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Original Research

I want to address the conception that using pieces from different classifications is somehow original reseach. I've done enough original research to have a good idea of what it is, and most cases of combining classifications don't qualify.

Consider Encelia densifolia C. Clark & Kyhos. The original publication places the species in Encelia and in the Asteraceae. It was published in a refereed journal and is thus fair game to be included in Wikipedia.

But Art Cronquist didn't include E. densifolia in either the Asteraceae or in Encelia: The species was not yet named when he wrote his book. It was named by the time of APG II, but it was not one of the species used in the molecular analyses that support the bulk of that classification.

Is it original research to assign E. densifolia in Wikipedia to either Encelia or Asteraceae? Let's assume that Wikipedia was still using the Cronquist system. Cronquist includes the Asteraceae, and I believe his list of genera included Encelia, but all we are sure that means is that it includes E. canescens, the type species of Encelia. The original research of Clark and Kyhos placed E. densifolia in Encelia, the original research of Cronquist placed Encelia in an overall classification. Is combining the two in Wikipedia thus original research?

Let's consider Acer macrophyllum. Once a member of the Aceraceae, APG II shows that its genus instead belongs in the Sapindaceae. Cronquist (iirc) places the Sapindaceae in the Sapindales. Is it original research to assign Acer to the Sapindales?

My third example is "Penstemon palmeri". APG assigns its genus to the Plantaginaceae, and that family to the Lamiales. Cronquist assigns the Lamiales to the Magnoliopsida. Is placing Penstemon in the Magnoliopsida original research?

The photo of Penstemon palmeri used in the article was taken by Stan Shebs in Red Rock Canyon, Nevada. There is no indication that the plant in question was substantiated as P. palmeri in a refereed journal. There is not even an indication that a voucher specimen was deposited in a herbarium. Is it original research to call that photo Penstemon palmeri rather than unknown organism?

My point here is that the everyday activities of working with biological classifications require assigning organisms based on the judgment of the person working with them. Taxonomic treatises almost never include exhaustive lists of specimens, and even when they do, those specimens are the ones residing in museums at the time. And no single published classification even includes all the species known at the time (unless you combine and count Systema Naturae and Species Plantarum). The Wikipedia prohibition of original research is a good one, but to over-apply it to articles about taxa will inevitably result in harm.--Curtis Clark 18:00, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the notion of "original research" should not be stretched to the extreme. The problems with the examples, mentioned above, can easily be addressed in the article in question, if the author wishes so. Wikipedia is not a scientific journal written for hyperspecialists. We have to deal with the general public, young and old, knowing well or hardly knowing the stuff we write about. Therefore it is not advised to jettison the taxoboxes, a system we have agreed upon, and replace it with a taxonomic system that isn't stable yet. As I said before, let's wait and see. We can resume this discussion in a couple of years. JoJan 19:23, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Quite. First let me make the distinction between what a taxonomist may do (original research required, that is in the job description) and writing a wikipedia article (no original research allowed). However, it looks to me as if the three examples are pretty clear:

1. In the case of Encelia densifolia C.Clark & Kyhos there is a published decision to place this species in the genus Encelia (publication presumably by C. Clark & Kyhos, unless authorship of the name is different from that of the name). So it is entirely uncontroversial to mention this species in a treatment of Encelia on wikipedia. No explicit action or decision is required, other than writing a wikipedia entry.
2. Acer macrophyllum. It is well documented in the real literature that this species exists. The publications by APG are very explicit in that they regard Aceraceae as a synonym of Sapindaceae (that is they include all members of the family Aceraceae in the family Sapindaceae and in the order Sapindales). No original research whatsoever. No explicit action or decision is required, other than writing a wikipedia entry. BTW it is a far stretch to say that "APG II shows that its genus instead belongs in the Sapindaceae": I spend quite a bit of time tracking down the evidence, and this is thin as cigarette paper. APG made the decision to join these families, but the best that can be said is that this is one possible interpretation of the evidence.
3. Penstemon palmeri. I assume it is well documented that the species exists and that its placement to the ordinal level is unproblematic. The APG has assigned this order to the euasterids I (named lamiids by a sub-group of APG) which in turn is placed in the asterids, which is placed in the eudicots. A decision to place this in say Magnoliophyta is skating on thin ice, as original research is involved here too but a case could be made for it. This is because Magnoliophyta sensu Cronquist is well-known as a name for the angiosperms, which are named "angiosperms" by APG, so the two names refer to a group that in outline is the same. I would definitely not be in favor of this as Magnoliophyta sensu Cronquist and "angiosperms" sensu APG have an entirely different internal taxonomy, thus making it confusing to use these names as being interchangeable. Assigning Penstemon palmeri sensu APG to Magnoliopsida sensu Cronquist is out-and-out original research as APG has made it abundantly clear that Magnoliopsida sensu Cronquist is not only not a taxon in the APG universe, but that it cannot be a taxon in the APG universe. This is one of the fundamental results of APG. Also see the above example:

In the case of a classification such as genus Guaiacum in family Zygophyllaceae in order Zygophyllales in class Magnoliopsida in division Magnoliophyta: this is not only not-an-APG-classification but is incompatible with APG. There is no way that a new classification based on APG groups could be published which would use these names (unless Magnoliopsida are taken to be the angiosperms).

There may be other, less kind, qualifications for the act of placing Penstemon palmeri sensu APG in Magnoliopsida sensu Cronquist. But certainly it is original research (at the least). Brya 16:54, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

You have stated your point with a watertight reasoning. The only conclusion is that you would propose a cladistic tree instead of the familiar taxobox. But in my opinion, this would scare off the many readers unfamiliar with this concept. This cannot be our goal. And there is another problem : all the examples you’re giving are at the binomial level. But when one wants to describe a genus, one has to give a list of species as well. In a cladistic perspective, one has to give then the relationships between these species (A is a sister to ….). This would complicate enormously the writing of such an article. Furthermore, the relationships between most species have not been described yet and it will take a very long time to do so. And when they have already been described, only a limited number of species of a genus has been chosen to represent a sample of the genus. A limited number of such cladistic trees have already been published in botany journals, protected as such by copyright laws. This means that such a reasoning doesn’t advance us at all. Your reasoning is watertight, but applying this concept would, at this moment, be adverse to this project. As I stated before, let’s keep things as they are (with taxoboxes and eventually a cladistic description in the article) and review this situation in another couple of years. JoJan 17:38, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

JoJan, most biologists currently agree that a correct taxonomy should reflect the underlying phylogenetic relationships. It doesn't have to express every aspect of the tree, but it should be consistent with its general form. Classifications that are not are obsolete, i.e. incorrect. I don't think retaining the classes Magnoliopsida and Liliopsida above APG is original research, but it's fair to say they're now generally considered incorrect, so we shouldn't be using them. Right now the taxoboxes are full of mistakes.

It seems to me that the simplest thing to do would be to replace incorrect parts of the taxobox with the corresponding unranked groups - Liliopsida with monocots, Magnoliopsida with eudicots, magnoliids, or whatever is appropriate. That would remove any inaccuracies, after which we'd be at leisure to wait for a better scheme to be published. See the sunflower boxes I added above for examples.

Somebody will have to explain to me why replacing them with something like "unranked: eudicots" is so confusing. The eudicots are a well-known group that tells you a fair bit about the plants in question. Specialists will be familiar with using them, and to non-specialists they'll be a lot more meaningful than something like subclass Hamamelidae ever was. It just so happens this widely-accepted group doesn't have a widely-accepted formal name yet. That doesn't stop professionals or amateurs from using it. There's a reason the taxoboxes allow unranked groups. Josh

Some points:

• I would definitely not be in favor of this as Magnoliophyta sensu Cronquist and "angiosperms" sensu APG have an entirely different internal taxonomy, thus making it confusing to use these names as being interchangeable. This again confuses names and taxa. Plantaginaceae sensu Cronquist and Plantaginaceae sensu APG have not only different internal taxonomies, they have different circumscriptions (something which is not true of Magnoliophyta and angiosperms), and yet APG didn't change the name (couldn't, in fact, according to ICBN, although there is still some controversy about the correct family name for that group).

No, names and taxa are clearly separate. Formal names are governed by the ICBN. This means that when a taxonomist describes a taxon and is looking for the correct name he has to follow the ICBN. However, when a taxonomist (re)describes a taxon and applies the correct name to it he is not only engaged in original research but he creates a 'new' and recognisable unit. Plantaginaceae sensu Cronquist and Plantaginaceae sensu APG are quite different and when speaking of them a degree of care is needed, otherwise hopeless confusion will ensue. In view of the 'no original research' policy it would be wrong to create a Plantaginaceae sensu wikipedia with yet a new (supposedly superior) circumscription. This is irrespective of the availability of the name Plantaginaceae (it is validly published), but creating a new taxon, or giving a new formal name to an existing taxon is original research. Brya 15:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

As I have pointed out repeatedly, the simple act of working with biological names requires independent circumscription, and Wikipedia is necessarily home to a lot of it. But in the case of angiosperms and Magnoliophyta, the circumscriptions are exactly the same. I challenge anyone to provide citations from books or journals from the last 30 years that show different circumscriptions for any taxon named Magnoliophyta, Anthophyta, Angiospermophyta, angiosperms, or flowering plants. All those names are singulary unambiguous with respect to group membership, and are identical.--Curtis Clark 17:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, as I have pointed out repeatedly "independent circumscription" is something that wikipedia should shy away from. As to "Magnoliophyta, Anthophyta, Angiospermophyta, angiosperms, or flowering plants": the last two are indeed unambiguous; I cannot say I have ever heard of Angiospermophyta; Anthophyta has two circumscriptions although I am not sure of the extent of how and when they were used; Magnoliophyta has at least two popular circumscriptions, both of which were in recent use. Brya 16:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

I was going to add {{fact}}, but I decided that was rude. I am interested to know what these alternate circumscriptions are.--Curtis Clark 16:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, both the Dahlgren system and the earlier versions of the Thorne system use Magnoliopsida for the angiosperms (with Magnoliidae for dicots and Liliidae for monocots) and Magnoliophyta for a higher ranked taxon (presumably the seed plants, but who cares).

Oh, yeah, duh. Rank changes. I even knew of the old Thorne system, back in the days when everyone encouraged him to publish, and his stock answer was "it will never be finished!"--Curtis Clark 15:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

The official flora here, before it switched to APG, used the Cronquist system but had bumped up all the higher level taxa one rank, leading to the same result. Brya 14:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Isn't that original research? :-)--Curtis Clark 15:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but they are allowed (and required) to do so. Brya 16:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

• ...APG has made it abundantly clear that Magnoliopsida sensu Cronquist is not only not a taxon in the APG universe, but that it cannot be a taxon in the APG universe. Scrophulariaceae sensu Cronquist is not a taxon in the APG universe, and yet Scrophulariaceae exists as a name in the APG classification. Anyone with any knowledge of angiosperms can see that the only Cronquist Class that can accomodate the Lamiales is the Magnoliopsida. This is independent of (a) whether it is a good idea to recognize the dicots (I of course contend that it isn't), and what a taxon called "Magnoliopsida" would contain in an APG universe (probably only the Magnoliales). Just because something is a bad idea, that doesn't make it original research.

Well, Scrophulariaceae sensu Cronquist and Scrophulariaceae sensu APG do both exist. They are not the same. Magnoliopsida sensu APG does not exist. Creating a Magnoliopsida sensu APG just for the sake of taxoboxes is original research as well as a bad idea. Brya 15:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's a bad idea. Considering what "Magnoliopsida sensu APG" might mean, I don't think it's good enough to be original research. :-) --Curtis Clark 17:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

• A limited number of such cladistic trees have already been published in botany journals, protected as such by copyright laws. I agree about the limited number. On the other hand, data are not subject to copyright, and trees are data. (An individual depiction of a tree is subject to copyright.)

There is a pretty overwhelming number of trees published. Part of the trouble is that they are not directly comparable. A tree is only as good as the data that went into it. You have to check every time what a tree is based on. Brya 15:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

It only seems overwhelming if you don't consider all the species that don't have published trees. I agree about the rest.--Curtis Clark 17:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

The number is overwhelming to me. Of course there are many taxa for which no trees were published. But anyway there are many species (and other taxa) indeed that are not known beyond the type collection, and which are very poorly described in all respects. There is a mind-boggling number of species out there, for which an overwhelming number of trees has been published. Much too much for me to contain. Brya 16:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

• I don't think retaining the classes Magnoliopsida and Liliopsida above APG is original research, but it's fair to say they're now generally considered incorrect, so we shouldn't be using them. The Liliopsida (monocots) in virtually every recent classification constitute a clade.
• Right now the taxoboxes are full of mistakes. Agreed.
• Somebody will have to explain to me why replacing them with something like "unranked: eudicots" is so confusing. The eudicots are a well-known group that tells you a fair bit about the plants in question. Two points: (1) Most non-systematists won't have a clue as to what that means, and (2) "eudicot" is as effectively a common name as blue dicks or hackberry. If it's worth using, it's worth formalizing, IMO (AFAIK it has not been formalized under Phylocode either).
• It just so happens this widely-accepted group doesn't have a widely-accepted formal name yet. I favor Cannabinopsida. :-)

I agree with Josh that common names are easier. Formal names have limited utility. It is not an exception at all to find a botany or taxonomy textbook that refuses to use formal names for higher ranks: this is just confusing. The seed plants are the seed plants, no matter which formal name is attached to them. I have never seen a name above the rank of order (descriptive names excepted) that was not more hindrance than help.

To the limited extent that I see your point, this argues for eliminating the classification above Familia in the taxobox.--Curtis Clark 17:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

I would not be against replacing all names in the taxobox above the level of order by 'common names' (or leaving them out alltogether. Brya 16:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

It is worth pointing out here that the adjective dicotyledonous is now shifting in meaning, and is beginning to mean "pertaining to the eudicots" rather than "pertaining to the dicots".Brya 15:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

This is just silly. "Dicotyledonous" has a perfectly good descriptive meaning: the plesiomorphic cotyledon number of the seed plants. Ginkgoes and Welwitschia are neither "dicots" nor "eudicots", despite their cotyledon numbers, and I'll be thrilled when the only cotyledon number that is ever held important for the flowering plants is "1".--Curtis Clark 17:35, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Language is the way it is. There are many words in common usage that are a far cry from their original meaning. The adjective "dicotyledonous" was used like "annonaceous", that is pertaining to a particular taxonomic group. It has always been hard enough to explain that "dicots" does not refer to a plant with two cotyledons, but to a member of a taxonomic group (of course it was worse for monocots). Brya 16:34, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

In what way was it worse for monocots? It's not unusual to refer to groups by diagnostic synapomorphies, e.g. "seed plants".--Curtis Clark 16:44, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the percentage of "dicots" with two cotyledons is much higher that the number of monocots with one 'cotyledon'. Brya 14:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Please clarify. I know of monocots with no cotyledons (and tetrapods with no legs), and I know that there has been disagreement about homology, especially in grasses (although it seems clear-cut to me), but I know of none with two or more cotyledons.--Curtis Clark 15:31, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

In that case I don't see your problem. Nobody would describe a snake as a four-legged creature. Brya 16:56, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Maybe I misunderstood; I thought you were the one in favor of descriptive (rather than type-based) names for higher taxa.--Curtis Clark 19:33, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh yes, I am in favor of descriptive names, whether in the sense of Art 16.1.b or in the sense of APG. However even a descriptive name is a name (just a label) and not a definition that has to be met by each and every member of the group. Both Monocotyledones and "monocots" are very useful and unambiguous names, and this is not lessened all that much by the fact that very many members of this group do not live up to this feature of one cotyledon per seed. It will be interesting to see if the adjective "dicotyledonous" does really shift to a new taxonomic group, now that the old group is no longer accepted. Theoretically it is possible that the name Dicotyledones in future will be applied to the eudicots, although I don't expect this to happen. Brya 16:25, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

At that point, I was coming to believe that eliminating the taxoboxes was the best solution, but now I'm thinking eliminate ranks above family.--Curtis Clark 21:08, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

It's not so much that taxoboxes are unworkable, but that there are ranks for which the the situation is not easily summarized by a single name. Why not just eliminate those ranks, and/or replace them with a "see text" or "see link" snippet that explains the situation? Personally, 99% of my taxobox jumps are species<->genus<->family anyway, if the higher links went away I would hardly notice. The toplevel link to "plant" is still undisputed too, right? :-) That's always handy for absolute beginners happening on a page. Stan 21:59, 1 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes, mostly it is just the family or the order that is important. Dropping a rank (or two) from the taxobox is preferable to the present situation. However it is not so that the situation cannot be summarized by a single word: it can. It is just that this single word is unpopular. Brya 15:06, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Solutions?

Dropping the taxoboxes is over-reacting. The only major problem is that the Magnoliopsida-Liliopsida split we use is obsolete, so we simply have to correct that. There are two ways we could go: we could replace them with their unranked equivalents or we could drop the information from the box. At the moment either is an improvement, so just to get something done, perhaps we should vote on it.

There are two other things to decide that aren't quite as pressing, but it might not hurt to get a sense where people everyone stands. That is, I'm not claiming these are formal votes, but if there's a definite consensus we may as well stick with it. Josh

Informal groups in the taxobox:

• We should include key groups even if they haven't been formalized yet.
  • Josh; there's no way most non-systematists find common names more confusing.
  • Brya 15:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC); clearly I am in favor of this

• We should leave out groups that are not validly published.
  • Curtis Clark 05:15, 2 July 2006 (UTC); support—in my experience, non-systematists only think they understand common names better, and it sends the wrong message to say that an informal group is as good as a published taxon. The APG names are unambiguous in the context of the presented research, but they are not exhaustively enumerated; assigning additional taxa to them could be considered original research.
  • Brya 15:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC) oppose. I agree that there is a general underestimate by people of names and what they mean. However, the names of APG clades are singularly unambiguous

• We should not change the taxoboxes until a complete top-to-bottom classification is available.
  • Curtis Clark 05:15, 2 July 2006 (UTC); oppose—they are so inconsistent now that something needs to be done.
  • Brya 15:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC); oppose. We should make sure taxoboxes do not contain incorrect information, even if they are not complete.
  • SB Johnny 11:34, 2 July 2006 (UTC); better not to throw out the old mousetraps when the new ones aren't in production yet
  • Brya 15:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC); oppose. We should make sure taxoboxes do not contain incorrect information, even if they are not complete.

• We should emulate the taxoboxen used by German Wikipedia (see comments above)
  • Curtis Clark 05:15, 2 July 2006 (UTC); support—the Strasburger book is a standard classification in non-Anglophone Europe.
  • Brya 15:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC); oppose. It is hard enough to explain the differences between Cronquist and APG II, without involving yet a third system. I don't think it has merit anyway.

Listed divisions

• We should stick with division Magnoliophyta until a better system is published.
  • Josh; very mild preference.
  • Brya 15:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC); I will go along with that, until the book by Mabberley is published.
• We should switch to using division Tracheophyta, class Spermatopsida, which will probably be used by Mabberley.
• We should switch to Anthophyta because that's what many textbooks use.
  • Curtis Clark 05:15, 2 July 2006 (UTC); mildly support: it doesn't really matter what we call the clade of flowering plants, so we might as well go with something familiar to many users, and widely used in recent textbooks published in the United States.
  • Brya 15:25, 2 July 2006 (UTC); oppose. Angiospermae looks a better candidate.

Italics

• We should italicize all names following the ICBN regardless of rank.
• We should not italicize names above the rank of genus.
  • Josh; simply because it makes pages discussing multiple kingdoms harder to read.
  • Curtis Clark 05:15, 2 July 2006 (UTC); it also fits with common practice in texts and journals. But if the consensus was to italicize, I'd have no problem with that.
  • Cas Liber 09:32, 2 July 2006 (UTC) - never seen anyone italicize anything above genus.
  • SB Johnny 11:34, 2 July 2006 (UTC); Either switch them all, or leave them all. When the next change comes about it will be nice to use a bot as far as possible.
  • Stan 11:50, 2 July 2006 (UTC) ; animal kingdom isn't going to do it, freaky for readers and editors to have such a widespread but trivial difference. (Imagine the effect on articles that discuss both plants and animals, such as almost everything ecological)
  • NoahElhardt 00:20, 14 July 2006 (UTC) ; No need to fix something that ain't broken. There's plenty of bigger fish to fry, and people are generally used to the old system.

Interwiki clean-up needed for moss etc

I have today been trying to sort out the iw-links on Swedish Wikipedia for various articles concerning mosses, and to my despair found that the existing state of iw-linking is to put it shortly a mess. The problem is of course made worse by the fact that this category of plants is undergoing reevaluation. I think that English Wikipedia is also in urgent need of attention on this matter (or soon bots will start messing up Swedish Wikipedia again *smile*), so I thought it might be appropriate if I shared my experiences here with you.

Basically what we now have on Swedish Wikipedia is three articles (though the content still needs to be shuffled around between them):

sv:Mossor

covering what is traditionally referred to as moss in Swedish, though it no longer has taxonomic standing, that is what is common for Bryophyta "plain" moss, Anthocerotophyta (hornwort) and Marchantiophyta (liverworts)

sv:Bladmossor

covering the current understanding of Bryophyta, that is excluding hornwort and liverworts

sv:Egentliga bladmossor

covering the class Bryopsida within Bryophyta

Apart from many articles quite simply being wrongly iw-linked, there is the additional problem of many languages choosing to treat Bryophyta and Bryopsida together, usually without mention of the six other classes of Bryophyta, as well as some languages treating hornwort and liverworts according to classic taxonomy as part of Bryophyta.

What I tried to do when cleaning up the iw-links was as follows (regardless of article name)

• if the article covers Bryophyta, Anthocerotophyta, and Marchantiophyta link it to sv:Mossor
• if the article does cover Bryopsida, then link it to sv:Egentliga bladmossor
• if it only covers Bryophyta, then link it to sv:Bladmossor
• if I cannot tell (like Japanese), then don't link it

I am not sure this was the best way, but it was the only I found feasible. Let me also note that the redirects between these various names are abundant! --Sannab 14:29, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Illustrations of plant articles

Over on Apple, a couple of new users (or perhaps they are a single user) decided to remove a fair number of "superfluous" images. I called for a moratorium of any more image removals on that article until there was a clear sense among the editors of what types of images a plant article needs. I've noticed here and there some other similar disagreements, so I would like to start a discussion here of appropriate illustration of a plant article.

I'd like to start with some general principles, and then a list of the types of images an article could contain. I'm hoping that this might eventually evolve into a set of guidelines.

All of this is of course for discussion; feel free to modify the list below.--Curtis Clark 15:52, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

General principles

1. Images with detailed captions that bring out an aspect of the subject that adds to or amplifies the article, and images with thin captions that illustrate subjects or features explained in the text of the article, are both desirable, and are to be preferred over images with thin or no captions that have no direct connection to the text.
2. All other things being equal, a higher-resolution image is preferable to a lower-resolution image, because it provides more detail to a reader who clicks through, and because it is more flexible in page layout (there is no chance of resizing it above its native resolution).
3. All other things being equal, an image from Wikimedia Commons is preferable to an image from en.Wikipedia, because it can be directly used by editors in the same article in other languages.
4. Editors should always evaluate images to make sure they are of the correct plant.
5. Image galleries are best "themed"—e.g., used for comparison of species or organs—rather than being random collections of images.

Types of images

By source

• Photograph
• Illustration (classical—e.g. out-of-copyright—illustrations are used in a number of articles)

By subject

• Whole-plant (in some cases, such as Welwitschia, the appearance of the plant is diagnostic; in others, especially at low resolution, it "looks like just another tree")
• Organs
  • Stem (not useful for many plants, but bark, armament, and branching can all be diagnostic)
  • Leaf (leaf shape is useful for many plants, as is indumentum)
  • Root (not usually available except for root crops)
  • Reproductive structures
    • Flower (it's useful to have enough detail to be able to distinguish at least some of the individual flower parts)
    • Fruit (obviously important for fruit crops)
    • Strobilus (obviously important for conifers, especially the seed cones)
    • Seed (useful for seed crops and when seeds are distinctive)
• Habitat/Cultivated setting (these are often of little value at low resolution)
• Distribution maps
• Unprepared and prepared agricultural products alone or in market or industrial settings (some of the photos removed from Apple were from this category; an image showing processing, comparing processed to unprocessed product, or showing unusual ways of harvest, transportation, storage, or marketing seems more useful than a generic picture)
• Pests and predators
• Chemical formulae of active principles
• Iconography (a number of these were removed from Apple)

1. All seems sensible to me, codifies some of the rules I had been using informally. I would strengthen the first general principle into saying that each picture beyond the "main" one *must* have something unique about it, and this unique contribution must be mentioned in caption or running text. Stan 20:07, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
2. I do not see anything to object to in the general principles outlined above. I am all in favor of using plenty of pictures where available: a good picture says more than a thousand words. I understood the problems at apple as some users being worried about pictures making the page too slow to load. My impression of the apple page is that is too long anyway and could benefit by splitting. Apples are a really big topic which deserves more than one page. Brya 15:50, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Plant stub split

I've proposed a number of new stub types to try to deal with the very large size of the current category. If anyone has any thoughts on the utility of these, please do comment there. Alai

Expert needed: Anacharis

I've left a message here for the user who created Anacharis as a redirect to what I believe is an unrelated plant. Input from someone with a reliable reference would be much appreciated. Thanks, Tomer^talk 19:25, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

According to ipni.org, Anacharis Rich. is a synonym of Elodea Michx., so that's where it should redirect. APNI states, 'Remarks: See comments by C.A.Weatherby "On the Nomenclature of Elodea" in Rhodora 34 (1932) 114-116, & Voss, Rhodora 68 (1966) 437 who state "Continued use of Anacharis instead of Elodea is incorrect."'--Curtis Clark 23:30, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for looking that up, and for fixing it all in one fell swoop. I've grown up calling it "Anacharis" and was unaware that the binomial had been changed to Elodea canadensis...but I knew instantly that the Brazilian plant was not where the redirect should be pointing. Tomer^talk 06:42, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Maples

I intend to work on the wikipedia coverage of maples soon, starting with that page, and specifically with a copy at User:Circeus/Maple. It's been a long while since I've made content contributions, but finding Pirc's book (which apparenly does not have an English translation) rekindled my interest. My college library has Maples of the World (which looks fantastically good from its Amazon.com extract), and I am open to know of any other sources I should have a look at. I am not very good at searching journals, so suggestions in this domain are especially appreciated. Circeus 02:26, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

I reckon a more 'mapley' image in the taxobox would be a good lead and to sprinkle images thru the pages near relevant text rather than galleries. Am in Australia so far from any natural maple habitat. Will let you know if I have any ideas. cheers Cas Liber 03:17, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey, as I said above, I am not very competing at looking up scientific articles. I'm trying to locate recent (post 1996) information on the placement of Aceraceae within Sapindaceae, which is the current position of the article, but for which I can hardly find any sources beyond the AGP, is it commoly accepted or not? I'm also trying to find some recent stuff on subgeneric divisions, namely, can I base the article on the classification in Van Gelderen (1994)? Circeus 15:58, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I'm not aware of anything that changes the classification post-APG; inclusion of Acer in Sapindaceae seems to be gaining widespread acceptance. The van Gelderen subdivisions are widely used, though they're not based on genetic analysis, only morphology, so they may well become superseeded. Their classification is also very conservative, with several species accepted by most other authors reduced to subspecies (e.g. A. ginnala, A. grandidentatum); for these I'd think we should retain them as species. Note for the refs, there's a sci style template at {{cite journal2}} (avoids the humanities style of having article titles in quote marks) - MPF 01:09, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

If I'm not mistaken, they treat A. tataricum and A. saccharum as cryptic species complex on the basis (at least for A. saccharum) that there are so many morphologically intermediate individuals that would impossible to classify without biochemical analysis as to make tehse divisions useless. However, I am not familiar with the precise work these are based and the divergences are worthy of mentionning anyway. Besides, we usually keep separate articles for notable subspecies. Circeus 19:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

A. tataricum and A. ginnala at least are very readily distinguishable, they certainly don't fit the 'cryptic species complex' criteria! - MPF 09:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

While I'm at it, within Sapidaceae, Aceraceae and Hippocastanaceae are joind into subfamily Hippocastanoideae, is that correct? Circeus 19:02, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Yes - MPF 09:53, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Odd, the dipteronia sources mentions aceroideae (see also [1] and [2], more stuff I must read). will have to mention both classifications. I'm considering using Aceraceae for the taxobox, though, at least as long as we'll keep a separate Aceraceae article, with, of course, mention ofthe sapindaceae reclassification, any opinions? Circeus 19:07, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Multiple Expert Opinions Needed: Citrus

In June 2006 I was having a short debate on a citrus topic: Is Citrus aurantifolia a species or a hybrid? Originally I let it go and left the page as is (hybrid). But now It's bothering me again and I don't know if I should change the page or leave it as is. I firmly believe that the key lime is a pure species and not a hybrid. But my opinion alone does --Curtis Clark 13:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)not matter, it is the community consensus that matters. Should it remain classified as a hybrid or a species? P.S. How do you write the time? My watch says its 3:12 P.M. but I don't know how to translate it into Wikipedia time. - 29 July 2006 —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.237.252.122 (talk • contribs) 19:13, 29 July 2006.

I don't have a comment on Citrus aurantifolia, but sign your comments using four tildes, e.g., ~~~~. That automatically adds your username and the timestamp. I'll add an unsigned tag next that will include a useful link. --Walter Siegmund (talk) 19:46, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Names of hybrids are governed by Appendix I and Article 50 of the ICBN. Citrus aurantifolia was the original name of the plant, i.e. it was not described as a nothospecies (hybrid). Back when I was in the business, ICBN required that, should it be decided that a species was really a nothospecies, it was necessary to publish that information, in the form of the nothospecies combination followed by pro sp., indicating that it was originally published as a species. Index Kewensis records this for Mentha ×piperita, but not for Citrus ×aurantifolia.

I can't seem to find the same requirement in the Saint Louis Code, so maybe now someone can just write Citrus ×aurantifolia whenever they want. And unfortunately Google ignores the "×". When I search on "Citrus x aurantifolia", many of the hits are Wikipedia forks, and none list its putative parents.

I believe Citrus ×aurantifolia is a mis-transcription or otherwise an error, because I've seen no evidence that it is a hybrid. But there could be recent stuff in the literature that I'm not aware of that supports its hybrid nature.--Curtis Clark 21:11, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

So far everyone agrees with me. Does anybody disagree? By the way I would like references to offer as proof. 00:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

My feeling is that a reference should have been needed to introduce Citrus ×aurantifolia, since Citrus aurantifolia was its original name, it appears never to have been published as pro sp., and no indication is given as to its parentage. Are you the same anon that has been trying to make the change to Citrus?--Curtis Clark 23:14, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I read the abstract at Nicolosi, E., Z. N. Deng, A. Gentile, S. La Malfa, G. Continella, and E. Tribulato. 2000. Citrus phylogeny and genetic origin of important species as investigated by molecular markers. Theoretical and Applied Genetics 100(8): 1155 - 1166 (abstract online here), and someone misconstrued what it means. Adding "×" to a name indicates that it is a nothospecies, that every individual is a hybrid. Cultivated plants can be nothospecies if they are effectively clones of a hybrid. But all Nicolosi et al. are saying is that genetic evidence shows C. aurantifolia to be of hybrid origin ("...a hybrid origin was hypothesized for all the tested genotypes."). A true-breeding species of hybrid origin is not a nothospecies. Whether key limes breed true from seed, I don't know, but to call them Citrus ×aurantifolia is original research. I'll change it later today or tomorrow.--Curtis Clark 23:33, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, a (more or less) true-breeding species of hybrid origin can be considered as a nothospecies. A nothospecies is simply a taxon resulting from a hybrid between two species, nothing more, nothing less. It may be naturally occurring or it may be an artificial hybrid; it may be sterile or it may be fertile. But there is considerable gray area as to when the "×" should be added to the name. MrDarwin 02:37, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, but I strongly disagree, at least with respect to the biology. One common mode of hybrid speciation is amphidiploidy. An example given on that page is Sequoia sempervirens; I don't see anyone calling it ×Sequoia. There is a fundamental biological distinction between a group of plants, every one of which is the result of an act of hybridization between two different species, and another group of plants, every one of which is the offspring of a plant belonging to that group. Ordinarily the first group would be called a nothospecies, and the second a species. The fact that the second might be the product of a stabilized hybrid (either polyploid or diploid) doesn't change that. --Curtis Clark 04:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the parents have to be "postulated or known" to be considered a nothotaxon. At any rate, various botanists have treated nothotaxa in various ways (and are not always in agreement). The Code state (H.4.1) "When all the parent taxa can be postulated or are known, a nothotaxon is circumscribed so as to include all individuals (as far as they can be recognized) derived from the crossing of representatives of the stated parent taxa (i.e. not only the Fl but subsequent filial generations and also back-crosses and combinations of these). There can thus be only one correct name corresponding to a particular hybrid formula; this is the earliest legitimate name (see Art. 6.3) in the appropriate rank (Art. H.5), and other names to which the same hybrid formula applies are synonyms of it." MrDarwin 13:35, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I see now reason why the parents need to be known. Theoretically it is quite possible to have a plant that by its karyology is definitely a hybrid, being recognized as a nothotaxon, although both parents are unknown. The issue is whether it is a hybrid or not. On the other hand a hybrid formula does require both parents to be known. Brya 14:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

ICBN: "H.3.2. A nothotaxon cannot be designated unless at least one parental taxon is known or can be postulated."--Curtis Clark 14:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Oops, I should be more careful before making quick comments! Brya 05:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Which of course, Mabberley has fulfilled by identifying C. maxima as one of the parents. I'm not aware that the taxon is known in the wild, AFAIK it is only cultivated, like oranges, lemons, etc. - MPF 16:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

[3], [4], [5], [6]. (Whether these references are reliable is of course another matter.)--Curtis Clark 19:40, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

To answer your question Curtis, no I have not edited the citrus article for a long time. Therefore I am not the same anon you speak of.00:10, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Mabberley (possibly the most highly regarded authority on the genus) treats it as a hybrid:

The commercially important citrus are largely derived from three allopatric Citrus (subg. Citrus) spp.: C. medica L. (India), C. reticulata Blanco (China) and C. maxima (Burm.) Merr. (SE Asia), though there are at least two as yet unrecognised species in the ancestry of the lime, C. × aurantiifolia (Christm.) Swingle, and the lemon, C. × limon (L.) Osb. (see Mabberley 1997).

—From Telopea 7: 333–344 (pdf file)

On the proceedural requirements for changing species to hybrids, I'm not aware of any; as Curtis says, there's nothing in the current ICBN. - MPF 01:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Addenum: Mabberley has made the pro sp. amendment, in Telopea 7: 167-172 (pdf file):

Citrus × aurantiifolia (Christm.) Swingle, J. Washington Acad. Sci. 3: 465 (1913) pro sp., as ‘aurantifolia’.

[2. Citrus maxima × ?*]

Limonia × aurantiifolia Christm., Vollst. Pflanzensyst. 1: 618 (1777) pro sp., as ‘aurantifolia’.

Type: [icon] ‘Limonellus sive Limon Nipis’ Rumphius, Herbarium Amboinense 2: t. 29 (1741); lectotype selected by Stone in Dassanayake & Fosberg, Rev. Handbk. Fl. Ceylon 5: 424 (1985).

The lime. *The putative parent differs from the unknown parent of the lemon; Scora & Kumamoto (1983) consider there may be three wild species in the lime’s ancestry, two of them perhaps from outside subg. Citrus (but see also under C. × limon above).

MPF 01:30, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I've seen it cited somewhere that C. aurantifolia grows in the wild as a true-breeding species. Whether Mabberley was nomenclaturally justified in calling it C. ×aurantifolia, it's contrary to the ordinary way of dealing with true-breeding diploid species of hybrid origin. It certainly obscures the evolutionary differences between that species and others that consist of clones and sports of F₁s.--Curtis Clark 04:05, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Somehow I still don't feel convinced, though I now wonder if I was wrong. I am extremely confused & don't know what to do about it. I don't feel right leaving it as it was, but I also don't feel right with my classification. Maybe I should just step away from the article for a while. And why aren't more wikipedians answering my question?. I need a COMMUNITY consensus people. So far only two people have answered my question. - 02:20, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

There are two different questions here

1. is Citrus aurantifolia of hybrid origin?
2. should Citrus aurantifolia be given a hybrid name?

These questions are quite separate. Lots of hybrids have species names. As far as I know Citrus aurantifolia is of hybrid origin but does not get a hybrid name. As with any name it is important to indicate who uses it, so if Citrus ×aurantifolia is to be used or mentioned it is important to indicate who uses it that way. Brya 06:41, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Your first question is really two, which are more or less mutually exclusive: Is Citrus aurantifolia a hybrid, or is Citrus aurantifolia a true-breeding species of hybrid origin. The former often get the "×"; the latter almost never do.--Curtis Clark 13:26, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I like to stick to basics. My first question is a single question. If the answer is yes than in order to answer the second question the taxonomist in question may want to ask himself your two questions. ;) Brya 14:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

It may sound basic, but in practice it is not. If I am handed an F₁ hybrid (not identified as such), and I self it or cross it with another such plant, the progeny range will automatically make me suspect that it is a hybrid. And if I have the putative parents, I can repeat the cross. Species of hybrid origin, on the other hand, breed true, and behave more or less like any other species. In the case of alloploids, the chromosome number is a hint, but only in the context of other known chromosome numbers in the group. Morphology is often misleading; some classical examples of diploid hybrid speciation in Penstemon and Delphinium turned out to be equivocal, and Riesberg's classic work on Helianthus includes cases where he had established hybrid origin before he was sure about one of the parents (and the new species was not intermediate in appearance between the parents).

It is true that every species of hybrid origin starts out as one or more hybrid plants. But in practice the two questions are most often answered separately, often each without considering the other (I may know whether a species is true-breeding before I know whether it is of hybrid origin).

A bibliography that cites most of the relevant papers as of nine years ago may be found in Allan, Gerard J., Curtis Clark, and Loren H. Riesberg. 1997. Distribution of parental DNA markers in Encelia virginensis (Asteraceae: Heliantheae), a diploid species of putative hybrid origin. Pl. Syst. Evol. 205:205-221. PDF.--Curtis Clark 14:44, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Well frankly, in light of what all of you have shown me here, I would classify True-breeding citrus species of hybrid origin as full species. If they breed true and have been in existance for a long time it doesn't really make sense to classify it as a hybrid. Though the definition of species has been changing ever since the discovery of hybrids, I think that the Species concept should include taxa of hybrid origin that breed true, have a sustainable population in the wild and have a niche in nature. Anyway, who are we as mere mortals to decide what a species is?. Nature does that all on her own. 15:04, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Anyway, it's not the origin but the current status that matters. Just because it started off as a hybrid does not mean it still is one. - 15:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Images

While looking on comons this link http://plants.usda.gov/gallery.html was in a discussion page about plants. Its a US targeted data base so unless the plant has been introduced into the US it wont be there. that aside there is about 11,000 PD images all with and searchable by scientific names. Gnangarra 11:53, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, very nice. But beware, when you click on a species name, you get a mixed bag of free and nonfree. For instance, Phacela bipinnitafida has four photos and a drawing, but only the drawing is free, it being a scan from an old book. Stan 15:52, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

There is a filter option when searching to restrict the results to PD. Gnangarra 01:58, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps I used it wrong then, because I got a list of species, each of which had PD images, but not exclusively. Stan 05:33, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Unless you specifically look for it , Its an obscurely placed selection box on the search page right hand column between region options Gnangarra 05:48, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Translating a botanical term from spanish

While translating the article Euphorbia atropurpurea (a Canary Islands shrub) from spanish, I came across the word bracteas. I don't really have any technical botanical knowledge, and this word wasn't translatable by any of my dictionaries; I just left it untranslated. Can anyone figure out what it means and maybe make the correction? --Erudy 16:42, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Done! It translated as "bracts". --NoahElhardt 17:08, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Erudy! If you do an iw link on bract on one side, please do it on the other. (I've been known to translate too, and that really helps!) -- SB_Johnny | ^talk 17:21, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Cruciferae

Anyone able to help me improve some of the articles?? Advice is appreciated! --TheM62Manchester 12:29, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

My suggestions is to go from up to down, e.g. start by improving Brassicaceae, than you couldmove down into a genus, then into species article. When doing family and genera article, I find it particularly necessary to include the delimitating element from a taxonomic PoV, that is, what are the shard elements that unite all the members of the group and segregate them from other related groups? In my opinion, that should be clearly stated in genera, order and family articles. Circeus 07:21, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I am taking the opposite position. There is no point in trying to improve articles if you do not have the required knowledge. In general it is much easier to take a species and look more closely into that. Unless one really knows what one is doing one should not try and describe higher level taxa: such attempts very easily lead to atrocious results. Brya 07:31, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I would like to make them into featured article candidates - I haven't seen plants being on the Main Page very much. --TheM62Manchester 11:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Good luck to you. There is a reason plant articles in wikipedia mostly don't amount to much. Hope you make it. Brya 14:17, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Plant photo collection - no IDs though

I have about 150 WP quality plant and flower photos sitting on my computer that I was thinking of uploading to commons. Does this WikiProject provide a similar "identification" service to the Anthropod project? (Note: crossposted to en and commons). --cfp 21:27, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I believe that the German WP has an life ID page, where anyone can post pictures of living beings to be ID'ed. I was considering suggesting a similar page for the English WP... is there any interest? I have at least 3 dozen plant and insect pictures from my trip to Mexico that I need identification. I could post them on the talk pages of the appropriate family articles, but mightn't it be better to have a centralized ID page? --NoahElhardt 21:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Or post them here - MPF 17:41, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Or upload them to commons, there is an identification unit on commons, albeit not a very active one, see commons:Category:Unknown species TeunSpaans 19:13, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Request for article review

Once again I seem to have trespassed upon a botanical article claimed as personal property and jealously guarded by another editor, and have been having a most unpleasant time trying to get any of what I consider useful, factual, and entirely reasonable edits into it. The article is Type (botany). I will freely admit that I am capable of making mistakes, which is why I am making this appeal here: somebody please check out the article and keep me honest. The problem is that even after discussion with the other editor I absolutely cannot see where the error lies in my additions or why they keep getting reverted or deleted. MrDarwin 21:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I think Brya is heading for a spanking by the Arbcom - the personal attacks and insults are way out of line. I don't even need to look at the article, the talk page content alone is completely unacceptable. Stan 03:42, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Common name capitalization (article titles and in text)

Having not seen a thorough discussion of botanical common name capitalization in this specific WikiProject, I have copied the following discussion from User talk:MPF. Rkitko 18:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Greetings. I'm sure I've missed pertinent discussions on the capitalization debate in either WP:TOL or WP:PLANTS. If you know specifically where they are, I'd appreciate the links :-)

Second, as you may have noticed, I removed said capitals in error on the titled page above (Red Alder). Common names of plants are not proper names in and of themselves. I'm of the opinion that plant names should only contain capitals when a portion of their name refers to a specific place or name. I've noticed that you're of the opposite opinion. The only argument in favor of that formatting that I've seen is that it nicely demarcates what is and what is not the plant's common name in prose text. While I agree in principle that it's an easy way to signal the reader that this is the plant's name, I disagree in practice and still believe this to be a misuse of capitalization. If you could provide further thoughts on the topic, I would read it with interest.

Third, I was wondering if we could engage in this discussion on WP:PLANTS or WP:TOL so that others in the community could see it and give their opinions. Since I haven't been around as long as you, I defer to you whether or not there has been sufficient coverage of this debate in that community recently--if not, I'll move this note over to WP:PLANTS so we can discuss there (or you can, if you wish).

Thanks! Best, Rkitko 16:24, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Rkitko. Let's move this to WP:PLANTS, since other groups, such as birds, have different traditions.--Curtis Clark 17:01, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

It's been discussed on numerous occasions in the WP:TOL talk archives; take a look through. Generally, there has been a small majority in favour of caps for various practical reasons, e.g. a wild cherry (any species of Prunus growing in its natural environment) is not necessarily the same as a Wild Cherry (the common name of the particular species Prunus avium). Also, please, whatever you want to do, it is not a good idea to subdivide species into two different groups based on the (often very obscure) etymology of the name (e.g. is Pohutukawa a proper name? Do you know the Maori etymology?? I don't!). As for what tradition it follows - you'll find that most field guides use caps for plant (and other living things) names (and have done so for a long time, e.g. Preston's (1948) North American Trees). - MPF 17:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I see the issue as a corollary to the ever-present question of "what is a common name", and the tendency (regrettable in my view) to standardize common names as an alternative to scientific names. In ordinary English running text (at least in this hemisphere), truly vernacular names of plants are almost never capitalized; it would look strange to write "I made a meal of Potatoes, Tomatoes, and Spinach, sauteed in Olive oil and seasoned with Black Pepper," even though all those names refer to single species of plants. Likewise, walking through the Red Alders and California Bays and seeing a Northern Oriole flying toward the Coast Redwoods looks a bit strange in text, despite "Northern Oriole" being properly capitalized according to AOU usage. I could follow a consensus to capitalize all parts of a common name in an article title (although I disagree), but to capitalize all common names in an article such as the running-text list Tribulus terrestris IMO pushes the limits of typographic acceptability.--Curtis Clark 18:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Ah, thank you. For some reason, even though I mentioned it, I had checked the talk archives of WP:TOL. Interesting discussions there. And thank you for your comments, specifically on the ambiguous nature of some common names. That was enlightening. I still, however, favor lowercase common names for plants. I wish I had the time right now to flush out my reasoning, but the job that pays the Wikipedia bill (errr... the cable internet bill) beckons. For now and for simplicity's sake, I will copy and paste what I have written on my user page that gives examples:

I vehemently (note: not venomously) disagree with those that believe all species common names should be capitalized (i.e. Red Alder instead of red alder). Common names should start with lower case letters such as western hemlock except for cases where, obviously, the first letter of a common name begins a sentence or part of the name is a proper noun after a specific place or person (i.e. Sitka spruce not "sitka spruce" and coast Douglas-fir not "coast douglas-fir"; but never "Sitka Spruce" and "Coast Douglas-Fir").

As for the wild cherry example, my solution would be to move Wild Cherry to Prunus avium and make wild cherry a disambig page for all the different species that title could describe. But then, I advocate moving most plant articles to their sci names (if I recall correctly, I believe we may agree on that point). And just as I may have let my capitalization POV leak into my editting (either unrealized geographically as in Cytisus scoparius or realized POV in Red alder, for which I apologize--I slapped myself on the wrist), I was wondering about all your recent page moves] for caps reasons (e.g. [7], [8], etc.). If Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Animals, plants, and other organisms says that "Editors have hotly debated whether the common names of species should start with a capital letter, and this remains unresolved. As a matter of truce, both styles are acceptable..." then I'm left wondering why you're spending the time moving these pages?

So I guess the issue is two-fold. 1) Should common name titles (if used) of plant articles be capitalized and 2) Should common name titles in text be capitalized? I look forward to new information I haven't considered yet. Best, Rkitko 18:44, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Simple answer on my recent moves; that is to maintain uniformity within Category:Fagaceae and Category:Fagales, where everything bar a few oaks has caps, so I've been moving the few to be in line with the rest. I reckon it is fairly important to maintain uniformity within a group (category). There are other categories where all or most of the taxa are not capitalised; I've not been moving these. Yes, moving everything to sci names would be very nice; unfortunately, it is equally (well, to be honest, even more) divisive – while there would likely be a majority of the 'regular' plant people here agreeing, as soon as some others on the wiki main page policy group got wind of it, they'd pile in here and outvote it. On my personal preference for caps, it arises partly out of what I was brought up on in my childhood field guide reading, plus the various practical benefits it has (as mentioned at various places in the archives). Personally, I find something like "coast Douglas-fir" with a cap in the middle but not at the start looks weird; ditto a list with some names randomly capitalised but others not (what is different/superior about the species that deserve caps?!); if we are to do away with caps, we should do away with all of them for uniformity (therefore sitka spruce, douglas-fir, etc). To Curtis's points - it is perhaps quibbling a bit, but I at least do see a difference between the species (capitalised) and its products (lower case); thus doing a botanical study on the Potato, while eating a potato. The tendency to standardise common names is probably more of a UK/European thing (and also e.g. South African), but I suspect even more significantly a legal thing to avoid confusion; if you buy a plant by mail order from a nursery selling plants by common name, and you get a plant different to what you expected becuase they use the common name in a different way, you want some redress in law to get it changed to what you wanted. If you bought a Red Fir, expecting Abies magnifica, what would you do if you received a Larix occidentalis from an old-timer who used the name for that species? Accept it was a valid alternative, or complain about getting the wrong item? Personally, I'd complain. I'm in favour of anything that reduces ambiguity and confusion. - MPF 20:53, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree uniformity is important, in most cases. But I believe (and correct me if I'm wrong) especially in the case of color (colour) articles, moving a page from its original title to fit either American English or British English spellings for uniformity's sake within, say, a specific color category (browns, say) is not the correct action. We shouldn't, say, move Buff (colour) to Buff (color) just because all the other colors in that category are spelled "color" in the title (at least that's my understanding of WP:MoS#Disputes over style issues). Now, I realize regional spelling isn't the same as capitalization, but the issue is simply a POV one. You admit you were/are influenced by sources that capitalize common names of species. I readily admit I'm influenced by sources that do the opposite. Specifically on field guides, three of the guides I have do not capitalize common names: Pojar and Mackinnon's Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast (2004 edition), William M. Harlow's Fruit Key & Twig Key to Trees & Shrubs (though his propensity for the ampersand irks me) (1959), and Muenscher's Keys to Woody Plants (ed. by Edward A. Cope, 2001). But I'd also like to note that Wikipedia is not a field guide, so I'm of the opinion that field guide styles should very loosely guide us, especially since they're so different across the board. I prefer to, instead rely upon style guides like the Chicago Manual of Style, which even the Wikipedia MoS says to defer to (among other style guides) if the issue is not specifically spelled out. I'd have to double check, as I don't have a copy available at the moment, but I believe the CMS notes that common names should not be capitalized unless a proper noun is part of the name.

And I have no problem with the appearance of coast Douglas-fir, but Bigleaf Maple doesn't look right to me. I suppose that's mostly personal preference, which is what we should avoid working from. I'm going to try to find more authoritative sources (in both American English and British English style guides) to determine what they have to offer us in this discussion. Cheers, Rkitko 06:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Another factor that comes into play in the US is endangered species, all of whom seem to magically acquire "common names" as part of listing, no matter how little-known they were previously - I assume because it's harder to engender public support for saving an unpronounceable Latin mouthful! Subsequently you'll find newspaper editors and the like loath to use capitalization on the name; in general US readers find capitalization to be a bit pompous when applied to anything less than the Supreme Being. :-) Stan 22:30, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

And endangered species names are most often capitalized, in my experience, again perhaps because of a legal issue ("it's not just any old santa susana tarplant, it's the Santa Susana Tarplant").--Curtis Clark 23:03, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

(What a coincidence, I have pics of it in a Tilden BG pile I'm preparing for upload...) Google results are all over the place for this one actually, not even consistent *within* some websites. Field guides seem much more consistent though. Stan 00:24, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

May I chime in? The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition, addresses common names of plants and animals in 8.136. For the correct capitalization and spelling of common names of plants and animals, consult a dictionary or the authoritative guides to nomenclature, the ICBN and the ICZN, mentioned in 8.127. In any one work, a single source should be followed. In general, Chicago recommends capitalizing only proper nouns and adjectives, as in the following examples, which conform to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.Dutchman's-breeches, mayapple, jack-in-the-pulpit, rhesus monkey, Rocky Mountain sheep, Cooper's hawk. --Captadam 20:15, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

The ICBN does not address common names at all, much less whether or not they should be capitalized. I'm not as familiar with the ICZN but I suspect it's the same case there. Otherwise I have no strong opinions on if or when or how common names should be capitalized. MrDarwin 15:45, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Late the the party here, but shouldn't Wild cherry (and/or Wild Cherry be a disambiguation? A lot of plants actually go by that name, depending on where you live. --SB_Johnny|^talk|_books 14:04, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Depth limits

I was just wondering about the upper limit on coverage - is it actually possible to have a full page (say 500 words) on every known species of plant? Certainly there are many for which there is a lot to say, but there also seem to be another bunch that have never been much studied beyond defining the key characters, so maybe articles on those will always be kind of thin? Or is it just a matter of laying hands on the right source works? Stan 04:55, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

As a measure, I have spent several decades studying both Encelia and Eschscholzia, and I'm not sure I could come up with 500 words on Eschscholzia elegans or Encelia halimifolia. Even if I could, much of it would be original research, since I never published much of what I know: there's no market in refereed journals for "natural history"-type observations on little-known species.

And the "depth" part reminds me of Pelagophycus, about which little is known beyond detached sporophytes washed one shore, because it anchors much deeper on the seafloor than, say, Macrocystis, and few people have spent much time there.--Curtis Clark 05:14, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Talk archives

I've been meaning to do that for a while. The 171 KB talk page was taking a while to load on my 'puter, so I just copied the archiving format from WP:TOL. Archive summaries in the template are a bit long--please feel free to tweak them to make them more concise and accurate. Also, move things around if you feel the archives are too short, too expansive, etc. I tried not to archive any discussions that seemed like they might still have some active input in them. Create another archive if you think this page is still too long. Oh, and can someone else put all the archived pages on their watchlist to watch for any changes and move them to the active talk page when/if they occur (or revert vandalism if that ever would happen). :-) Rkitko 05:34, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikiversity School of Plant Science

Hoping some folks here will be interested in participating there. One project started: Original Research for a bloom clock to come up with a system for discussing bloom times in a region-neutral language. Other research projects, teaching courses, etc. would be most welcome.

The school is at v:School:Plant Sciences. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 14:27, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Notes on reversions, deletions, and editing in general

(Note: I have posted this to MPF's talk page but this is something that I think deserves a wider audience so I'm posting it here as well.)

With regard to my attempted edits to the Vinca minor article, what offended me much more than your dismissal and deletion of the links I provided was your immediate deletion of the common names I added to the article. You know me by now; you know I am not a fly-by-night anomymous vandal whose sole goal is adding nonsense to Wikipedia. I should not have to convince you that we benighted Americans really do have our own set of common names for plants that don't always correspond to the ones in use in England--this is one of the major reasons why I have stressed using botanical names for article titles with all common names redirecting to the botanical names. There is no international authority to arbitrate common names, although some Wikipedia editors seem to want Wikipedia to become that authority. The purpose of Wikipedia is not to promote one common name over another, as that is a POV; the purpose of Wikpedia is to provide factual and accurate information about the real world and an article should merely note which common names are in use, where they are used, and perhaps which are more common than others (if that can be determined). I cannot stress this enough: there is no such thing as a correct common name.

I note also that you reverted, without comment, the addition of Acer discolor to the List of Acer species article. (No, this was not my addition.) Why was this name deleted? Your dismissive reversion provides no clue to the person who added it, or to any other editors. (Perhaps because A. discolor Hort. ex Rehder--a name that persists in horticulture--is a synonym of A. oblongum? But according to the Flora of China there is indeed a valid species Acer discolor Maxim. that is endemic to China. I'm no authority on Acer so I'll have to leave it to somebody else to sort this out.) As an aside, I note that this list is completely unreferenced; where did this list (and the common names accompanying the botanical names), like so many other mysterious lists on Wikipedia, come from? I generally find such lists almost worse than useless, as they almost always have errors and there is rarely any indication as to where they came from, or whose taxonomy they are following, making them virtually impossible to proofread or correct.

This kind of reflexively dismissive editing of others' additions and edits, often with no comment or explanation, by more active editors is one of the things that will ultimately discourage many people with knowledge and expertise in one or more subjects from editing Wikipedia. I know that it has been very discouraging to me, and is one of the reasons why I have become frustrated and disillusioned with Wikipedia. I simply don't have the time to convince other editors, over and over, that I do occasionally know what I'm talking about. It would be a shame if Wikipedia came to represent, not necessarily the knowledge of those with the most expertise in a particular field, but of those with too much time on their hands to endlessly patrol and jealously guard hundreds of pet articles. I have encountered this tendency with Brya, and I have seen the same tendency in you; my interactions with both of you were among the reasons why I left Wikipedia for a time, and will probably leave it again. There are far better things to do with my time and expertise. MrDarwin 13:52, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

On common names, many will differ with your opinion that "there is no such thing as a correct common name" - that is itself a POV, and as such, cannot be taken as a standard for wikipedia. Many others - perhaps particularly outside of the USA - would agree that there is such a thing as a correct, or at least recommended or advised, common name, based on education to avoid confusion and misunderstanding by deliberately not using the same name for two or more unrelated taxa. If anyone can call anything by any name, the result is meaningless anarchy. When someone calls a Vinca a "myrtle", it is because of historical misidentification of the plant as Myrtus, which is the plant originally, and usually, so named in English. A misidentification is someone getting something wrong; if they then tried to sell that plant with the name of the misidentification, they would - at least in UK law - be liable to prosecution under trades descriptions legislation.

"I should not have to convince you that we benighted Americans really do have our own set of common names for plants that don't always correspond to the ones in use in England" - no, I'm well aware of it, and also that sometimes we benighted Britons use names that don't always correspond to the ones in use in America. What matters is that names that cause less botanical confusion, names with a longer history of use, and names used in the species' native continent, should be given greater prominence. Names used otherwise may often give offense as perceived cultural imperialism ("them lot trying to change the names of our plants for us"). Note that I try as far as possible to be internationally neutral in this, see e.g. my edit to Sequoiadendron for an example where I favoured the US use for a US species.

On the Acer discolor, I removed it as it was a link to a page of nonsense (now deleted) that had been added by an IP number, so I had some reason to believe the name was a fake. The name can easily be added to the list again as/when the list is checked. Yes, I agree that the Acer list does badly need checking over and referencing, it's on my list of things to do, along with many others.

I am very sorry if you have felt offended or put off by my edits; that was certainly not my intention, and I do hope you'll stick around. - MPF 15:07, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Just a comment/question, MPF. I know we've discussed this before, but where does "names used in the species' native continent should be given greater prominence" come from? Is that inspired by a WP:TOL consensus, wiki naming conventions, MoS...? I have not yet been able to find that. I understand the reasoning thoroughly (and respectfully disagree), but is this based on current wiki policy? Thanks! Rkitko 16:50, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say that "there are numerous correct common names".

I will be the last person to argue that common names are better than, or should be used in place of, botanical names, much less that any particular American common name is better than the British common name for the same plant. English is spoken widely throughout the world and the various names applied to a particular plant are all equally correct or meaningless (take your pick) to me. But when there are numerous common names in use for a particular genus or species--and this is the case for many widely distributed or widely cultivated genera and species--the article should reflect any and all that are widely used in the various English-speaking countries.

Common names by their very nature vary from one place to another, and over time. On characteristic of common names is that they are often not tied to any phylogenetic or taxonomic concept except in the broad sense of "folk taxonomy" (many predate Linnaeus anyway), which is why names like "ash", "elder", and "ivy" have been applied a wide variety of plants that are only distantly related. What Linnaeus and subsequent botanists did in many cases was tie a common name that may have been used for a wide variety of plants (or even a different plant entirely) to a particular genus or even species. (Cactus is a particularly interesting case.) In other cases, a common name may be the result of a once perfectly valid but no longer applied taxonomic concept (e.g., "gloxinia" for Sinningia speciosa and "mimosa" for Albizia julibrissin) so to say such names are "incorrect" or "misidentifications" is inaccurate and misleading. Are we all misusing the word "vine" because the word originally referred quite specifically to plants now classified in the genus Vitis? If Linnaeus had chosen the name Vinus for this genus, would that make any difference as to whether the general term "vine" as commonly used is correct or incorrect?

The problem is this: who is the arbiter as to whether one common name is better or more correct than another? As I noted above, there is no international authority or arbiter and Wikipedia cannot pretend to be one. I frequently see weasel words like "misleading" or "incorrect" being used to refer to various common names. Yet common names are what they are: vernacular alternatives to botanical names that in many cases predate the botanical names themselves. Ignoring, dismissing, or disparaging common names used in North America in the name of "internationalism", or even a misguided attempt to standardize common names, in Wikipedia articles is itself a POV and a form of bias that will inevitably be perceived as Eurocentrism (and even anti-Americanism).

Back to Vinca: Americans really do use the terms "myrtle", "creeping myrtle", and "vinca" (as a common name) to refer to Vinca minor, as my linked references (conveniently deleted by MPF as having a "regional bias") documented. For better or for worse, the name "myrtle" has been attached to several different plants in different genera and even families: wax myrtle (Myrica), creeping myrtle (Vinca), and crepe myrtle (Lagerstroemia). It's impossible to pretend that these names are not in widespread use, and given this you won't get far with the argument that the name "myrtle" can only be correctly applied to plants in the genus Myrtus. Yes, it is confusing, but common names frequently are, which I assume is one reason why you and I both agree that articles are better titled with a plant's botanical name, with common names redirecting to the botanical names. But the users (as well as contributors) of Wikipedia include a very large number of Americans, and articles must reflect American usages as well as British, Canadian, Australian, etc.: not one above another, but inclusively. Americans certainly do not have a monopoly on the English language, but neither does anybody else. For example, it is confusing rather than educational for an American to look up the word "myrtle" in Wikipedia and be redirected to Myrtus, not because Americans are stupid or misinformed, but because "myrtle" means something slightly different in American English than it does in British English. It would be equally confusing to a Brit who is trying to figure out how we idiot Americans use the word "myrtle". MrDarwin 16:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree. It is well known and accepted that many taxa have multiple common names, and selecting only one at the exclusion of others (for whatever reason) would not only be POV but also remove important information from articles. People searching for plants by common names should have a chance at finding them, no matter what side of the Atlantic, or what region of the US, they hail from. --NoahElhardt 17:46, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me there are two issues here at hand. One is reverting edits without comment, the other is the acceptibility of local names.

I must admit that I personally make many edits without putting comments in the edit summary. There are imho however two circumstances where and edit summary is useful. The first is when I delete information. Somehow deleting stuff creates much more emotion than modifying or adding text. So I think it is very useful to create an edit summary when I delete text.
The second circumstance is when I revert someones edit. On another wiki, recently a user reverted some 10 of my edits and then had the courage to summon ME to explain my actions in the village pump. I can assure you it took me a night of sleep before I had cooled down sufficiently to give an answer. I just tell this to give an example of how reverts can get people mad, not to scold at the other user, whom I by now have sent a personal email to remain on speaking terms. ;-) (And to be fair to the other: I had been making deletions, and looking back the "summon" was a very polite "ask".)

It would be too bad if we loose valuable contributors due to a lack of communication. Btw, if you seem to get into a conflict with someone, there are procedures for conflict resolution. Simply ask someone else to mediate.

I dont have much of a personal opinion about the inclusion of common english names. The problem seems to have been resolved anyway, as I see some english names in vinca minor.

TeunSpaans 14:16, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

When I see a deletion by an anon without an edit summary, I usually revert it as probable vandalism. Why should we hold ourselves to a lesser standard?

I agree with MrDarwin about common names (and don't forget the Oregon myrtle). If a name in wide use is "wrong", it is NPOV to point out the error rather than suppress the name.--Curtis Clark 05:30, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Footnotes

If any of you have edited a page today and noticed the footnotes (ref tags) go a bit wonky after you edit, check out Wikipedia talk:Footnotes#Help! Footnotes gone crazy! for a quick fix involving a purge of the page you just edited. Not quite sure what's going on, but I thought I'd give everyone here a head's up just in case it persists. The fix is as follows, provided by Gimmetrow: "I'm not sure yet why it's happening, but a purge seems to fix it. In order to do that, look at the page normally, then add a ?action=purge at the end of the url. ... (I'm surmising that articles are not being "purged" currently when saved.)" Rkitko 06:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Nomen nudum and Nomen conservandum

I see that Brya is back and still up to his/her same old tricks. Now s/he is insisting on removing any reference to the botanical concepts of nomen nudum and nomen conservandum in those articles while disparaging any such inclusion. This is even worse than the tautonym/tautonymous name fiasco a few weeks ago; at least there Brya could make the technical (if rather tenuous) case that the Botanical and Zoological codes use different terminology but the terms nomen nudum and nomen conservandum not only exist in botanical nomenclature but have virtually the identical meaning that they do in Zoological nomenclature. Perhaps the concepts differ in some slight nuance between the two Codes, but to remove any references to botanical nomenclature in these articles (rather than highlight and clarify any differences that may exist between the Codes in these concepts]] is beyond ridiculous. MrDarwin 21:31, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I've added a comment at wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life for some wider discussion. MrDarwin 13:44, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Since the discussion was almost immediately derailed (a derail I more or less invited, and for that I apologize), I have separated the tangential discussion under a new heading immediately below. I would still like to hear the opinions of other editors regarding my specific question about how to handle the Nomen nudum and Nomen conservandum articles, as well as the more general question: when the terms are identical and the concepts nearly so, does it make sense for a single article to address both botanical and zoological nomenclature? MrDarwin 04:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Important note: Brya has moved the Nomen conservandum article, including its editing history, to a new article entitled Conserved name (zoology)‎ and has started a completely new article under the title Nomen conservandum, with an editing history of its own. A rather neat little trick, if a bit confusing to anybody trying to follow this discussion. MrDarwin 18:41, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Nomen nudum and nomen conservandum (continued)

I will repeat that such edits by MrDarwin constitute vicious attacks. Apparently his presence in Wikipedia is for the sole purpose of altering my contributions, to insert his personal opinions and beliefs, without adding a single new item of information. I lately watched the movie Longitiude, where a board was assigned to award a prize and for fifty years waved away all evidence as being "anecdotal", only to avoid awarding the prize outside their own personal circle.

MrDarwin, get a life. If you can't at least go and do something constructive. Wikipedia is still mostly empty when it comes to plants. If you know something of plants there is plenty of scope for you to realize something that will be of use. Brya 15:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Well said Brya. I suggest you now start listening to your own advice. What contributions have you made lately? It looks, from your user log and the evidence brought forth by MrDarwin, that you have mainly been removing valuable information from articles, rather than actually doing anything "constructive" as you put it. Removal of info on POV technicalities is destructive, not constructive. --NoahElhardt 15:19, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I have been doing quite faithfully what I have always done: correcting errors in basic facts and adding new material as time allows. If correcting errors in basic facts (mostly in articles which I wrote myself and have been maintaining for almost a year) is not even allowed then there is not much else I can do, is there? Brya 15:28, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Brya. Polemize minus and contribute more. Berton 15:11, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. Brya 15:28, 30 August 2006 (UTC)