This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
I thought I had seen some strange mirrorings of WP material, not nothing compares to this one. It appears to be a music site, but turned up while I was searching for information about the compositae genus Oblivia. Weird. --EncycloPetey00:58, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Prosopis pallida says: "The kiawe is native to coastal South America, but it is found throughout the Americas." Can anybody add more specific info on the original distribution/biome to the article? Thanks. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 22:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Hello, all. This new page was on the AlexNewArtBot list of new pages. It could use a bit of attention if anyone would like to take a crack at it. --Rkitko(talk)23:23, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Ick. It is very biased towards "higher plants" and ignores bryophytes, ferns, and algae completely. I really cringed when I got to the statement about the "first report of haploid plants" (which post-dates their actual discovery by Hofmeister by several decades). The article will need a thorough re-write. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:18, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
"Adaptable Range"
Some questions have come up on another discussion board about the "adaptable range" maps in the Sabal minor and Rhapidophyllum hystrix articles. Unfortunately the maps are unattributed, there is no indication of where the information in them comes from, and as they stand they are completely unverifiable. They almost certainly constitute original research. I believe they should be deleted, unless the editor who put them in can provide a clear and verifiable reference for where they came from. Edited to add: a similar map is in the Lagerstroemia article (where it is especially inappropriate as it apparently refers to only one particular species of this genus). These images, and possibly others, have been added by User:Strongbad1982. MrDarwin (talk) 14:10, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
Yes, go ahead and nuke them. If I had to guess, I'd say the map in Lagerstroemia refers to all commonly cultivated plants in that genus (two species plus some hybrids, if memory serves), but without sources, who knows? I'd be fine with some way of indicating where these things can be grown but those maps aren't it (as discussed in the above links). Kingdon (talk) 17:56, 7 December 2007 (UTC)
The entry for genus Taraktogenos was generated by Polbot. What what I can find (e.g. [1]), it seems to be a synonyms of Hydnocarpus. However, I am uncertain how we handle such a situation. Should the page for Taraktogenos be converted to a redirect? Do we keep the entry, but describe that it is a synonym, and if so should the page have a taxobox? We keep pages for obsolete famiies, but not for synonymized species. Whta do we do for a genus? --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:35, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Sometimes I have created redirects and at other times created stub articles for the synonyms. I have tended to do the latter when the genus name has had a long and/or complicated history and/or is a well known name, e.g. Brachysema, to inform readers what happened to the genus. I've tended not to include a taxobox for these articles to avoid giving an appearance of "currency". --Melburnian (talk) 03:26, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, the only other example which is springing to mind is Eupatoriadelphus which clearly works better as a redirect (as far as I can tell), for a variety of reasons including the small number of species, the rarity of the name Eupatoriadelphus, and the lack of any complexity like different species moving to different genera. If there is a family which has had everything transferred to another family, and the former family doesn't have an ongoing existence as a subfamily or anything like that, I suppose I might advocate a redirect there too. But most families which get rearranged get split up, or something more complicated. There's probably a general rule lurking here, but I'm not sure what it is (or whether family versus genus has anything to do with it). (as for whether Taraktogenos has been synonymized in its entirety, I'm not sure of that either. This paper refers to some of each and ITIS shows a synonym for one species (Taraktogenos kurzii), but I didn't find anything conclusive). Kingdon (talk) 03:50, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
Anybody care to weigh in on the Vine article? The article asserts:
A vine is any plant of genus Vitis (the grape plants) or, by extension, any similar climbing or trailing plant. The word, derived from Latin vīnea, referred to the grape-bearing variety. The modern extended sense is restricted to North American English, which uses grapevine to refer to the grape-bearing Vitis species. (British English tends to use climber to refer to the broader category, including, for example, ivy.)
This article uses the term vine in its broader, North American sense.
Hmm. This isn't one I've heard before, but the Compact edition OED seems to favor this, since the leading definition is for a particular species of Vitis. You might get better feedback posting this in the Wiktionary Tea Room. That's where niceties of definitions and senses are discussed, particularly US/UK differences. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:52, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
OED Online gives:
1a. The trailing or climbing plant, Vitis vini-fera, bearing the grapes from which ordinary wine is made (= GRAPE-VINE); also generally, any plant of the genus Vitis.
3b. In other special names, chiefly of non-British plants. (e.g. Burdekin vine, Isle of Wight vine, Bean vine, Indian rubber vine, etc.)
4a. The stem of any trailing or climbing plant
c. (U.S.) A trailing or climbing plant.
I think 3b. suggests that it's not so much an inherent regional difference, but rather the only liana in the UK is Vitis vinifera, whereas there are lots within many genera in North America and elsewhere. The examples they cited above include many non-American, commonwealth plants, and even some within the UK. But then again, it gives the chief use for Vitis specifically and points out the the usage meaning "climber" is American English. Perhaps the best course of action would be to make the article for "Vine" a disambiguation page and put the information under climber (since it is unambiguous and also used in the U.S. to some degree). Djlayton4 | talk | contribs02:11, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Err... it isn't. My experience in American botany is that "vine" is the standard (and practically the only) term used. As a botanical term in the US, "climber" is limited to specific kinds of vines that attach by means of tendrils, so ivy is not a climber by US terminology. Also, the word "climber" has non-botanical meanings that we would be impinging on (including a form of shoe), and we'd probably have to end up using Climber (plant) or some such. The advantage of Vine is that we wouldn't be relegated to using parenthetic explanations. There may not be a good article title that avoids regional bias. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:25, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Webster gives "Climber" as "A plant that climbs" without any regional notes, and Wordnet (Princeton) gives "a vine or climbing plant that readily grows up a support or over other plants". I've never heard of any distinction between a plant having tenrils or not, and these two dictionaries don't seem to support that idea, but as far as standard usage you could be correct for all I know. I still feel that using Climber (plant) would be better to avoid a potentially unpleasant regional usage battle and ambiguity. Djlayton4 | talk | contribs02:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Strange indeed. It seems that even the same dictionaries don't agree! But I was using the Webster's definition as given by dictionary.com, which may account for the difference. Djlayton4 | talk | contribs03:27, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Ah, now I see. After looking again, I see that that dictionary.com was based on Random House, not Webster's. I somehow seem to remember their primary entires coming from Webster's... Djlayton4 | talk | contribs03:32, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
The reason this came up is that I came across an old edition of Encyclopedia Britannica in my department library today and for some reason was thinking of this term and looked it up. The definition given for "vine" was in the broader sense, without qualification, and did not indicate that it was specific to Vitis species. MrDarwin (talk) 03:31, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
If I'm interpreting MPF's comments correctly on the talk page for that article, he agrees that "vine" is used in the broad sense in England as well as North America. My main quibble is with the rather rigid claim that "The modern extended sense is restricted to North American English", a usage which I suspect is not quite as restrictive as the article asserts. MrDarwin (talk) 17:24, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
I didn't realise that he had commented on it as I hadn't looked at the discussion there, but if it is in common usage in the UK, then it should certainly stay where it is. It seems strange that the OED still lists the usage as American though. We'll have to either trust the dictionary, or trust the vernacular, I suppose, but regardless I think that the OED entries support the fact that "vine" is used other than just for Vitis outside of the US. Perhaps the phrasing in the article is a bit rigid, but as I don't know its usage well enough in the UK, I can't really say one way or the other. In German the word "Wein" (pronounced identically to English) is only used for Vitis, so it makes sense historically, but that hardly helps for modern usage. Djlayton4 | talk | contribs00:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Just to add a New Zealand opinion - common usage in New Zealand is that a vine is pretty much any climbing plant. But I don't think the word "vine" used in formal botanical texts (but most of my ones are at the office and I'm at home).Solanum dulcamara (talk) 09:49, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Well:
Cronquist (1981) An Integrated System of Classification of Flowering Plants, "Caprifoliaceae", p.1006
Shrubs or more or less woody vines, or sometimes small trees...
Cronquist was an American, and we already know that Americans use "vine" for any "climber". I think Solanum was referring to Kiwi/non-American botanical texts. Djlayton4 | talk | contribs16:23, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I see your point. Unfortunately, my personal library contains few botanical references by non-Americans who aren't bryologists, and the bryologists don't write about vines (because bryophytes don't do that sort of thing). I do find a useful tidbit in Dahlgren & Clifford's The Monocotyledons: A comparative Study (Dahlgren was Danish, Clifford Australian):
s.v. Ariflorae (p.26): Mostly rhizomatous herbs, including many tropical climbers,...
s.v. Dioscoreales (p.27): Diosoreales largely consists of terrestrial shade plants as well as climbers and creepers,,...
The second quote leads me to believe that "climber" (at least in Australia) is not synonymous with American "vine", but is limited to those long, slender-stemmed plants that actually climb surrounding vegetation or structures. "Creepers" would be those "vines" that grow horizontally along the ground. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:51, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I disagree. Many members of the Dioscoreales, especially those in Dioscoreaceae, are called "vines" in American English, such as the one in the photo to the right. Several species in that genus (Dioscorea) are called "potato vines". Also, Araceae in Ariflorae (now Arales, I believe) includes many plants that would certainly be called vines in American English, such as Monstera and Syngonium, the latter often being called the "arrowhead vine". Djlayton4 | talk | contribs05:36, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
In Wrigley & Fagg's Australian Native Plants (1981) climbers are defined as:
"... usually weak-stemmed plants which occur naturally in forested or shrubby areas and in order to obtain sufficient light to survive and grow, have evolved means of supporting themselves on other plants". --Melburnian (talk) 05:33, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what part you're disagreeing with. What I noted (in summary) is that Australians seem to distinguish "climbers" from "creepers", but that Americans lump both together under the term "vine". Therefore, "climber" is not synonymous with "vine". The quote you've provided further supports that position. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:56, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I apologise. It seemed to me that you were suggesting that nothing that American English users call "vines" exists in either of those orders. I suppose this topic is tough for me as I've lived in Europe/UK and the US for different lengths of time, so I am used to hearing "vines", "climbers" and "creepers". But creeper is used sometimes in American English to distinguish them from "climbers" or "vines", such as with Virginia creeper. Your example seems rather to reinforce the idea that "vine" has a more restricted usage, at least in those authors' writing. It's seeming more and more to me to be a preference-based choice given the number of conflicting sources. Some authors, perhaps primarily American, use "vine" in a very broad sense, but outside of the U.S. it seems that the usage differs (such as in Encyclopetey's example vs. Melburnians or OED's vs. Webster's). It's a tough call, but I personally would still prefer to see the information under climber. However, I think my opinion is a bit ideological and could constitute WP:OR, so I'll go with the consensus on this one. Interesting debate though! Djlayton4 | talk | contribs06:15, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
So I suppose I would suggest removing the statement that the use of "vine" meaning "climber" is restricted to North America, as that doesn't seem to be the case, but leave the note about climber being more common in British English, and perhaps bold it in addition to "vine" and have it nearer to the opening sentence. Also, a note concerning how the use of "climber" can differ outside of the UK (e.g. tendrils and/or weak-stems) might be useful.Djlayton4 | talk | contribs06:22, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
WP:PLANTS in the Signpost
I've been considering writing something for WP:PLANTS for the WikiProject report feature of the Signpost, and wanted some feedback about what I should mention. I know we aren't too well organized, but that primarily because there are relatively few users working in this area, and it is too humongous for a real strategy to develop. I know a few users have, or are working on, academic degrees (Curtis Clark, Djlayton4, EncycloPetey, I think MPF... probably more). There's something to be said about the subprojects, and how we were relatively late in adopting the article classification scheme... Any ideas? Circeus (talk) 04:48, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, thanks in large part to Rkitko, our project is probably furthest along in terms of article assessment, with over 26,000 project articles identified so far (and most of them assessed for at least quality). Together we've gotten all (but one) of our "Top"-importance articles to at least "Start" quality, and half of those (but one) are at "B" quality. We've got the still relatively new {{Botany}} template for navigating the core plant articles. The Portal:Plants recently opened. That's quite a lot just off the top of my head right there, and I'm sure others could name additional newsworthy items I didn't recall. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:22, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Oh right. The quality drive. I've been concentrating on non-plants stuff these last few months so I kinda missed on that... Yes, need to mention the Plants portal too (especially since I try to maintain it lol Circeus (talk) 05:55, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
I once corrected an incorrectly identified specimen collected by Albert Radford ;P But seriously, I don't think I've been around long enough or active enough to give any good suggestions. Perhaps we have a high ratio of users with large post counts... Djlayton4 | talk | contribs05:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
User:Ricardo Carneiro Pires has also been quietly assessing hundreds if not thousands of articles (I think he's responsible for Category:Unassessed-Class plant articles having only a few unassessed articles that begin with A and B). You could also mention how we were bombarded by thousands of Polbot articles and are still in the midst of cleaning up. And of course some of our more recent FAs. Rkitko(talk)16:02, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
"some of our more recent FAs" Well, discounting WP:BANKSIA and WP:CPLANTS stuff, this project technically only managed 2 FAs of its own (actually, I think we can say that in relation to our age, we have one of the worst quality ratio >__>;;). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Circeus (talk • contribs) 16:23, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
True. WP:BANKSIA is an FA powerhouse (WP:CPLANTS only has the one, brought to FA by User:NoahElhardt). Faced with the enormous wall of work we have, I think many of us prefer to head in the direction of quantity since we have less than 10% of all plant species described. Or at least that's how I've approached many of my contributions. --Rkitko(talk)17:07, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Not sure I'd agree with "aren't too well organized". When an issue comes up with a plants article, I feel pretty confident that I can put a note on this talk page and get a relevant response. That doesn't seem to be true of other wikiprojects I've looked in on. Although I'm not sure how/whether to say this in the signpost.
As for "worst quality ratio", at least if the issue is the large number of stub/start class articles, I think we've pretty explicity prioritized quantity (see for example discussion on redlinks or polbot). If the issue is articles which are poorly written, unorganized, unreferenced, etc, that's different, and I wouldn't guess we are doing worse than the average wikiproject (although I don't know how to say for sure). Kingdon (talk) 17:15, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
When I said organization, I was really thinking an ability to converge coherently on something. For the most part, we have been working separately on our things within the project. Unlike, say, the common work that WP:BIRD manages on its FAs. I did the vast majority of work on Verbascum thapsus, and Djlayton4 on Ailanthus altissima, and plant defense against herbivory was primarily worked on by users who weren't real WP:PLANTS members.Circeus (talk) 17:53, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
A little off topic, but is there something we can do to create some sort of coordination? (I know, since I almost never remember to visit this page, I shouldn't talk). Obviously FAs tend to be lower priority articles that catch someone's fancy, but has anyone thought about maybe a coordinated effort to get the {{botany}} articles up to some minimum standard? There are a lot of B-class articles, but there are also a lot of Starts and two Stubs. While I realise that GAs just aren't worth the trouble, is the aim of having everything on the template up to B class a workable objective? Guettarda (talk) 21:10, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
...and we've had some recent collaboration on Cell wall, which was MCB's COTM, and three people collaborated on Seed. The two efforts resulted in much fuller articles and nice new illustrations. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:13, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it's getting a little bit onto dangerous ground to try to rate how this project is doing vs others; for people involved, it's easy to see the faults and not the strong points. Let's concentrate to the facts of what's being done and what's not. One of the uses of a Signpost article is to let editors in other areas know how the plants project fits into the overall encyclopedia, for instance that we generally expect to create articles for every species (right?), and plan organization according to that expectation. Even very basic facts will still be news to Signpost readers. Another interesting tidbit for this project is that we have pictures of many many more species than we have articles (for instance User:Stan Shebs/Plant taxa is a list of just my own photos, and there are a lot of redlinks) - this is the opposite of most projects, who are perennially image-starved. Stan (talk) 19:51, 11 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi all, what do you think of this page? Would this be a candidate for deletion? Or merge somewhere? But where? If Wikipedia had a page for the NSFArabidopsis 2010 Project (which this was part of) I'd say that would be the place to put it, but there is none. - tameeria (talk) 17:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I did some googling, both in google web and google scholar, and didn't really find much. There's some kind of status report at [2] but even that probably isn't quite a WP:RS, or necessarily going to stick around long-term. Oh, and it was renamed to The Plant Proteome Database (and now includes maize, which doesn't necessarily mean "Arabidopsis 2010 Project" is wrong, but does muddy the waters a bit). I tried the Congressional Record (at http://thomas.loc.gov) but only saw a way to search for the current session, not for all issues they have on-line. One could also try the federal budget, or documents that the agency prepares in support of it. But none of this kind of thing will show it, if the program is part of some larger line item (which seems likely). Even if we could find some sources, I'm not really sure I see the big need for an article. So, seems like deletion is best. It isn't as if there is much material there, so it would be easy to re-create the page if we want to some time in the future. Kingdon (talk) 20:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Plant Proteome Database seems to be the current name--I think it probably is the same project ultimately. I'm moving the article and making at least a stub out of it based on the Cornell site. DGG (talk) 02:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
This is a (belated) announcement that requests are now being taken for illustrations to be created for the Philip Greenspun illustration project (PGIP).
The aim of the project is to create and improve illustrations on Wikimedia projects. You can help by identifying which important articles or concepts are missing illustrations (diagrams) that could make them a lot easier to understand. Requests should be made on this page: Philip_Greenspun_illustration_project/Requests
If there's a topic area you know a lot about or are involved with as a Wikiproject, why not conduct a review to see which illustrations are missing and needed for that topic? Existing content can be checked by using Mayflower to search Wikimedia Commons, or use the Free Image Search Tool to quickly check for images of a given topic in other-language projects.
The community suggestions will be used to shape the final list, which will be finalised to 50 specific requests for Round 1, due to start in January. People will be able to make suggestions for the duration of the project, not just in the lead-up to Round 1.
Hi, all. There is a large number of badly named (grammar and/or capitalization mistakes) lists at this page. I started to do what I could, but for those without common names I don't have the knowledge of proper conventions. I have fixed the grammar of all that I could be sure about, but have not touched the others, to avoid duplicating work when they are fixed properly. Please see a discussion of this on Talk:Larval food plants of Lepidoptera. I'd be grateful if people "in the know" could chime in and/or pitch in, helping to fix the grammar and capitalizations of these links. Many thanks! --Storkk (talk) 19:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Flora of x Categories
Has anyone worked on, or thought about working on, the categories for regional floras? I personally am always confused where to put things (e.g. should a plant in Canada and the US be categorised in "Flora of Canada", "Flora of the United States" and "Flora of North America", or just the former two? [or the latter or none??]) As there doesn't seem to be any standard (as far as I know), many have been following various practices. I think these cats could be very useful if they we included in all plant articles, but the scope of the categories should be hashed out first. Any thoughts? Djlayton4 | talk | contribs03:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
I've always considered that an animal/plant should only be in a country category if it's mostly restricted to that area or region (I think we have a few regional divisions too). Widespread species being in 45 states categories? Impractical. The problem already shows prominently in several bird articles. At some point, an actual sensiible solution and categorization guideline will have to be devised, likely at WP:TOL project. Circeus (talk) 03:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd say that a hypothetical plant found in California, Nevada and Mexico should be in those three categories, not cat:USA and cat:Mexico. Similarly, a species that is widespread in Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Trinidad and St. Vincent should be in three cats: Flora of South America, Flora of Trinidad and Tobago and Flora of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (as opposed to Flora of the Americas, or Flora of the Caribbean). We don't need hard and fast rules, what we need is a commonsense approach that reduces overcategorisation. That said, even if a species is widespread across, say, the entire US, I think it still belongs in the category of Flora of X if it's the state flower of X. Guettarda (talk) 19:08, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
My approach is that a category should contain only endemic taxa and taxa of the lowest rank. Sounds complicated but it isn't, and I think it is quite sensible:
The genus Banksia occurs in New South Wales, but it is not endemic to that state. We can get a finer resolution by considering individual species, so we omit the genus from Category:Flora of New South Wales.
Banksia marginata occurs in New South Wales, but is not endemic. We can't further subdivide, as this species has no infrageneric taxa, so we place it in Category:Flora of New South Wales and any other relevant regional categories.
But would you include Banksia marginata in "Flora of Australia" in addition (it's endemic to Australia too). And if so, would "Flora of Australia" not include a species that occurs only in New South Wales? Djlayton4 | talk | contribs04:39, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Typically, no. You try to be most accurate in categorizing those species. Also, placing that article in both the daughter and parent categories could be seen as unnecessary overcategorization, since the flora of New South Wales is the flora of Australia. The problem arises, as Circeus pointed out, when species are present in many states/territories/provinces or countries - when do you break from including dozens of really specific categories and move to the higher up. How many countries does a species have to be endemic to in order for it to be more practical to include it in Category:Flora of Africa or Category:Flora of South America instead? --Rkitko(talk)04:54, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Inasmuch as editors will even add widespread introduced plants to a category (for example, Brassica tournefortii for California), naming of the category can become all-important. One can imagine very different uses for:
If what we mean is the latter (and I would contend that it is the most useful in the context of the geographic hierarchy), then we should name the categories to make that explicit.--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
In practice, I think one of the main uses for a "Flora of X" is to get a list of the possibilities for a specimen found in the wild, endemic or not. Conversely, not being in "Flora of X" should be an indication that the type is not known to be there. So if we have a plant that is in 45 of 50 US states, then we would have to bite the bullet and add 45 state categories, and reserve "Flora of the United States" for plants found in every state. Otherwise, how is somebody looking for the plants of West Virginia supposed to know which of hundreds of taxa in the US category are found in most states but not WV? We should however be pretty picky about requiring sources for range claims - perhaps there should be two categories - "known to occur in every state", "known to occur in some states, but we don't yet know which ones". Stan (talk) 15:44, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
If Wikipedia were useful as an identification manual, I might agree. But it has some factors working against it in that regard:
It is not comprehensive, and worse, it's a subset consisting of the plants that editors are interested in, not necessarily the most common plants of any region.
It lacks identification keys.
Many articles lack images.
Many articles lack technical descriptions.
Many plants of wide range are mischaracterized by editors who know them only from a single region.
Well of course that's true now, but I don't think we should be categorising thinking that things will always be like that. Perhaps it's best to be a bit more idealistic and assume that in the future all of those shortcomings will cease to be true. I feel that some articles have better information on IDing than any other single source (e.g. Eurybia divaricata). At any rate, if we make some sort of standard now, it will mean a lot less work later. I would agree with Circeus and Stan that all plants, endemic or not, should go in a single category. True floras are written in this way, so I don't see why we shouldn't follow that standard. Furthermore, people will know whether the plant is endemic or not as soon as they click on it, so I think those additional categories might be a bit too cumbersome. I agree that they would certainly be useful, but to keep things a bit simpler I think it would be best to follow standard practices of typical floras. So far I am favoring Stan's "bite the bullet" approach as it seems the simplest and most logical method. Perhaps we could simply define a level at which species should always be categorised in each region of the world based on relative size (i.e. only in Flora of the countries of Europe [except Russia], US States, Canadian Provinces, Central American countries, Provinces of China, etc.). We could then categorise genera at only the continent level, for example. Of course some of that information would be tough, especially in areas with no published Flora, but it's something to work for... Djlayton4 | talk | contribs —Preceding comment was added at 18:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
The categories are based on political boundaries, has the feasibility of using another form of regionalisation been investigated? cygnisinsignis18:55, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
As an observation (which will get us nowhere because it is too unintuitive to stomach), one can get around the problem of cosmopolitan taxa by creating categories like Category:Cosmopolitan flora of Australia, populating it only with plants that occur in every Australian state, and making the category a subcategory of each state category. Hesperian12:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I've been doing many tedious tasks recently. Working toward a top-importance FA would be a welcome break. Got the time and one in mind? --Rkitko(talk)04:16, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, I've got two weeks vacation beginning in about a week. I'd be able to help out. I'm leaning towards working on one of the "biggies", like Plant, Flower, Fruit, or Seed... though there are plenty of other Top-importance plant articles that really need work. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:22, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I was leaning in that direction, too. The big push, besides the usual checklist of making sure we've got the subject fully covered, will be to include in-line refs. That'll be a challenge, but I'm up for it. I suppose we should bring this conversation over to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Collaboration, but I'm not sure if everyone has that watchlisted yet. --Rkitko(talk)05:02, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I'll be on break from uni in about 2 weeks as well, so I'm down. I'm more of a low-importance man myself, but working on something that someone actually reads could be great. I don't really have much of a preference on the article, but I think the Plant article represents us most, so we might as well make it pretty for everyone. But, like I said, I have no strong preference. I've got collaborations watchlisted ;) Djlayton4 | talk | contribs05:39, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
I'll be glad to help with copyediting and similar stuff, but I'm not very good at summarizing many sources (it is nightmarish for me, unless I'm trying to source something specific, to the point I almost never got that FA done). Circeus (talk) 17:33, 16 December 2007 (UTC)
So I move for making some sort of a definite plan for the FA collaboration so that it doesn't swept aside or forgotten about. We should pick an article and a good starting date when most people are available to begin work on it. I suggested working on Plant, but any top importance article will do. Most people have said two weeks would be a good starting point. How does the Friday, 28 December sound? Of course anyone can begin before that time, but I think it would be useful to have a date in mind. Any thoughts? Djlayton4 | talk | contribs03:31, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I know this isn't entirely within our scope, but I'd appreciate a couple more eyes on this article. I came across it on the new plants list today. I'm concerned that the references aren't reliable. At least one section is a copyvio from [3], another "ref" (27) is the exact same thing as the previous link and doesn't correspond with it's section at all. Should we take this to AfD? If we did, I'm not sure what we'd say beyond the copyvio. At the very least it needs attention and weeding through to get rid of POV, unreliable refs, etc. Any help is appreciated here. --Rkitko(talk)04:41, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit conflict] Looks like a POV fork of coconut oil to me. "Coconut healing oil" is either a biased neologism or a clumsy piece of phrasing. Either way, I say we merge it, where "merge" is defined as "userfy and redirect" ;-) Hesperian04:55, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I'd say redirect coconut "healing" oil to coconut oil - not need to XfD, just be bold and do the merge. The charcoal one is a bit more difficult a call. Doesn't really seem notable enough to have its own article though. Guettarda (talk) 05:01, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I've only checked parts of the article - but at least some of it has been lifted directly from other websites e.g. Tree of Life is from Coconut Research centre [4]. I haven't currently got access to Turnitin to give it a full check, but based on my small sampling - I would fail it for plagarism if a student submitted. The primary literture listed in the article is not actually used e.g. J. Nut. article etc. and seem to be included just to give the impression that primary sources were looked at. It might be possible with a bit of a review of the sources and proper referencing to merge some of it with coconut oil article. The impartiality of some of his sources is questionable. Sepilok2007 (talk) 08:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I've had a bit more of a look at some of his sources, and while I don't want to cause any offence to any mystic magical invisible dwarfs out there, I feel that the medical aspects of this article needs to be supported by articles in peer reviewed journals. The whole AIDS-Coconut cure bit seems to be based on a very limited unpublished study conducted over 7 years ago, that has been overegged by the coconut industry/naturopaths.Sepilok2007 (talk) 10:00, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Looks like a very POV piece, and I've already gone through to remove some bits of copyvio and tenuous sourcing. If this is a 'healing oil' article, it falls under WP:MEDMOS and WP:MEDRS, neither of which are represented. While I don't think the original creator is an employee of the companies cited (I believe he's an employee of the Philippine government, or was anyway), I still think it's a very poorly sourced article for what it purports to say. Given the enormous amounts of text I've already removed, a significant proportion of the sections I looked at, I'd say merge anything reliable into coconut oil and turn the page into a redirect to a specific section. If there's anything worth keeping, perhaps it could be under a subheading (medical uses?) WLU (talk) 17:29, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I've reviewed more of the article, between the copyright violations, the unreliable sources, the syntheses and original research, and the duplication between the page and coconut oil I didn't see anything worth saving - I just erased the page and merged. After I had taken out all the copyvois and unreliable sources, all that was left was some OR and references not linked to main text. WLU (talk) 18:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I imagine of course that we wouldn't want an article for every cultivar of every plant (though that is the plan on Wikiversity and Wikibooks), but I'm just wondering if there is any case where a cultivar really would be notable enough to merit its own article. If not, I wonder whether there should be redirects from cultivar names to the appropriate genus, species, or hybrid (wherever the cultivar may be mentioned and/or briefly described). Any thoughts? --SB_Johnny | talk15:20, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure it is any different from any other application of WP:N which has a lot to do with "are there enough sources out there to support the article". The number of cultivars in the world (especially if you include extinct ones or varieties which are not formally named according to the ICNCP) is so large, and little is known about some of them, so I don't know that I'd agree that "most" are notable, but a lot of them are. Where there are only a few cultivars that seem to be worth mentioning, I'd consider just putting them in a parent article (species, cultigen, cultivar group, etc). Kingdon (talk) 17:57, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, now you've usually got an organization which manages cultivar registration. So at the very least you're always going to have the registration and description as a reliable source. Indeed there are many, many, many cultivars out there (thinking of how many historical tulip cultivars that were out there gives me a bit of a headache). But Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia. The only limits would be WP:V. It seems as if we, as a project, have taken the position that every species is inherently notable, so why not cultivated varieties, given that they're properly sourced? I have no problem with including them in species pages, but I see nothing wrong with letting them have their own articles. Take a look through Category:Elm cultivars for other examples of plenty of cultivar pages. --Rkitko(talk)18:32, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Or Peace Rose. Although there are 20,000+ rose cultivars, printed encyclopedias of roses can usually manage 2-3 paras for each at least. A useful intermediate step is to list each breeder's cultivars with the breeder's article, then split off when additional material is available for the more notable. Stan (talk) 18:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it's an issue of reliable sources. Can we find enough information in a reliable source to write an article that's more than one or two sentences long? Can we find several independent sources? While I would assert that all species are notable, I think we should just apply the normal notability standards to cultivars. Guettarda (talk) 18:50, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Some cultivars might be notable and have enough info for their own pages.
But to muddy the waters on another issue, official registrations of cultivars should be taken with a grain of salt, descriptions are most often self made by those submitting the name for registration. The purpose of cultivar registration is to prevent duplicate names, if the other info is correct that's an unexpected plus. This issue is highly variable between different groups of plants or even in the same group of plants over the history of the registration authority. Most of these positions are staffed by volunteers and the dedication to details and correct info is not uniformly applied over the history of the registration process. Hardyplants (talk) 19:16, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, do remember that the criteria for inclusion is verifiability, not truth. It's easy to assert that "the characteristics noted to be novel in the cultivar's registration description include..." and still be accurate, verifiable, and truthful. But you're right, some cultivar registrations are better than others. For example, recently the International Carnivorous Plant Society became the IRA registrar for carnivorous plants. New cultivars have been published in the Carnivorous Plant Newsletter. Because of the peer-reviewed, academic nature of the publication, I would trust the verifiability of those descriptions and articles. See Dionaea muscipula 'Bohemian Garnet' for an article I created on a recent cultivar registration. So yes, it is variable between cultivar registration authorities and through history, but I still feel cultivar articles can be accurate, verifiable, and notable. And as an aside, I would say that it is reasonable to say all taxa are notable, including those of the subspecific ranks. --Rkitko(talk)19:53, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I've been compiling a list of list of Grevillea cultivars (200+ so far) to give an overview of some of the hundreds of cultivars that are (or have been) commercially available. So far three Grevillea cultivar articles have been created, Grevillea 'Superb' and Grevillea 'Robyn Gordon' and Grevillea 'Honey Gem'. For well-known cultivars, there is an abundance of information to potentially create a substantial article. On the other hand, there are other cultivars for which information from reliable sources is very scarce, so it would be hard to create an article with more detail than is shown on the list. Most Grevilleas available through retail plant nursersies tend to be cultivars rather than species so I feel that substantial coverage of cultivars through a combination of lists and articles is necessary to give a complete picture of this genus in terms of cultivation and use, and this would also apply to many other cultivated genera. --Melburnian (talk) 21:46, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
I guess it was the very large number of cultivars (I believe there are thousands within Rhododendron and Hemerocallis alone!) that made me wonder, but also the likelihood that these articles would rarely get beyond what would look like a stub for any higher taxa. Should there be a different set of standards for determining "stubbiness" for these articles?
Also, I still wonder if we should be making the redirects to genus or species if a taxon exists and is mentioned in an article, but no independent article exists. That was the M.O. for species without articles in an earlier era of Wikipedia, but over the past couple years redlinks have been preferred to redirecting towards higher taxa (and I know a lot of those redirects eventually required administrative destruction to clean up the issue). I suppose a good example would be if someone wanted to look up Lemon Queen sunflower... would it be better to just redirect that to Helianthus × laetiflorus, or start another stub for the cultivar (the species is a stub as well)? --SB_Johnny | talk13:48, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
In that particular case I'd check here (no entry) and here ("accepted name in the RHS Horticultural Database", has won "The Award of Garden Merit") and try a Google search (1380 hits, some detailed information can be found amongst the hits), and would conclude that a worthwile (if smallish) article could be created. I really don't like the concept of redirecting species or cultivars to the genus (in general), if the name is contained within an article it will come up in the search results anyway. I think common sense, and looking at it on a case-by case basis is the way to go, creating 3000 one line "Rhododendron" cultivar stubs (for example) would probably not be a good idea. --Melburnian (talk) 15:02, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
If there are thousands of cvs (or even a couple dozen), then I think a list of cultivars would be in order. And as we do with "minor characters in Harry Potter", just redirect each cv to the list. If anything on the list grows long enough, it can be spun off into an article. Guettarda (talk) 17:16, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, I think lists work better as an intermediate step - one can even set the list up as a table and include columns for general description, parentage, date, and picture. Redirect names to the list, just as we do now for minor characters in fiction and such. Stan (talk) 17:51, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, that's what I'll do. The obvious question though is what to call these articles... should it be List of daylily cultivars or List of Hemerocallis cultivars? This is lilely to become a pressing issue in the spring as we are hoping to have arboretums and nurseries involved on the WV bloom clock in the spring, which will entail a rather massive need for interwiki links :). --SB_Johnny | talk00:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I would pick hems and make daylily a redirect. Other lists might be more problematic, but the major ones like Hosta, Iris etc should go to the genus. The genus list then can be broken down into species if known, but since many or most are complicated hybrids, the genus is best. Hardyplants (talk) 00:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I think genus is better too, of course, but I've never understood how the "exemption" policy works for plants that are article-named by the English name over the scientific. --SB_Johnny | talk00:52, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
You might need a hierarchically list with multiple entry points. Take something like spiderwort cults, most people are not going to look for them under Tradescantia but under spiderwort. But there are many different Tradescantia cults that are not spiderwort cults, so I would have one List for all Tradescantia cults and then have a sublist in this list for spiderworts. Hardyplants (talk) 01:36, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Meaning the cultivar lists should be sorted? Definitely... Rhododendron vs. Azalea would be an obvious need for sublisting, as would any of the genera that have major divisions (roses, daylilies, irises, narcissi, etc.), but are you saying these should be separate pages or single pages? (Funny, when I first read that I thought you were talking about garden clubs (daylilies and hellebores of course have rather religious followings, though I had never heard of a Spiderwort club). --SB_Johnny | talk16:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
A trio of Wikibooks-related issues (ref names, external links, and usernames)
Yes, again with the interwiki stuff :). I've been importing Wikipedia articles to Wikibooks to fix dead interwiki links from the Wikiversity bloom clock, and have run into 3 minor problems.
The first is the use of <ref name=X> for references... it's something that can be fixed using AWB on the wikibooks end, but it might be nice to come up with some "standard" ref names. I've come across many which are named after authors (without dates), or worse "flora". I realize everyone's here to write an encyclopedia, but we should keep in mind that we're also creating GFDL content, and using the same ref name for 2 or more texts over 2 or more pages can create difficulties when generating printable "textbooks".
The second is that some articles have sections called "references and external links" (as opposed to one section for references and another for external links). Combining the two can be a bit confusing when reusing content, because a reference involves attribution, while an external link is, well, just a link to something you might find interesting (I personally think external links that aren't sources have no place on Wikipedia, but don't get me started).
Finally, everybody please register an account on Wikibooks using your username here, because Special:Import attributes to username, as opposed to project:username. If you have any problems doing that, I'm a b'crat, and can almost certainly fix any problems (if you have problems, just leave me a note (and pray to the dev-gods that SUL will come soon and make this all moot). --SB_Johnny | talk00:49, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
OK, so how do you think we should implement this? The only way that I can think of doing something like that would be to create a master list of references used in {some subset} of articles, and then trying to get people to use these standards. It seems like a potentially massive project - we could get a bot to harvest every reference from Plant articles, but then we'd still need to find a way to sort through them all. If we did that, it would have to be a sortable table...which would work if people use {{cite}} templates... That said, I suppose it wouldn't hurt to start somewhere. Guettarda (talk) 02:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, I was just going to suggest having BotanyBot check through individual pages and search for Ref/external link sections. It could generate a list that use a combined external links/references section for users to sort through manually. I could also see what I could do about updating the 11,000 Polbot plant articles to use ref tags and a references section instead of the "Source" section currently on those articles. --Rkitko(talk)03:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Section names aren't really the problem, it's when you're not sure what is being used as a reference ,and what's just an external link :). I think the ref namiing would be nearly impossible to do exhaustively, but standardizing names for very commonly cited authorities (GRIN, USDA PLANTS database, RHS Encyclopedia, etc.) might be nice. --SB_Johnny | talk12:08, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
(1) I'm not aware of any expectation that ref names be unique across articles, nor do I see how we could make it so. (2) A combined "references and external links" section is mostly found in older articles and is a deprecated practice as I understand it. Just as an aside, external links have their (limited) place - for example the link to the Banksia Study Group on Banksia. (3) As for the account, sorry to be difficult but I already have a lot of wikimedia accounts and I don't really see creating ones for projects I don't even edit in. Kingdon (talk) 14:20, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Be not afraid to create custom templates and/or articles for the most important references. Templates like {{DANFS}} and {{FishBase genus}} have been extraordinarily useful for maintaining consistent referencing across thousands of articles, and can be easily added to multiple projects. Stan (talk) 18:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
Oh! those are just about what I had in mind. We can probably work out the kinks on the Wikibooks side first, and then use some sort of marker for an AWB runner to make the changes on wp once it's perfected :). --SB_Johnny | talk22:33, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I have been creating custom templates for my most important references for ages. A word of warning that these have limited usefulness in high-quality articles, because it is difficult to control when you want an author, book title, journal article or journal to be linked versus unlinked, citation of page numbers, etc. Circeus and I had a friendly disagreement on this point, and I now empathise with his position. I now consider templates like {{The genus Banksia L.f. (Proteaceae)}} to be convenient short-cuts for use on stub and start articles, but to have no real place in high quality articles, where problems like the above must be avoided. Hesperian23:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
I have a request for a couple of fixes to Template:Infobox Cultivar by someone with template expertise, one is to give it the width properties of a regular taxobox (same width when it has no photo, or expands to accommodate a photo with no white space) and the second is to get the image caption to display. Thanks --Melburnian (talk) 03:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Fixed the caption, and while at it, fixed empty cells that have been annoying me and gave it the same basic styling as taxobox, for consistency. Circeus (talk) 04:24, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed most hybrid articles using the regular taxobox, omitting the "species" parameter and using the "binomial" parameter to name the hybrid. We could add another parameter to the taxobox for non-cultivar hybrids. --Rkitko(talk)17:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
With out getting to involved with what a species is, A hybrid is not a new species because it does not produce a stable population that reproduces the hybrid, a hybrid is a mixing of two different genetic groups, and the next few generations produce individuals that segregate out those differences. Over time hybrids can lead to speciation and a stable genetic line. Hardyplants (talk) 02:56, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, we'd have to make sure intergeneric hybrids could also be covered by the taxobox. Instead of species/binomial parameters, we could include hybrid = and hybrid_parentage = parameters to take their place (so that the user wouldn't be forced to use species = for the hybrid, a corresponding link to Hybrid (biology) would be on the left). And if a hybrid is intergeneric (most of the time they're within the same family, correct?), then the user would simply leave off the genus = parameter. Seems easy enough to me. Might want to move this part of the discussion over to the taxobox template talk, but how do the animal hybrid articles approach this? --Rkitko(talk)01:55, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Most cultivars are not hybrids, but asexualy propagated plants that show "desirable" traits or are produced by selective breeding. Hardyplants (talk) 03:02, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Right. The scheme I have playing in my head right now would be: Non-cultivar (natural) hybrids would use the updated taxobox with new parameters. Cultivar hybrids and non-hybrid cultivars would continue to use the Infobox Cultivar. That's the way it seems to work right now on most pages, but the natural hybrids have had to use the taxobox without specific parameters for them to use. (e.g. Nepenthes × kuchingensis --Rkitko(talk)03:08, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Were can one find these boxs? (want to copy blank ones to my user page for later use) I assume the infobox for Cults has a picture blank too? Hardyplants (talk) 03:32, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, all. Is anyone familiar with fern taxonomy? Seems that according to Pteridopsida there have been recent (2006) changes to the taxonomy. Should that article be renamed to Polypodiopsida? A couple new contributions including Monilophyte have introduced different higher taxonomy schemes into the taxoboxes. Would be nice if we could get some clarity and help adjust all the taxoboxes if they need it. Any input would be appreciated! Cheers, Rkitko(talk)03:13, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I am. All of this comes from the Smith, Pryer, ... Wolf article. (I know Smth and Pryer personally). They chose not to use any ranks above class. They did use Polypodiopsida as the class name for all leptosporangiate ferns, excluding the Marattiopsida, and they included the Ophioglossales in the Psilotopsida. Note that they includeEquisetopsida and Psilotopsida within the "Ferns" clade, as we currently have it as well. Updating the higher-level fern taxonomy has long been on my (long) list of things to do, but I only got a reprint copy of the article about a month ago. I've incorporated some of the changes already, but I could attend to some of more of this revision next week. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:54, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Hello. I recently added a significant amount of information to Everglades National Park and I would like to nominate it for feature after a few loose ends are taken care of. However, there is a red link from the indigoberry tree (Randia aculeata). Red links are not allowed in FA nominations, so I thought you fine folks might want to see about creating an article for this tree. --Moni3 (talk) 13:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I created a short stub on it. If anyone wants to expand it, the US Forest Service pdf is a great resource (and, I believe, public domain). --Rkitko(talk)15:10, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
Red links are not allowed in FA nominations Of course they are! An overabundance of redlinks has in the past caused problems (and would certainly a FLC to be shot down), but opposing a FAC over a single, minor redlinks is absolutely ridiculous. 17:23, 21 December 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Circeus (talk • contribs)
Heronswood
Does anybody know what is going on with Heronswood lately? There is a new article about "Heronswood (botanical garden)" which, aside from the awkward article title, I think is surely inaccurate in stating that "Heronswood is a botanical garden in Kingston, Washington, USA". Heronswood was a commercial nursery with display gardens at that location, which was purchased by Burpee and subsequently moved to another location. I haven't heard anything lately about the original location but assume it is still owned by Burpee and is not operating as a "botanical garden" as most of us would understand the concept. MrDarwin (talk) 15:45, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
Well, what I know is based on the cited sources (especially the New York Times one). I could see room for quibbling about "botanical garden" versus some other term (although I see room for grey - for example they did more than your average nursery at things like documenting the origin of their plants, as far as I can tell). But other than that the article seems to more or less match what the sources say: it was well-known; Burpee is trying to sell the land (with plants). Whether "Heronswood" is the best name will perhaps be clearer when the sale happens (or doesn't happen) but Heronswood, a Burpee company, does own it for now. The people trying to buy it call it the "former Heronswood Nursery property". As for whether all of this is up to date, seems to be, see for example Heronswood Voice entry for December 5th, 2007 which goes into what is going on with the property in some detail. There are also some July and October updates at [5]. Kingdon (talk) 21:43, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
"Malpighiacious": Please define
From Wallflower: "Wallflowers have malpighiacious trichomes." -- The term "malpighiacious" is apparently not defined anywhere on Wikipedia. Furthermore, Google hits for this term all appear to be clones of this Wikipedia article. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 01:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
I removed the sentence. Whatever "malphigiaceous" trichomes are, there is almost certainly a better term for it. Given that "malphigiaceous trichome" is either a useless bit of jargon or entirely meaningless, it wasn't helpful on any level to keep it. Circeus (talk) 01:32, 31 December 2007 (UTC)
A quick google gives the impression that malphigiaceous trichomes are bifid T-shaped trichomes. It is an unfortunate choice of terminology. (See also begonioid, chloranthoid, cucurbitoid, cunonioid, dillenioid, malvoid, monimioid, platanoid, rosoid, salicoid, theoid, urticoid and violoid teeth, but at least in the latter case they're not a single isolated term.)
Have downloaded the first two, am currently downloading the last. Send me an email and I ll reply with attachments. Hesperian00:18, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
Yay! Expect an article tomorrow (buy watching end-of-year summaries and celebration on TV/procrastinating right now). Circeus (talk) 03:50, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:25, 31 December 2007 (UTC)