Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Archive3

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"New" Tropical Fruits

I have some knowledge about tropical fruits and wish to add them to Wikipedia for general noncommercial interest. These amount to some high quality foods generally unknown. I guess I will just do this in the appropriate plant family area (ie taxonomically), although the average person doesn't think "name of plant" when he or she sees a fruit. Cross referencing to foods would be good as well. Any comments appreciated. Dkchandlee

Sounds like you have some interesting articles to add! It would make most sense to publish them under pages by scientific (binomial) names unless the Common name is well known and unambiguous. Then link them to other pages as you mentioned. Check out the list on the page on tropical fruit. NoahElhardt 05:52, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

non-biologist needs help!

Hi, the main page currently contains a link to the 2006 Table Mountain fire (under the news items), which according to this source has destroyed between 40 and 50 percent of the world's silver leaf tree population. This fact is noted in the fire article and thus it contains a link to the silver leaf tree article (which I created). Unfortunately, my knowledge of trees is VERY limited so the article in its current for is an unsatisfactory stub. Given that the article is only 2 links deep from the main page I think it needs to be expanded... Help will be much appreciated. Mikkerpikker ... 23:56, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Expanded it. Also moved the page to the scientific name, as various references I looked at gave a choice of four different common names, making a NPOV common name title difficult. - MPF 17:36, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot MPF, I've seen your changes & appreciate the input! Mikkerpikker ... 20:53, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Flower Resource

The Wikipedia Help Desk has been approached by the Flower Expert website [1]. It looks like a useful resource for people writing articles on flowering plants. Capitalistroadster 07:57, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Took a look at it - it doesn't appear to me to have much (if any) useful content that we don't already have. Actually, a lot of their info looks like it is copied off wikipedia, but old page versions from some time ago. - MPF 13:28, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Article content

As I suggested at Talk:Malvaceae, I think it would be a good idea for this project to define what is the appropriate content for articles about specific plant taxa. For instance, compared to, say fishes, for which the families are generally stable and agreed-upon, plant families seem somewhat chaotic and ill-defined. So there is going to be part of the article that is complicated because it has to describe the chaos, but there is some general material that is straightforward ("cactaceae have areoles usually with spines") and that connects the technical botanical material with what most people are familiar with. Agreement will also help both in fixing up existing articles and adding new ones, and reduce time spent debating what is and is not appropriate for each. Stan 18:36, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Plant families seem "chaotic and undefined" because systematic botany is currently in the middle of a major (and exciting!) period of upheaval. Due to a growing emphasis on cladistic methodology, combined with numerous phylogenetic studies (primarily molecular, but the best of these incorporate morphology, biogeography, and other characters as well) at all different taxonomic levels that have been published in the last decade or so, many families are in the process of being re-defined and re-circumscribed; some are being split, others are being merged. Many of the affected families (e.g., Scrophulariaceae, Liliaceae) were already acknowledged to be unnatural and heterogeneous but there are few families that are completely unaffected. Until the dust settles there is no good solution other than discussing the "chaos" itself, and the reasons for it. My own compromise has been to primarily limit the discussion to comparing and contrasting the Cronquist system and Angiosperm Phylogeny Group classification, which are two of the major systems in current usage. However, even the APG system has been modified since its relatively recent publication. Most of the proposed changes make perfect sense to those of us inside the field of systematic botany, but I don't doubt that to those outside the field it looks like a train wreck in progress! MrDarwin 19:00, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Exactly. Systematists could think of WP as an opportunity to explain what's going on to a nonspecialist audience. It could even help adoption of new organization; the impression I get from literature is that some of the current mess comes from people proposing systems in the past and getting only partial "buy-in" each time. WP reaches a far wider audience than a random specialist journal, so good distillations of the current state can be influential. Stan 03:19, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

One thing I have been trying to do, and would strongly encourage others to do, is to refer to and cite the original literature, and provide links to those references if they are available online. There is far too much unverified, and sometimes erroneous, information in many plant articles; providing references allows the user to not only verify the information that is presented but get far more information if he or she needs it. This is especially important for groups that are undergoing rapid (and sometimes contentious) changes. 14:53, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I've been a bit flustered a few times by this as well... personally I'd like the taxonomists to settle things first before putting the newest and most exciting change here on wiki. At the very least, perhaps the taxonomical disputes could be discussed at the bottom of the page rather than the top, so that the beginning of the article is about the plant, rather than about arguments that are about the plant (i.e., discourse before metadiscourse).

Additionally, I think it would be a good idea to preserve the old names in the old genera until the more practical-minded get used to the changes (i.e., preserving the name Aster novae-angliae on the Aster page, rather than just deleting it and moving it to a page of the current (unpronouncable) genus. SB Johnny 13:30, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

Poa = Parodiochloa?

Does anyone know whether genus Poa and genus Parodiochloa, both of the family Poaceae, are the same thing under two different names, or two distinct genera? According to List of the vascular plants of Britain and Ireland 8, the common name of Poa flabellata is Tussac-grass, but there is an article Tussac Grass that says the species in question is Parodiochloa flabellata. If the two are in fact the same thing, the two articles should be merged. If they're different, then List of the vascular plants of Britain and Ireland 8 should be corrected. Thanks! Angr/talk 19:34, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Poa and Parodiochloa are not the same thing. Poa is a large genus and Parodiochloa seems to be a recent segregate from it. But the two names you ask about are one and the same species: Parodiochloa flabellata is a recently published new name for Poa flabellata, although I don't know how widely accepted this name, or the genus Parodiochloa, might be. A good source for nomenclatural and taxonomic information on plant genera and species is the Missouri Botanical Garden'sTropicos. It's not nearly complete, but for the names it does include there's a lot of good information. MrDarwin 19:47, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

So what you're saying is, yes, Poa flabellata and Tussac Grass should be merged as both articles discuss the same species? Angr/talk 19:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

That depends. Is "Tussac Grass" a unique common name that refers only to this species, or is the name a spelling variant of "tussock grass", which can refer to any number of species? I'm probably the wrong person to ask, as I have little patience for "common names" and I'm an advocate for creating articles under the botanical (scientific) name, with common names redirecting to that article (or having a disambiguation page, as I suspect this one would need). MrDarwin 20:12, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, I'm not a biologist. But there is a different article Tussock Grass. But the point is, the current content of the article Tussac Grass (regardless of whether it should be called that) is about the same species as the article Poa flabellata, and we shouldn't have two articles on the same topic. Angr/talk 20:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I checked out both articles and it looks like you're right. I would suggest merging them under Poa flabellata (with a note about the name Parodiochloa flabellata). I don't know what to do about "tussac grass" (I'm no grass expert) but I suspect it's a variant or misspelling of "tussock". I just did a Google search on the "tussac" spelling and found several articles, all apparently referring to the Falklands species so this may indeed be a spelling unique to that region. I would suggest keeping it as a redirect it to the Poa flabellata article, and maybe include a link under the article "tussock grass" as well. MrDarwin 20:46, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Okay. But I would prefer leaving it to someone who does know something about plants to do the merger. I'm just a translator. Angr/talk 21:26, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Done.--Curtis Clark 04:46, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

Articles for the Wikipedia 1.0 project

Hi, I'm a member of the Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, which is looking to identify quality articles in Wikipedia for future publication on CD or paper. We recently began assessing using these criteria, and we are looking for A-class, B-class, and Good articles, with no POV or copyright problems. Can you recommend any suitable articles? Please post your suggestions here. Cheers, Shanel 20:16, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

I would guess you are two years too early in looking for great articles on plants. Wikipedia has great potential, but as yet it is unrealized where plants are concerned. Brya 21:01, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments anyway - but I hope you may be proved wrong! In 18 months I watched WP:Chem go from an inactive project to a very lively place with several FAs and about 25 GAs. It will probably take us a year to produce a large-size print/DVD version, as it happedns. Keep plugging away, please! For WP1.0, thanks Walkerma 05:10, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

What kinds of plant articles are you looking for? Perhaps the article on Utricularia would qualify? I'll be keeping my eyes open. NoahElhardt 05:47, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, we're looking for both high-quality articles to add to the listing of A-Class articles as well as important plant articles, regardless of shape, for listing in the science listing of assessed articles. Titoxd^{(?!? - help us)} 06:57, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

I think that articles on each of the major groups of plants would be desirable for inclusion in such a project, but I'm not sure that any of these articles merit more than a B at this point. For land plants, the relevant articles are: Marchantiophyta, hornwort, moss, bryophyte, vascular plant, Lycopodiophyta, fern, spermatophyte, Pinophyta, cycad, Ginkgo, flowering plant, monocotyledon, dicotyledon, though others would undoubtedly consider other articles to (eventually) be worth adding to this list. Perhaps one or more of these articles should be nominated for the Article Improvement Drive. --EncycloPetey 14:18, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. I have done my best to assess these, but I'm know very little about botany so could you please check/adjust my assessments here? I judged Bladderwort to be A-Class, is that OK? I also thought that cycad looked close to A, would it just need a section on life cycle and some more wikilinks to be A? I did find some of the articles to be full of technical terms (as I would expect), and words like allopatry can benefit from wikilinks. The articles seem to have lots of nice pictures and references, something many articles lack. Please edit my amateurish assessments. Thanks, Walkerma 03:30, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

APG II and Wikipedia

I keep seeing variations of the phrase "Wikipedia has adopted the APG II system" in various botanical articles and it continues to irritate me to no end. While I believe the classification system devised by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group has considerable merit, and due to its influence should certainly be acknowledged (if only to compare it to previous influential systems, e.g., the Cronquist system), the fact remains that there are numerous authors of Wikipedia articles who have varying degrees of acceptance of the APG system. Morevoer, it remains to be seen whether the details of its classification will be widely accepted, and as it is already several years old parts of it are already being modified by subsequent authors. "Adoption" of a particular system published at a particular time means that newer, and possibly better, systems will be rejected (never mind the fact that adoption of a particular system represents a non-neutral POV!) MrDarwin 20:27, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

If I were going to make a list of things that irritate me, this would either be far down on the list or not on it. The fact is if wikipedia has to have taxoboxes and is going to categorize entries by taxonomic placement then a standard system is pretty much a must. Of course, a more balanced result would be achieved if every entry was just linked to the next higher taxon. Then, the circumscription and taxonomic placement of each taxon could be discussed in its own entry. This would be much more accurate, but would also be slower to read. As far as I can judge, a move to discontinue taxoboxes would be unpopular. Therefore, we are stuck with having a standardised (i.e. fixed and in that sense objective) system. In that case, the obvious candidate is APG II. This is a convenience in that it gives a standard to compare to, giving arguments why it is right or wrong, as the case may be. Of course, it remains important to emphasize at every opportunity that any taxonomic system is ephemeral. Brya 11:15, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Brya, I guess my main request is that, rather than saying that "Wikipedia has adopted..." you simply describe how something is classified under the APG system, and possibly how that differs from previous classifications. The question does of course arise as to how we should handle post-APG II classifications; I suspect that many parts of the APG system will be rejected or modified as systematists work on specific groups. (BTW you could probably tell I was in an especially irritable mood the last couple of days!) MrDarwin 14:20, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

I am afraid I am too tired to have noticed your being irritable. I can understand your problem about my being ham-fisted about promoting APG over Cronquist, but I am afraid my policy is deliberate. This is not because I believe in APG II, as such. I can think of quite a few unkind things to say about APG (I won't say them). However, when it comes down to authoritative systems, there is no alternative.

The way I see it, the big problem is not that there is a 'standard system' but that most people are trying to use APG II and Cronquist at the same time, without noticing the difference. This is a problem of vast proportions as the wikipedia's in other languages are mirroring what happens here, with variations (as far as I can tell the German wikipedia has decided to become a publishing taxonomist itself, in assigning the eudicots the rank of class and naming it Rosopsida). I feel my approach is justified (at the risk of being ham-fisted): I am just trying to turn the juggernaut in what may not be the 'right' direction, but in what at least would be a consistent policy. As I cannot touch any entry that has a taxobox in it without starting a major war, I am trying to clean up the taxonomic entries dealing with non-current names. In doing so I am going for short, clear entries that will allow for a maximum of navigatability. Hopefully this will enable the user to make quick checks to compare the status of various taxa. Thus I may build up basic awareness of the issues.

As I said earlier I am not afraid of APG II becoming obsolete and Wikipedia being stuck with it; if ever APG III is published Wikipedia will be the first to adopt it. Don't underestimate the appeal of a shiny new gadget. Brya 20:54, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Template: botanist

I made a suggestion for a change to template:botanist. See template talk:botanist. Brya 15:29, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Flora AID nomination

I would like to inform you that the article Flora (plants) has been nominated in WP:AID. The article, I believe, needs serious improvements. I ask your votes, assistance and colaboration to make this a Feature article WP:FA. Thank you!! --Francisco Valverde 07:23, 8 April 2006 (UTC)==

Update on Flora

Due to discussions in the WP:AID nomination it was decided to change the WP:AID nomination to the WP:COTW nomination. It was considered that Flora (plants) was really a stub, even though it has a considerable length. I invite all of you to contribute to this article. --Francisco Valverde 09:14, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

COTW Nomination

The stub article on the Fabales has been nominated for Collaboration of the week. It will need lots of votes to beat votes from the "Balkan Block". --EncycloPetey 09:35, 16 April 2006 (UTC)