Talk:Afrocarpus gracilior

Incorrectly or not, I often find this species referred to in books about Ethiopia as Podocarpus. I'd like to add a note to this article mentioning that it has been reclassified, although I don't know the details or reasons why. -- llywrch 20:50, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Unjustified revisions

Hi, User:Zefr recently undid some contributions I made to Afrocarpus gracilior without any discussion.

Ethnobotanical uses are an important source of information, and it is understood that there is a separation between ethnobotanical medicinal uses vs western medical uses. You removed the statement:

The [[Marakwet]] people mix the bark of benet and ''[[Prunus africana]]'' and then boil and administer it to treat hypertension. Additionally, a dry powder of the bark can be used to treat eye ailments.<ref name = kipkore2014medicinalplantsMarakwet/>

Which is an ethnobotanical claim, not a medical one. It is a fact that the Marakwet use it this way. I see absolutely no reason to remove the claim. Perhaps you had issue with the sentence, "Additionally, a dry powder of the bark can be used to treat eye ailments." What I intended to say is that it can be used in that way by Marakwet not that it's been proven in Western science to have those uses. The other change you removed was:

[[Paclitaxel]] an important anti-cancer agent that inhibits the growth of HeLa cells has been isolated from the tree. Podolactone D was the compound responsible for the tumor inhibitory properties of an ethanol extract of the twigs and leaves of '''''A. gracilior'''''.<ref name = abdillahi2010southafrica_ethnobotanyofpodocarpus/>

I also don't see any issue with this statement either. If you don't like the source, I can point out others, but it is a fact that paclitaxel was isolated from its bark and a simple visit to its own wiki page shows plenty of supporting evidence for its anti-cancer properties (it's a fucking patented drug!). The anti-tumor properties of Podolactone D was also investigated by this paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12608867 which is from the highly regarded journal Journal of Natural Products which has an impact factor of 4.257. The original cited reference was from South African Journal of Botany which is a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by Elsevier with an impact factor of 1.304

Neither of these changes were warranted or justified. I've modified the text and restored the contents (added sources, change woreding, etc). If you would like to actually discuss any perceived issues, please discuss it here, but if you continue to make unjustified changes with no explanation, I would like to report this behavior and discuss with some higher administration/mods. I find papers by looking through for the most highly cited literature on plants using tools like Scopus, Microsoft Academic, and Publish or Peril. Many times, these journals can be less know, but I always try to make sure they are the most cited and highest regarded literature on the given papers.

Tr3ndyBEAR (talk) 18:26, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

The sources are unreliable for encyclopedic medical content. Use WP:MEDRS reviews. Zefr (talk) 19:27, 11 May 2020 (UTC)

Names

Anyone able to confirm if this is the tree known in Amharic as ዝግባ / zəgba and in Oromo as mi'eesa? These are translated as "cedar" in some sources, but neither true cedars nor any of the cypress species also commonly known as "cedars" grow natively in Ethiopia. --Trɔpʏliʊm • blah 21:47, 13 October 2023 (UTC)