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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Banksia grossa/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 15:40, 4 December 2012 [1].

Banksia grossa

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Banksia grossa (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:54, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This makes the 22nd nomination for featured article of Banksia species. It came together well and is comprehensive as can be apart from one record about a bee pollinator which is proving elusive (and may be an unusable pers. comm.) Anyway, it's short and I'm around. Have at it..... Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:54, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments by Maky:

  • "Visitors to inflorescences" – Wouldn't "pollinators" be simpler, especially for the lead?
Good point - I've been careful to reflect the sources. We know they are likely pollinators..actually I'll put that in. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead only mentions one mammalian pollinator, whereas the "Ecology" section mentions that species and several (other) dasyurid marsupials.
the other species visit other banksia species elsewhere. Only one has been confirmed for this species. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The lead seems a little short given the wealth of information contained in the article. It doesn't need significant expansion, but some more interesting details that could be included are details about the flowers (i.e. when the bloom, etc.), a very general overview of the taxonomy/phylogeny, etc...
added a bit -the phylogeny gets a bit complicated so hard to see which fragments can be added that add any value on their own Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:23, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
done Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • link to Abietinae occurs long after it's first mention
fixed Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
something's happened to the formatting there....fixed now Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:08, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Is it not typical (for plant articles) to include the distribution map in the taxobox rather than in the body of the text?
I've usually up them in the taxobox for animals and fungi, I think I've just followed on from older Banksia FAs when we stuck them in the distribution section.....not fussed either way...did have a mild concern that it makes the taxobox pretty long... Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:23, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Otherwise, the article looks pretty good. I did not do a source check. – Maky « talk » 23:17, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Image check good – All images with suitable licenses and descriptions. – Maky « talk » 23:17, 20 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments Support by Choess: I was GA reviewer on this article. I edit many articles about plants, although generally not Australian flora, and I'm a reasonably skilled amateur botanist from eastern North America. I anticipated that this would go to FA, and tried to give close attention to the prose when I did my GA review. I tried to spotcheck, but I don't have easy access to most of the sources.

While I do understand botanical language reasonably well, I'm not personally familiar with banksias. I felt that the description gave me a good sense of the plant and what it would look like if I ran across one (subject to a few caveats below). As a sort-of-expert, the taxonomy section was clear to me: I can understand why George and Thiele & Ladiges made the placements they did, and why Mast's phylogeny gave different results.

A few things occur to me on re-reading:

  • A slightly more extensive description of the flowers would be nice. It doesn't need too much detail—to some extent it's covered by Banksia, and that needn't be repeated in extenso—but it isn't clear from reading what the flower shape is. (It looks tubular from the photos.) We jump right from "color" to the styles without really describing the rest of the perianth.
tried to expand a bit - better? Casliber (talk · contribs) 11:42, 27 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The leaf margins are described as "linear". I would associate that term with leaf shape; I'd expect an untoothed margin to be simply described as "entire" (or "without teeth", to be less jargon-y).
done Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:49, 22 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • I find it a little harder to picture the seeds. Is there an illustration of a generic Banksia seed available? I'm trying to picture the wedge-shaped seeds with wings and a woody separator between them and not succeeding particularly well.
    Linked seed separator, so this is taken care of. Choess (talk) 13:40, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have to go now, but I'll see if I can add more material later. Choess (talk) 17:28, 21 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Changed to support, with a few minor comments below. I can testify in particular to criterion 1c: article is a thorough survey of the relevant literature.

  • "Many stems rise from a woody lignotuber." Should this read "Its many stems...", with reference to the shrub in the previous sentence? As it stands, it's not clear whether it means that, or that many, but not all, of all Banksia grossa stems arise from a lignotuber.
changed Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "At anthesis the flowers produce unusually large quantities of nectar...": Unusual in comparison to what?
well, most other flowers...but the word doesn't add anything that isn't covered by "large" or "copious" Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The auricles are 2 mm long." The auricles of what? The cotyledons?
yes. tweaked Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the first paragraph of "Ecology", make clear what effect animals eating seeds will have on reseeding. "Resprouting plants benefit more from longer intervals": benefit more than what?
yes. tweaked both. It is the populations that benefit by there being more seed.... Casliber (talk · contribs) 23:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well done. Choess (talk) 23:10, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Comments from Jim Usual thorough job, so just a few mini-nitpicks Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:01, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • I fixed one overlink of the common word "nectar"
  • and were the basis of its species name — "are"?
changed to present tense Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Found in sand or sand over laterite among heath — reads oddly to a Brit, perhaps amongst heath on sandy soil, or sand overlying laterite — feel free to ignore, I don't much like my version either
Reads fine to me....maybe I've been reading too many botanical texts.... Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:34, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Flowering occurs over the cooler months of March to September. — "in" or "throughout", rather than "over"
changed preposition Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • 8 follicles — I think MoS is to spell out the number
changed to word Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:30, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The woody separator — I'm not sure what we are talking about here, is this the woody central column?
it's a tiny disc-shaped piece of wood that has the silhouette of the seed, and splits two seed. All three are in the follicle. I will think how to reword... Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:32, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The inflorescences... — overuse of "recorded in this para
verbs diversified Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:33, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Changed to support above now Jimfbleak - talk to me? 17:58, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support, very strong. A few quick comments-

  • "entire and inrolled" Jargony.
de-jargonised Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:16, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "styles loosely curling around the infructescence (although this trait was reversed in micrantha)," Can you refer to species by specific name only?
whoops/fixed Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:29, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could we perhaps have some "for instance"s in the pollinators section?
were you thinking of anywhere in particular as no spots jumped out at me at first glance Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:35, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The purpose of coloured nectar is unclear, especially as many pollinators appear to be insects or nocturnal mammals." Perhaps explain why these statements are linked?
rejigged - hopefully clearer Casliber (talk · contribs) 12:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • The last sentence in the article has no cited reference.
whoops/added Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:32, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other than that, great. I made a few tiny tweaks. J Milburn (talk) 17:22, 23 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments This is a very good article. I'm not familiar with the scientific/botanical language used to describe plants, but was generally able to make sense of the more technical parts of the article. I have the following comments and suggestions:

  • "it was described as a distinct species in 1981" - I presume that this is the technical way of saying that it was first formally classified in 1981. Is there a more reader-friendly translation of this term which could be used?
I've linked "described" and just left out "as a species" as that is somewhat redundant. Is the link enough? Casliber (talk · contribs)
  • "it grows as a many-stemmed shrub to 1 m (3 ft) high " - the first para of the 'Description' section states that the size of the plants can differ, so this wording seems overly specific
I'm not sure I follow - in the lead? I think some idea is good as technically shrubs can be up to 4 or 5 metres tall in some definitions, or as short as prostrate ground covers. Hence some sort of number to immediately give the reader a picture is good. The shrub usually grows to 1 m but occasionally 1.5 m, so was deliberating about the number to use. Is this what you meant? Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:40, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • "though some flower spikes are terminal" - is there a less technical way of expressing this?
added parenthesised bit Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:37, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
not with this but the situation is this - much of the land has been cleared for agriculture, so there are often strips of native vegetation between the road and field boundary which harbour rare and unusual plants. However these are vulnerable to things like road widening by councils etc. and weeds. Anyway, many many discussions on plants from WA touch on this. I'd have to find a different source to elaborate, or link it somewhere and discuss there with a general statement. I will think about it Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:35, 24 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
A general statement would do the job if its fairly common for WA plant species. Nick-D (talk) 03:38, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
aha! Road_verge#Rural_roadsides....nice link Casliber (talk · contribs) 09:45, 25 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]
That works, but dedicated text would be better if sources ever discuss this. Nick-D (talk) 10:31, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support My comments are now addressed Nick-D (talk) 10:31, 26 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Delegate notes

  • Didn't see a source check above. Going through them myself, I see no reliability issues but there is some inconsistent formatting:
    • Some page ranges have "p."/"pp.", others don't (I prefer to see the "p."/"pp.").
it's been the convention to have books with the 'p's and journals not to. I've just followed the templates, so rather than tweak them for this article alone I think it's better to look at referencing globally as all my other FAs are like this. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:47, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • Some retrieval dates are in day-month-year, others yyyy-mm-dd (much prefer the former). I realise these inconsistencies may be arise from using different citation templates, but there's usually ways around those.
changed to words. the old formatted one was a relic and has been removed Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:47, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]
ok, done Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:47, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers, Ian Rose (talk) 23:49, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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