It doesn't justify us using a subclass Rosidae. If people are happy with unranked clade entries between class and order in the taxobox, then OK this paper gives us proper names to use. We do have the issue, which wanders in the direction of original research, of deciding which ones to use - between Magnoliophyta and Malvales we have Mesangiospermae (euangiosperms), Eudicotyledoneae/Tricolpatae (eudicots), Gunneridae, Pentapetaleae (core eudicots), Rosidae (rosids), and Malvidae (malvids, eurosids II). For regular taxa we have a rule of thumb we boils down to omit optional ranks from the upper parts of the taxobox, but that isn't applicable here. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:43, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

As I see it, there are two separate questions here: (1) Which clades are worth having articles for, and (2) Which groups should be listed in the taxobox of progressively narrower subgroups.

(1) is easy - "all those that correspond to ranked taxa". Because the number of ranks are limited, scientists have always been careful not to squander them needlessly. So whatever has gotten a Linnean taxon is Notable for some aspect or another. Whereas as soon as you have 2 taxa, you have at least 1 clade, but the clade may not be Notable. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 14:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

I assume you're more concerned about the second question. Since this is going to affect a very large number of taxoboxes (most angiosperms), is it possible to consider working a change in the taxobox template itself? Namely, to permit something like "nonclasis" (not class), which would display in the position of clasis, but display (unranked)? If we could have "nonclasis" and "nonsubclasis", would that allow us to select two significant groups to use on the subgroups? This approach is not without serious problems, but is it workable? --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:06, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Correct. If every species is notable, then arguably every published taxon is. I wasn't so worried about the mechanics, but perhaps I'm mistaken about the capabilities of taxoboxes. Oh, and add question (3) Can we answer question (2) without committinh original research? We've already had disputes about standardising on APG, and that scarely flirts with original research? Lavateraguy (talk) 18:03, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

An unranked_classis parameter exists, see for example [11]. As for unranked_subclassis, we could perhaps (ab)use unranked_ordo (which is above order) for that (they are unranked after all....). Or maybe it would be better to change the template to add unranked_subclassis. This would just affect articles for orders; family and below would go from phylum to unranked_classis (eudicot) to order without intermediate steps (at least, that's the choice I'd make). Kingdon (talk) 17:51, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I've revised Rosidae to include the Phylocode sense. (The reference needs cleaning up by someone whose on top of citation mechanics.) If people are happy we the new version a merge of rosids can be proposed Lavateraguy (talk) 18:37, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I can take care of formatting the citation. --EncycloPetey (talk) 18:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

We also need a bit of tweaking there and/or elsewhere to make Rosa cinnamonea link to the right place. Lavateraguy (talk) 18:50, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

The problem is: the current taxobox is completely incompatible with the PhyloCode and the rationale behind it.

Re OR - I am not sure how/if this is defined in the ICBN (that's why I asked). We don't have it in zoology, but does the ICBN extend beyond families? Because then the OR point might be relatively moot (depending on how botanists deal with such matters these days) -

if the ICBN applies its type concept at subclass rank and if botanical SOP is (as is in zoology) to strive for monophyly of taxa, then the ICBN Roside are as regards their circumscription = APG II rosids (or whatever post-APG system you like)

My rationale is that there could well be just a single place to discuss the clade of "true" rosids, which as of now seems to be well and stably delimited. Taxonomic details ("contains the genus Rosa" vs the PhyloCode definition etc) and a discussion of the classificational history, what was moved in and what was moved out and by whom and why, could be the main content of such an article. So eventually the article would outline the history of how the rosids were recognized as an evolutionary lineage, and what characterizes them.

Essentially, make the article more about the clade than about the label that gets pinned to it, while respecting all the different labels that have been pinned to it.

(From zoological experience, I would advise Wikipedia to be "actively neutral" in the ICxN vs PhyloCode issue. Bluntly, both suck for different reasons: neither is there such a limited number of evolutionary levels or things like "Reptilia", nor does evolution produce a neat tree of lineages that have no population size, no geographic distribution and bifurcate in no time. doi:10.1080/10635150600960061 ought to be mandatory reading for anyone interested in this matter.) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 13:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Mmmmm, canis soup. -- carol (talk) 13:25, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Elegant point in case, thanks! Also very well written and readable. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 15:06, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Well I agree with "Essentially, make the article more about the clade than about the label that gets pinned to it". Writing, as you suggest, about the nomenclature/classification stuff as the bulk of the article might be a good first step, although ultimately we'd want information about synapomorphies, the biology of this group, etc (which is the point of coming up with such names/concepts in the first place). (P.S. I don't think types apply above the rank of family in the ICBN, but I'd have to research it to be sure). Kingdon (talk) 15:30, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Names of taxa above the rank of family are giverned by sections 16 and 17 of the ICBN. When the name is based on an included taxon, the name is "automatically typified"; when the name is descriptive, typification does not seem to apply. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:19, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

And this a key point here. ICBN Rosidae is simply "the largest group containing Rosa that does not conflict with any subclass of plants". And as most authors these days will avoid to maintain non-monophyletic ranked taxa "just because", it boils down to any botanist's personal preference to use the APG II(+) or to say "that-and-that lineage was in Cronquist's Rosidae but does not really belong there".

But we are not botanists, we have to make amends regarding OR. A merger will avoid these problems: we can use APG II and its further versions - being the thing closest to The Truth at present - as we please, while having a single article discussing the evolution of the groups' underlying concepts will show readers who only know "Rosidae" that the "rosids" are nothing to be afraid of, but simply the most accurately (as far as anyone can say) defined incarnation of the underlying concept. ("nothing to be afraid of" because the whole "ICxN vs PhyloCode" debate is fraught with bad blood. I have played around with both systems; they both suck in critical aspects, but their advocates are mostly blind. Try handling hawkweeds under the PhyloCode, or Geissolomataceae under a "hardcore" (no family without order) Linnean system...) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 14:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

"Clear synapomorphies for the rosids have not been identified, although most rosids share several morphological and anatomical features, such as nuclear endosperm development, reticulate pollen exine, generally simple perforations of vessel end-walls, alternate intervessel pitting, mucilaginous leaf epidermis, and two or more whorls of stamens, plus ellagic acid" (Soltis & Soltis, American Journal of Botany 91(10): 1614-1626 (2004)).

Also, re typification, see article 10.7 of the Vienna Code. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:23, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

It is probably easier for asterids. Rosids are, as far as I can tell as a zoologist, altogether more plesiomorphic. (I would prefer an onomatophore-based clade-based system to weither the ICxN and PhyloCode any day. Clade definitions are just too shaky; nodes are not points in space/time and evolution only is strictly dichotomous in the realm of phylogenetic software... I don't think making hypothetical nodes and dichotomies the decider instead of a single manifest specimen is a good idea.) Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 14:53, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Leaf

Some help here, please. We have a new editor pushing intelligent design in the section about leaf arrangement on the stem. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:25, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

If only it were ID. This is "creation science". Basically, that's why we have policies like WP:UNDUE. If creationists regularly used leaf arrangement as evidence for the existence of God, it would be appropriate to add mention of that fact in an article on leaf arrangement. But they don't. Two paragraphs in an ICR publication aren't notable enough, especially not for mention in the main leaf article. That said, the existing language needs work, and needs refs. Guettarda (talk) 04:55, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Why the heck are the creation science people wasting their time with leaves? The proof they need is here for everyone to read and has been available for everyone to read for quite a while now.... -- carol (talk) 16:11, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Senecio cineraria

Senecio cineraria should be moved to Jacobaea maritima this edit history does not appear worth saving to me.

In the same family is Oresbia heterocarpa which I moved from Oresbia based on a feeling and without information to negate that and in the absence of information which was contrary that it is the only species which is in the genus. Perhaps someone with more resources could verify that. -- carol (talk) 13:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

If there is one species (probably true at least at the moment, since the cited paper created the genus with one species in 2006), the article should be at the genus name, per WP:NC (flora). You should be able to fix that yourself (I think). Kingdon (talk) 15:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, and I did move it. My problem is that I do not have access to anything that says that for certain; heh, even if that is for certain for the moment (or few years). To be more specific about what I had access to, it was a few urls that did not mention another species.... -- carol (talk) 16:05, 29 June 2008 (UTC)