Talk:Viridiplantae/Archive 1

Merge with Plant?

The title of this page is already mentioned in the Plant article, and this page is a stub with somewhat redundant information. I would suggest for it to just be merged with Plant, combine the information. --71.58.25.239 (talk) 00:49, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree. Although the Plant article is not entirely consistent and needs some copy-editing, it basically treats Plantae as Viridiplantae, and this article is indeed redundant. I will ask for comments at WP:PLANTS. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:28, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

• Mild Oppose—I think Plant is a bit too specific on circumscription. The word in English has a history of understanding of which its synonymy with Viridiplantae is only a part, and its use in modern English is equated with Vitidiplantae prescriptively, not descriptively. I don't see any reason why this article should go.--Curtis Clark (talk) 23:42, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I agree that Plant should and does cover more than Viridiplantae – indeed I've just expanded the material which explains the different definitions of Plantae and intend to do some more work on the article – but the question to be answered is whether there is enough different material to warrant a separate article on Viridiplantae. Given that Plant should be a substantial article, I can't myself see that there is. Could you suggest what should go in Viridiplantae that should not appear in Plant? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter coxhead (talk • contribs)

What I'm saying is that, whereas Viridiplantae = Plantae, Viridiplantae ≠ plant. If you can capture that, I'm good to go.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

• Mild support. The article Plant already covers the various circumscriptions and diverse names for them, so I'm not sure whether having a separate Viridiplantae article makes it much easier to write Plant. On the flip side, if there is much to say about the terminology and classification details, probably best to keep the long version out of Plant one way or the other. Kingdon (talk) 00:39, 25 July 2011 (UTC)

• Support a merge with other content, although I think what we really need is to rename and expand this as a separate article on Classification of the Plantae or Circumsciption of Plantae, which would be summarized in (and linked from) the Plantae article. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:45, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

So Plantae would no longer be a redirect? Or would Plant have that summary and link? I like the idea of Circumsciption of Plantae (although not the title; it resonates with me, but won't with non-taxonomists). I would almost prefer that Plant not have a taxobox, and that the taxobox could fall on whatever article dealt with it at a classification level.

To be a bit clearer with my concerns, botany is the study of plants (lower-case intentional), and a specialist in stramenopiles or ascomycetes will most often find a home in a botany department. The historical and practical precedents for this are overwhelming, and I still am astonished with the convergence between kelps and plants to the point that I couldn't explain to a layperson why they are separate without at least an hour of time. {{Plant]] has to deal with this. One way is to say "all these other things aren't plants", and if we take Canna indica (the first name in Species Plantarum as the type of the Plantae, I suppose we could justify it. But readers of Wikipedia deserve the nuance, and part of that includes that Viridiplantae is only one sense of the meaning of the English word "plant". If you can address my concerns, even partially, I'll be happy.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:32, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It just occurs to me that one possibility would be to have the taxobox in the section about Viridiplantae, and Viridiplantae can be a redirect to the section. Does that work for everyone?

The problem we have on Wikipedia as taxonomists is that we have a hard time differentiating between the topic of the article and the name of the article, since taxonomy is all about the names. What you are noting is that "plant" has multiple definitions in English, and are concerned that the Plant article focusses on the taxonomic sense rather than the general sense. However, that's also true for Lilium, which treats only "lilies" in the narrow sense of that term, or the article on Pineapple, which doesn't cover the biology of pine cones even though those were once the sole meaning of "pineapple". One possible solution I can see to your concerns would be to turn Plant into a disambiguation page, but I don't think that would be all that helpful to readers. I think a section near the ouset of the article that treated the variable circumscription in brief, with a "Main article" link to something like what I've proposed is a better way aroud the problem. Trying to go the other way, and create a topical article about green plants + stramenopiles (etc.) would not be a valuable addition, as no one actually defines a formal group that way anymore. That kind of coverage can already be met with at Algae, and combining the land plants into that to make a broader article does not seem warranted. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Come on! The primary topic of Plant is clear, and it's not a formal taxon. Lilium is at the scientific name for a very specific reason: because it is not about all plants called "lily" in English. Pineapple means pine cone in the same modern sense that torpedo means harbor mine. If we wanted the plant article to be about Plantae, we would have called it that, except that Viridiplantae is of clearer circumscription. Textbooks of 10-20 years ago (at least the ones I taught from) were really clear about the circumscription of Plantae (identical to Viridiplantae, at least in Raven et al. Biology of Plants, which covered fungi and algae as well), and had Wikipedia existed then, I'm confident that there would have been a consensus for an article Plantae covering all the richness of the land plants and green algae, and that it would have been linked from plant, which would have addressed the common English word.

That there is an article algae is an argument in my favor. Likewise worm, ungulate, seaweed, cane (which needs some work), reed (plant), toad, and even dragon. The whole purpose of scientific nomenclature in the first place was to be more precise than everyday language, and at least one of the reasons for preferring scientific names in Wikipedia is the same. "Plant" is not a formal group, and it works to our larger disadvantage in Wikipedia to treat it as such.--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:24, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

It seems clear to me that the discussion is really about the Plant article. When we are clear how this should be organized, then we will be clear about whether this article (Viridiplantae) is separate or not. As we've started here, it's probably clearer to continue here (I'll leave a note at Talk:Plant). Some points I want to make:

1. Plant urgently needs improving; the core article for a project should not be C class!
2. I have been doing some work in the area that interests me, namely classification. One of the problems is that the article used terms like "Chlorophyta" inconsistently without being clear that it was doing so. They were used in some places in the traditional paraphyletic sense and in others in the modern monophyletic sense. Worst of all, in my view, is that wikilinks to terms used traditionally went to articles which either used the term in the modern sense or did little but explain the alternative uses. I'm working on putting that right, as a first step.
3. The result will be that the discussion of the definition of "plant" can't but be expanded and could therefore, in my view, unbalance the article. There are two solutions. I quite like User:EncycloPetey's, which I understand to be to move most of this material to another article, so that Plant is about all the groups which have traditionally been called plants, including e.g. brown algae (or at least multicellular brown algae). The other is to expand the rest of the article so that the definition/classification stuff becomes a smaller proportion.

Either way, I'm now convinced that getting the Plant article right is the key. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:51, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Agreed.--Curtis Clark (talk) 13:08, 26 July 2011 (UTC)

Please note that the stance that land plants are not algae was criticized in [1] as "artificial".Jmv2009 (talk) 19:02, 26 March 2015 (UTC)

Sure, and there are other sources supporting embryophytes as a valid taxon/group. The point is that there is, at present, simply no agreement on classification at this level, and our articles can only reflect this. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:48, 27 March 2015 (UTC)

What does "Plants, as understood traditionally" mean?

Dear authors,

wondering why the sea lettuce should not be a "plant" any more, I've read the article of Sina Adl etc. (the new version too), and did not find an explanation of "plants, as understood traditionally". It appears in a footnote, and that's it.

Can anybody explain this traditional understanding of plants to me? I have no qualms about "monocellular plants", if that is what they mean, though we now know that Euglena, which my schoolbook gave as an example back in the late 80s, is not a plant. If this isn't what they mean, I remain puzzled. Viridiplantae / Chloroplastida is monophyletic, isn't it? Or do they want to do away with the term "plants" because they think it's too unscientific? Or do they want to keep the term "algae" as imprecise as it is, in order to prevent institutes of algae research from being split into botanists (research on sea lettuce etc.), institutes on red algae research and institutes on brown algae research?

As you see, I'm not a botanist but a linguist and historian who is most concerned about the use of words, and that we will still be able to talk to a scientist in 50 years. Could any botanist enlighten me please? Thanks a ton, Curryfranke (talk) 20:04, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

The problem with generic words like plants and algae is that they are ill defined, resulting in lack of consistent use among authors, resulting in researchers resorting to more precisely defined words. Plant could mean land plants, green algae or archaeplastida. Chlorobionta was recently re-proposed for green algae and descendants. Jmv2009 (talk) 19:10, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

It's relevant, I think, that the 'botanical code' is now called the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants, so there's strong support for "plants" not including "algae". On the other hand, if you look to the Code to define these terms, it says "all organisms traditionally treated as algae, fungi, or plants, whether fossil or non-fossil, including blue-green algae (Cyanobacteria), chytrids, oomycetes, slime moulds, and photosynthetic protists with their taxonomically related non-photosynthetic groups", so evading the issue of definition by resorting to "traditionally treated". There's simply no consensus at present on how to use traditional terms like "plant" or "alga". Peter coxhead (talk) 19:30, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

Add German Lemma Chloroplastida

Should we add german (and other language's) lemma Chloroplastida (which is stated here as a synonym) as translatation/ other languages equivalent? --Ernsts (talk) 21:06, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

Yes. —DIV (220.244.42.206 (talk) 04:15, 11 January 2021 (UTC))