Talk:Microphylls and megaphylls

Terribly Confusing

This whole article is terribly confusing. Somebody obviously used the thesaurus on this thing to try and make it sound high class. Oddly organized too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.70.85.125 (talk) 15:28, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I would agree with this. I wonder if this page should be included in a page on Leaves as a subsection? I think that might be preferable. 207.233.7.111 (talk) 22:36, 30 September 2009 (UTC)Michaplot (talk) 22:37, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Could we rename it to Microphylls and megaphylls, so as to better describe the content? The leaf page is already very long, so moving this material there doesn't seem desirable. Nadiatalent (talk) 18:26, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

We need to get some sort of consensus here. This article is worthless. A) I don't think this article needs to be mostly about plant evolution (all of that should be on the plant evolution pages) B) The language needs to be cleaned up, because in many cases the authors' thesauri failed them. C) Micro- and Macrophylls should be subsections on leaf morphology pages. I'm going to make some small changes (like the fact the author thought the prefix micro- means microscopic...) to make this less embarrassing for now. PSseudoscienceFTL 23:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by PseudoscienceFTL (talk • contribs)

Microphyll

This was originally posted at User talk:Sminthopsis84

Sminth, is there an article giving about the ecology definition of Microphyll, and related terms? If not, there shouldn't be a disambiguation page until there is. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:45, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

The information was there, but it's been trashed. No point in me trying to work on wikipedia against the fierce constraints that have been imposed on disambiguation-page structure. Do whatever you wish, the students of the world will have to fend for themselves. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 06:01, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I think the information about different uses of the term "microphyll" should be added to the Microphyll article. As I understand it, one use is essentially theoretical, based on the view that microphylls and megaphylls represent different evolutionary origins, so that microphylls in this sense can be larger than megaphylls; the other use is actually based on size. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:09, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

I fail to see the point of Microphyll (disambiguation). It only has a single origin and destination, and therefore the (rather poor) explanations it provides should be handled within Microphyll. I recommend its deletion. Same for Megaphyll which points the reader to Microphyll without offering any valid destination. Plantsurfer 14:12, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Thank you both for responding here. user:Plantsurfer, I think you might have looked at the pages while they had been turned into redirects, which I then tried to revert (and I expect those reverts will be undone shortly as the speedy deletions etc. go to completion). There are two independently derived meanings: the one based on leaf size (mostly the macrophylls of angiosperms, but including some gymnosperms such as Gnetum and the lycopod Isoetes that has microphylls in the other sense) that is used by ecologists, and the one about the structure of the leaf that distinguishes those with a single trace (vein) coming from the stem (in lycopods and by convergent evolution in Equisetum) from those with 3 traces (angiosperms, gymnosperms). Speedy deletion is proposed, which means that there is not sufficient time to sort this out. Non-admins cannot see deleted content, so what might perhaps have been capable of clarification will shortly not be available for re-working. However, I believe that there is no way wikipedia bureaucracy would accept any page that defines the leaf-size meaning, which does not connect in any way with the evolutionary sense. User:Peter coxhead, I believe that that definition (those definitions) cannot be inserted into hatnotes, which are constrained in format, just as disambiguation pages are. I believe that bureaucracy dictates that there cannot be a way to prevent students who try to use wikipedia from getting the impression that ecologists who refer to a microphyll flora mean that the flora consists only of lycopods and/or Equisetum, rather than the correct meaning which is that the flora has some mixture of plants such as Pinales (e.g., Athrotaxis, conifers, Prumnopitys taxifolia), heaths, the gymnosperm Ephedra species, or those other plants that do not offer large-leaved habitats to herbivores and other animals. I would also suggest that the leaf-size meaning has become in recent years the more common of the two because the evolutionary-origin meaning has been thoroughly investigated in the mid to late 20th century and no longer forms a basis for many research publications. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:11, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

If the evidence continues to show that horsetails evolved from within the fern clade (and there are some dissenting voices), then it can be argued that their leaves aren't "microphylls", but only look like them, i.e. there are three uses of the micro/macrophyll distinction: strictly evolutionary/cladistic; morphological (trace-based); and leaf-size/ecological.

How about this approach: create an article Microphyll (ecology) to explain the ecological use. Then both it and Microphyll can have "about" hatnotes, something like "This article is about the use of the term in ecology; for the evolutionary use see Microphyll" and "This article is about the use of the term in evolution; for the ecological use see Microphyll (ecology)". Not ideal perhaps, but consistent with WP policies. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:33, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

Sphenophylls show a complete spectrum of leaf morphological variations from fully-webbed megaphyll to microphyll both between species and within single species such as Sphenophyllum emarginatum. It seems pretty clear therefore that the scale leaves of modern horsetails can be interpreted as highly-reduced megaphylls. The definition given in Microphyll (disambiguation) of microphylls as a small-leafed category of megaphyll comes from Raunkaier in the early part of the 20th century. It is a citable source, for sure, but only one man's view, and I know of no modern ecologists who would give that definition much credence. The upper size limit of 2025 mm2 encompasses leaves up to 45x45mm, which puts species such as tree species such as silver birch and aspen and a large percentage of other temperate trees and shrubs in the microphyllous category. Certainly many ericaceous shrubs are referred to as microphyllous by ecologists, but in my experience their leaves are not referred to as microphylls, at least not by ecologists who are aware of the evolutionary distinction. Plantsurfer 21:22, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

@Plantsurfer: so how do you suggest handling the different uses, at least of "micro/megaphyllous" if not of "micro/megaphyll"? Peter coxhead (talk) 21:35, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)It might work to create Microphyll (ecology). I had expected that it could be attacked as not sufficiently notable, but strangely enough, we do have an article on Raunkiær plant life-form, so that's a kind of foundation. Leonard James (Len; often L. J.) Webb (1920-2008, non Leonard James Webb) developed an important classification, starting with his 1959 article "A Physiognomic Classification Of Australian Rain Forests". Sadly, Rainforest doesn't even discuss such definitions, taking a "there's rain and it's a forest" view. Webb, on the other hand wants to separate groups of differently adapted plants that intermix and states: "There is, indeed, increasing evidence that mixtures of Australian Sclerophyll forests with Rain forests, whether of tropical or temperate character, represent stages of succession, stabilized under limited soil nutrient levels by regular catastrophic factors such as fire." article here. Forest has some small mention of other classification systems. It looks as if this quite complex subject is just missing, and to develop the necessary pages would be a major project. I don't know what would go into a page called Microphyll (ecology), until such time as forest ecology develops beyond a tiny overview. P.S.: Yeah, horsetails and Psilotum as ferns is weird on so many morphological grounds (the leaves, the stems, the gametophyte, the reproductive structures) and one that seems open to challenge as DNA sequencing takes a more whole-genome approach. Perhaps having reduced megaphylls as not inconsistent with not being ferns ... Sminthopsis84 (talk) 21:42, 30 November 2015 (UTC)

• I'll just chime in here - If you want to write about the ecology definition of this term, that's fine, but do it in an actual article. A single-sentence entry on a disambiguation page that merely to the exact same single-sentence entry on some other disambiguation page does not serve our readers in any way, shape or form. And until you have written an article, there is nothing to disambiguate and no reason to have a disambiguation page. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 05:05, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree. The earliest ecological classification of leaf size, and the earliest ecological use of the word microphyll in this sense is probably that of Raunkaier. The linked paper by Webb[1] is often cited, as in [2]. The dabs and redirects for megaphyll and mesophyll also need attention. Plantsurfer 10:56, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

@Sminthopsis84:Do you mind if I move this entire section to the article talk page? I'll leave a note here that it was moved. Oiyarbepsy (talk) 01:12, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

I have no objection if the other discussants don't. By the way, I now have Raunkiaer's paper on the leaf-size measurement, which isn't very long. I fear that a page about the system would be so short that it would be vulnerable to deletion here. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 12:57, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

• I've just arrived at this page rather late after creating a new article Leaf size, following discussion at User talk:Oiyarbepsy/topic/Thank you for the notification, but ... which I can't remember how I reached ... possibly a "what links here" on Microphyll (disambiguation) after seeing it as an article deletion alert on the Disambiguation project. I hope that the new stub I've started there, with incoming redirects from all 7 terms except Microphyll, will meet with approval and be expanded and improved. There is content which @Nadiatalent: has just added to Microphyll which ought, I suggest, to be split out into this new article. The present article, covering two topics at once, is not right and we need to improve the situation. PamD 17:47, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

• And now I've split that content out, with the appropriate talk page statement about the copying for attribution. I hope that this split into two articles - Microphyll (including Macrophylls) and Leaf size - is acceptable all round. I'll be delighted to see Leaf size improved by experts, as I'm not one. PamD 22:32, 18 January 2016 (UTC)