Talk:Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus

This species is the only wild European species found in northeastern Italy and Slovenia. (JL 30.6.2008) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.95.217.253 (talk) 17:56, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Photograph in infobox not Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus

I have raised this problem here [1] and here [2], concerning a featured photograph of what purports to show Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus:

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  Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus, supposedly

I am not at all convinced that the photographed exampled is a true Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus. I grow it and have been to see the Hemerocallis species and cultivars held in one of the National Collections here in the UK. All examples of the plant I have ever seen are a much more pale lemony-yellow than the version pictured. Given that the photographed example was not growing in its natural range, it is highly likely that it is a cultivar or a hybrid, not the true species. Hemerocallis species hybridise with each other very readily.

This brings me to one of the biggest problems in WIkipedia. We have all these rules for verifiability and sourcing in our written material, but in photographs we just take the photographer's word that the photograph shows what it purports to show. I am not suggesting the photographer here was trying to mislead; just that he or she might have been misinformed and by reproducing this photograph as a Featured Image, that error is being promulgated and given the veneer of authority and correctness. The fact that the photographer has misnamed their photogrpah using an upper case for the specific name (Hemerocallis Lilioasphodelus, rather than the correct Hemerocallis lilioasphodelus) might suggest they are not very botanically clued-in. (86.134.91.157 (talk) 08:40, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree.

1. The Flora of China here is clear that the flowers are lemon coloured. I've replaced the taxobox image with one of those from the gallery that is at least more of the right colour.
2. On your general point, I wholeheartedly agree. A large number of the photographs in Commons and in use in Wikipedia articles are either misidentified or of unclear identity. Often if you follow one of those "Wikimedia Commons has media related to:..." links the images you find are not as they are named. At root the problem is copyright, I think. We can use information from reliable sources by re-writing it. We cannot use images from reliable sources because they are in copyright. (Old sources out of copyright usually have out of date scientific names.) So we have to use what we've got... I've added to articles photos taken in a botanical garden, only to find out later that in spite of the apparently authoritative label, the identification was wrong. I'm not really sure what the solution is, if any.

Peter coxhead (talk) 15:25, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

Answer of the author:

I think I did the correct identification, this file shows it:

H. flava and fulva

I wrote an extended answer to this topic here: Wikipedia_talk:Featured_picture_candidates#Huge_problem_with_a_featured_picture_-_it_is_not_what_it_claims_to_be Regards, --Paolo Costa 15:29, 12 March 2012 (UTC)