Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Archive34

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Archive 30

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Archive 32

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Proposed merge of Eupatorium articles

There is a proposed merge at Talk:Eupatorium fortunei#Merge. I did find something in a Flora of China draft which seems to address the matter, but I'm not really sure whether this is considered authoritative or complete. Please discuss there. Kingdon (talk) 13:41, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Fruits of the desert

FYI, I just noticed this category, which does not fit into any established scheme for either fruits or the desert. Either a CFD candidate, or some work needs to be done to integrate it. Postdlf (talk) 22:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I have been quietly loathing this category for about a year now. I do lots of category "integration", but have avoided integrating this one on account of that loathing. At the very least it should be renamed to something more boring, like "Fruits of arid climates"; at most it should be terminated. Hesperian 23:35, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

There's also Category:Fruits of Angola, if you need something else to quietly loathe. Postdlf (talk) 01:00, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Category:Fruits of the Angolan deserts? (Whew. I'm glad that was a redlink.)--Curtis Clark (talk) 01:34, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I know about Flora of Angola; it's bad but not that bad. Ditto Category:Grasses of Punjab. Ditto Category:Native grasses of Oklahoma.

I think the worst category we have is Category:Flowers. WTF does that mean? Angiosperms? The reproductive organs of angiosperms? The reproductive organs of angiosperms when aesthetically pleasing? Angiosperms with aesthetically pleasing reproductive organs? The reproductive organs of angiosperms when aesthetically pleasing and therefore of economic importance? Angiosperms with reproductive organs that are aethetically pleasing and therefore economically important? The reproductive organs of angiosperms when aesthetically pleasing and therefore of economic importance to the cut flower industry? Angiosperms with reproductive organs that are aesthetically pleasing and therefore of economic importance to the cut flower industry?

There is also an annoying cluster of categories for "flora of an arbitrary North American landform". I've sent quite a few of those to the bin but there remains Category:Flora of the Great Basin desert region, Category:Flora of the Great Lakes region (North America), Category:Flora of the Plains-Midwest (United States), Category:Flora of the U.S. Rio Grande Valleys, Category:Flora of Appalachia (United States), tree categories for each of the preceding, Category:Trees of Eastern Texas, Category:Trees of Western Texas....

See? Once you get me started you can't shut me up.

Hesperian 02:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Wrt the Texas categories, west Texas and east Texas are not quite as different as Western Australia and New South Wales; it's more like Alice Springs and Brisbane. El Paso is closer to Los Angeles than it is to Texarkana. (Not that I'm defending the categories.)--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:58, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Does this situation also apply to Category:Flora of Northern Florida? Hesperian 04:33, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

That would be more like Brisbane and Cairns.

The problem with all of these is boundary. I can stand with one foot in Texas and one in New Mexico, crushing the same flora under each, but the boundary is precise enough for lawyers. Where is the boundary between western Texas and eastern Texas? Or between the Great Basin and the Mojave Desert? Despite the failure of most political divisions to correspond to ecology, at least we know where they start and end.--Curtis Clark (talk) 13:47, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Flora of Southern Florida (analogous to Flora of the U.S. Rio Grande Valleys) would make more sense; if I am correctly informed Southern Florida has a flora with more in common with the Caribbean than with the rest of the continental US. Flora of Northern Florida looks like a candidate for deletion. Lavateraguy (talk) 15:44, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

I went ahead and recategorized the only article in the Northern Florida category (Sarracenia flava) and deleted the category. As it stood, there weren't enough articles to justify the category and I agree with Curtis' point about boundaries. Unless the boundary is objectively defined and widely agreed upon, I don't think that kind of category is very useful to us. --Rkitko ^(talk) 19:37, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

A bigger problem can be seen at Campanula rotundifolia. I hope it isn't the recommended practice of this Wikiproject to categorize plant species by every subnational entity in which they can be found, yet there are Category:Flora of Mexico by state, Category:Flora of the United States by state... None of these subnational entities are, of course, mentioned in Campanula rotundifolia, which just states that it is extant in North America. At such a fine level of division, list articles should be used instead of categories. Postdlf (talk) 05:55, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks okay to me. Hesperian 06:23, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Arum maculatum, Cuckoo Pint

This is my first time on Wikipedia, and I'm not familiar with any guidlines etc. My interest in the above plant is that I've always been told it's a poisoness plant, but the other day I met a group of Kurdish people gathering up the leaves and flowers of the plant. When approached and informed that it was a poisoness plant, I was told that it was a plant they recognised and ate regularly in Kurdistan. They told me that the plant was boiled twice at 70! Now here's the rub, was it 70 degrees fahrenite, or 70 degrees centigrade, or for 70 minutes each boiling? It was then stored in the freezer till winter time when it was eaten along with eggs, and other delicases. I have read about the starch/starch flour derived from the plant but there seems to be nothing about eating the leaves and flowers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.147.64.242 (talk) 11:29, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Arum maculatum is poisonous. It contains several toxins. One is Calcium Oxalate (which is also the toxin in rhubarb). This appears to be present in the tubers and leaves, and perhaps all parts. The plant also produces nastier substances, including alkaloids, saponins and perhaps cyanogenic glycosides. I suspect that these are concentrated in the berries.

Some parts of some plants, while toxic in the natural state, are safe when suitably prepared. For example, cassava, cycad sago. Lavateraguy (talk) 13:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

That is one of the toxins in rhubarb leaves; rhubarb is believed to contain an additional, possibly unidentified toxin (at least according to the sources we are citing at rhubarb; if memory serves the oxalate concentration is insufficient to account for observed toxicity). Another example of a plant which is toxic raw but can be eaten with suitable boiling is pokeweed. Kingdon (talk) 01:32, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

More IDs, please

A few more flowers to ID, please:

File:PurpleFlowerWade.JPG: Flowers are about the size of a US nickel. This is a ground cover that is no more than 3 inches tall. Located in upstate New York

Looks like one of the prostrate Phloxes. My best guess would be Phlox subulata, but it is only a guess. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

File:BleedingHeartPlant.JPG: I know this as a "Bleeding heart" but the two plants listed at the disambig page don't show this flower. What's the real name?

Dicentra spectabilis (Bleeding Heart or Dutchman's Breeches) (you needed to go one wikilink further) Lavateraguy (talk) 20:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

File:BlueFlowerWade.JPG: Flowers are about 7mm across. This is the entire plant (my full-grown cat in background for size reference—or because he doesn't respond to "move!").

Brunnera macrophylla Lavateraguy (talk) 20:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 19:49, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks Lavateraguy! ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 03:15, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Wildflower ID

Found this flower by the side of the road in Northern Texas. It had small pea-like seed pods (not pictured), and the plant itself was very small (much too small to be ornamental). It definitely seems to be in the pea/legume family. I'm not from Texas, so I have no idea what it might be. Any ideas? Kaldari (talk) 18:11, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

No ideas? Kaldari (talk) 15:23, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Could be Astragalus, which doesn't narrow it down much. :-) You'd likely need closeups of leaves and fruits to have a chance of IDing - in any given area there are a number of species, and the flowers tend not to have reliably distinct characteristics. Stan (talk) 21:17, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The closest resemblance to the flowers that I can find image-wise on the net is this which is tagged as Astragalus nuttallianus. Melburnian (talk) 02:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

That's it. Thanks! It looks like this is the first photo of it on Wikipedia. Kaldari (talk) 15:08, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think that's enough basis for a positive ID. What other Astragalus species are in the area? Around here (Las Vegas) we have 20+ species (including A. nuttallianus var. imperfectus [1]), several of which can only be distinguished from each other by close examination of the fruits. Put a wrongly-IDed picture in the article, with no additional pictures confirming key characters, you can mislead a lot of people. (I have lots of Astragalus pictures that I pass over because positive ID is not possible.) Stan (talk) 18:53, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

I also did some further research on Google. I'm not sure what variety it is, but I'm 95% sure it's A. nuttallianus. The only other species I found that were similar were Astragalus humilimus and Astragalus desperatus, but they both had significant differences. If you find any info that conflicts with the ID, feel free to remove it from the article. I've uploaded another photo that shows the fruit as well if that helps. Also, if you can figure out the variety, that would be extra cool. Kaldari (talk) 20:58, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's another photo I found that is very similar. Apparently there are 5 varieties that exist in Texas. Kaldari (talk) 21:32, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks like we're in luck! [2] has online copies of a flora of north-central Texas, with excellent detail including keys. Interestingly, there is less Astragalus diversity in 40,000 sq mi of Texas than in the few hundred sq mi around Las Vegas, and the smooth banana-looking fruit pretty much eliminates everything they list except A. nuttallianus. Varietywise, a key character seems to be whether some leaves are not notched, but all the ones I see in the photo are notched, which reduces to var. macilentus or var nuttallianus - those two need a ruler to distinguish, but macilentus tends to occur farther south, so I think it's safe to call it for var. nuttallianus. (One of these days I'll get my photos of var. imperfectus uploaded...) Stan (talk) 06:23, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Couple more IDs

Here are a few more flowers that could use IDs:

File:LilacFlower.JPG: I assume this is a lilac, but is it possible to be any more specific?
probably Syringa vulgaris, but there are hundreds of cultivars Lavateraguy (talk) 19:56, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
File:WadeWhitePinkFlower.JPG: These are flowers on a tree in my back yard. Between the size of a US nickel and US quarter.
something in Maloideae (Pyrinae), I think. You can narrow it down by counting styles, and the foliage also helps identification. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:56, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
File:WadeYellowStalkFlower.jpg: Flowers on a small stalk, which stands about 6-10 inches tall; stalk is about 3mm wide.
Yellow Archangel (Lamiastrum galeobdolon agg) - there's two forms growing in my neck of the woods, so I'm going to have to do a little digging into the taxonomy. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:56, 9 May 2009 (UTC)
File:WadeBrightPurpleFlower.JPG: Flowers are about the size of a US nickel. The leaves surrounding the flowers are not associated with the flowers (they are surrounding plants).
Wild Pansy (Viola sp.) - I can't tell which species it is offhand, especially as I don't know about the American species. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:56, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

All of these plants were photographed in upstate New York, today. Thanks again; this group is great for fast, reliable IDs; it's a big help! ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 19:38, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Weed ID?

This weed is growing in my back yard. Does anyone know what it is? The leaves remind me of Maple leaves, but I'm pretty sure that's not a maple tree. The stalk isn't at all woody. Oh, I'm in Denton County, Texas -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:03, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Might be a species of ragweed? It's not Ambrosia trifida, but looks quite similar and there are a number of species in the west. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 12:05, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

What makes you say it's not A. trifida? That seems to be a pretty close match. I definitely think that's the genus at least. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Leaves aren't quite right (too many lobes), or at least they're a bit different from the local variants I often ~~kill~~ see around here :-). One question for you: are the upper surfaces of the leaves quite rough to the touch? --SB_Johnny | ^talk 13:14, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I'm in a university town, so maybe I can find a botanist familiar with the local species. Thanks for helping me narrow it down to a genus! -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

I think this is a species of Heracleum, probably Heracleum maximum - Ambrosia species don't typically have the veiny-wrinkly leaf surfaces we're seeing here. Stan (talk) 21:37, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

The surface of the leaves is weird and clingy. Running my finger out from the central vein to the edge was not smooth, but going the other direction, the leaf felt quite sticky and clingy. It's not the same as goosegrass, but definitely not smooth. In the Heracleum maximum pictures on commons, the margins of the leaves seem much more serrated, and the sinuses between the lobes a bit pointier than in my specimen. -GTBacchus^(talk) 23:24, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Comparing picture 1-1 with this picture, I'm inclined to favour Ambrosia trifida. Both pictures show plants with both 3 and 5 lobed leaves. I think picture 1-3 focusing on emerging juvenile foliage might be a bit deceptive in terms of usual leaf texture. Melburnian (talk) 01:46, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Just in the last day, I've noticed more specimens growing in the southwest corner of the yard, which clearly match this one, yet which have a lot more of the 3-lobed leaves, like A. trifida in the pictures. I think the one I photographed is just bigger than a lot of them ever get to be, so it has more of the bigger leaves. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:56, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

There's also:

That looks as if it may be Lactuca serriola (prickly lettuce); the line of spines along the underside of the midrib is pretty distinctive. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:23, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you're right. Thank you. -GTBacchus^(talk) 04:57, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

and

A Campsis? (if it is a climber coming through the fence) Imc (talk) 11:27, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

After doing some reading, I think this is probably C. radicans. It certainly is a climber, that comes through the fence and attaches to it with aerial roots. I think it would pull the fence right down if I didn't keep after it. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:36, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

That's all for now. Thanks in advance to anyone who recognizes these plants. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:13, 9 May 2009 (UTC)

Update - The above images have been replaced with:
Thanks again. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:23, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Locoweed

Anyone for making Locoweed a disambiguation page? --Una Smith (talk) 14:58, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I have expanded Locoweed more than 5x and in the process I made Locoweed (disambiguation). Most of the content now in Locoweed concerns locoism. The content about locoweeds per se (an increasingly historical concept), I am leaning toward moving to Wiktionary. I would like to move the article to Locoism and the dab page to Locoweed. Comments? --Una Smith (talk) 23:49, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Large crop of IDs

Just recently, Neelix uploaded a very large group of images, many of which are of flowers and plants. Many of these images are extremely good and could be used very well in articles, but none of them have identifications. If members of this wikiproject are interested, we could use IDs on these. Please feel free to update the image pages with the ID and then strike the image after you've updated. I will then begin transferring the images to Commons once they've been IDed (I'll make sure to use the ID as the new file name). Many thanks in advance to anybody that may help! ~ ωαdεstεr16_«talk^stalk» 06:29, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I did a few... they should upload to commons next time though, since some of the Germans in particular are real whizzes at plant ID from photos. --SB_Johnny | ^talk 13:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Know anything about ovule anatomy?

I wrote an article about a 1820s botany paper you've never heard of—a paper that would be non-notable except that it contains a digression about which it has been written "no more important discovery was ever made in the domain of comparative morphology and systematic Botany." That got your attention, didn't it?

Writing the article required me to pretend that I know something of the anatomy of the ovule. This was great for me, because it means I learned something. But it probably wasn't great for Wikipedia. If you know a bit about this area, please take a moment to check Character and description of Kingia for stupidity.

Hesperian 13:52, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks good; I don't see any problems. (I caught a small error in chalaza—didn't know we had the article.)--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:30, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Oops. "Integuments" redirects to Integumentary system, which is an article with a backbone. The botanical use is perched in the hatnote.--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:35, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I added that hatnote while working on the article, but forgot to alter the link. Thanks. Hesperian 23:31, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Does your WikiProject care about talk pages of redirects?

Does your project care about what happens to the talk pages of articles that have been replaced with redirects? If so, please provide your input at User:Mikaey/Request for Input/ListasBot 3. Thanks, Matt (talk) 02:18, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Backyard weed ID

I'm guessing it's some kind of Asterid. These have been coming up all over my yard in Denton for a few weeks now; I don't think I've seen any of them flower, or in any way take it to the next level. The brick in pictures 3 and 4 is there for scale; it's ordinary-sized. Thanks in advance. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:14, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Is there actually a purpose to getting all these weed pictures identified? All of the weed pictures you had identified a week ago are still uncategorized with no useful descriptions. Indeed it looks like some of them have already been deleted. Are you actually planning on using any of these pictures to illustrate Wikipedia articles? If so, I would suggest that you try to take some better pictures. Most of the ones you've uploaded so far are blurry and poorly lit. You may also want to try venturing outside of your yard as chances are most common weeds already have images on Wikipedia. Kaldari (talk) 20:38, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I'm re-uploading those from last week with useful descriptions now. Those that were deleted, have been replaced by better-titled ones, so I requested their deletion. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear. If you consult my contribution history at Commons, you can see what I'm up to.

If you don't like my pictures or my choice of plants to photograph, I don't know what to say. Most of the photos I've taken have been different from what is already on Commons for those species. If I see that my picture is redundant, once I know what it's a picture of, I skip it. Also, once I've got something ID'd, I try to only re-upload the high-quality ones. I would welcome constructive suggestions on how to better photograph plants.

Once I feel confident that the plants on my own property are well-documented... we'll see. I am learning as I go, and I suspect that I'll be troubling you with fewer of these soon. If these questions are truly unwelcome, I'd like to know that, so I can properly go away. -GTBacchus^(talk) 20:52, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

If you check my user page at Commons, you can see my pictures, with links to the relevant pages. On each page, I think these pictures are providing added value, but if not, I'd like to know that. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:00, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Glad to see the information is actually being put to good use. Regarding plant photography, here are some tips:

If it is a flowering plant, wait until it is flowering. This will aid in identification and give you more interesting pictures.
If you are not using a tripod, make sure your shudder speed is very fast so that your images are sharp. If you're shooting with an automatic, this means you'll want to shoot on a sunny day.

Hope that helps. Kaldari (talk) 21:21, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I would do well to find a tripod, or something like one. I do think there is value in photographing young plants, before they've flowered, because it might aid readers in identifying something (like ragweed, or trumpet creeper) growing in their own yard without having to wait all summer for it to flower. Especially for pest plants, I would think that early ID is worth something. -GTBacchus^(talk) 21:57, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

I KNOW I've seen this this a LOT around my home back in Quebec City, but I'll be damned if I can remember whether I even managed to ID it. A few thoughts: my instincts push me toward a Brassicaceae (though it could be something else: I'm not eliminating the possibility it is a young Solidago or Oenothera, but those have much sturdier stems than Brassicaceae). In any case, it is very difficult to ID most plants without flowers. Circeus (talk) 04:34, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Conyza canadensis?--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

That would be my guess too. Stan (talk) 13:24, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that looks just right. Thank you. -GTBacchus^(talk) 17:13, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

M. His

Does anyone know the full name of the French botanist whose surname is "His"? It is ungooglable. The text I'm working with refers to him as "M. His". I followed a citation to an article which is signed "Ch. HIS." That's all I know. Hesperian 07:19, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Do you have any dates for the articles? (But I looked at IPNI's author database, and the most plausible entry was Wilhelm Hisinger (1766-1852) - there was no entry for a Charles.) Lavateraguy (talk) 08:43, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I checked IPNI. Nothing there, but all that tells me is he didn't publish any names.

The cited article, signed "Ch. HIS.", is from Journal de Physique 65 (1807): 241. It is a description of a teratological Ophyris specimen. This is consistent with the premise that his contributions were in anatomy and physiology rather than systematics, but it is also consistent with the premise that he was just a random lucky bugger who discovered a freak.

Hesperian 11:49, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, it turns out that IPNI has authors (e.g. Valmont, Rutty) for which their database has no published names. Lavateraguy (talk) 12:51, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

The index to that journal gives the authorship of that article as "M. Hiss", which then becomes a little more googleable. There is a "Charles Hiss or His, Versailles, France, about 1843-1870", who is credited as raising several tree paeony cultivars. He appears to be too recent to have been active in 1807 - perhaps it is his father that you're looking for. However I can't find any actual mention of such a person. (If you could find a French national biographical dictionary ...) Lavateraguy (talk) 13:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Seems to be Charles His "un amateur de botanique" per this reference [3] Melburnian (talk) 14:03, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Thankyou very much! Hesperian 23:23, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

Iridaceae

Hi!, I'm new to WP:EN and to this project. I've been writing botanical articles in the spanish wiki during the last two years. I am finishing the edition of Iridaceae and I would be very glad to know any opinion or suggestion to the article. Thanks in advance!, --EnCASF (talk) 01:08, 21 May 2009 (UTC)

Question

Dear wikibotanists, I am editing Amaryllidaceae and I found this page list of Amaryllidaceae genera. Is there a convention or an usage for the "lists of genera" of a given family (to put them in the page of the family or to create a new page with the list??). Currently, the list of genera are in two different pages and seems to be better to put them only in one of them, perhaps in Amaryllidaceae, in the section with discuss the taxonomy of the family. What do you think? Thanks in advance! --EnCASF (talk) 14:15, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

The list usually get separated if it is too unwieldy (usually around 100 species, e.g. List of Rutaceae genera). As is, I'd redirect it to the main page and adjust links were appropriate (such as in the infobox.). Maybe consider organizing the list taxonomically since the subarticles are not yet created? Circeus (talk) 14:26, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Circeus!, I used to do so in W:ES but I didn't know here. It is a good suggestion to arrange the list taxonomically....but I didn't know if I will get all the needed information about tribes and subtribes. I will check! Thanks again. --EnCASF (talk) 14:33, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it's just me, but isn't it a bit useless to have a list of tribes if it is impossible to tell where each genus goes? As an aside, I'm going to give this and Iridaceae a good sweep. I've already started a bit at Iridaceae. I think we now have structures we can consider as ideal start points for other family articles, though a shuffle of some sections might be necessary (taxonomic history/evolution is usually placed higher, for example). I'm going to have a thorough look at those family articles that are more rounded and see about a global unified structure we can use for later articles. Circeus (talk) 14:51, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with you...the list of subfamilies and tribes in Amaryllidaceae is older than my modest editions...Now I got information to unify both lists together with a morphological description. It sounds fine for me to have a basic (and concerted!) structure to go ahead with the articles of the families. Thanks! --EnCASF (talk) 14:59, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Jewel Orchids

Hi folks - I'm a jewel orchid enthusiast disappointed with the jewel orchid articles here on Wikipedia. The first thing that struck me is that Jewel Orchid redirects to Ludisia discolor. Ludisia discolor is certainly not the only jewel orchid out there! It is true, however, that when people refer to a jewel orchid as a single plant that they generally mean Ludisia discolor, but jewel orchid also refers to a wide category of orchids grown for foliage rather than flowers, including the Macodes, Goodyera, and Anoectochilus genus. Maybe a disambiguation page to differentiate between the category and the plant would be best? I'll be trying to add as much as I can to pages about jewel orchids, but I'm very much an orchid novice (not to mention a Wiki novice) so I most likely won't be submitting any more than stubs for the time being. Cheers. ThePixelGuru (talk) 18:02, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

This is an issue that is not easy to deal with. Most likely you'll want to make a semi-disambig article at Jewel orchid (note capitalization, article titles should use sentence case, we'd redirect the other there) whicj would discuss what orchids are called/considered jewel orchids, with links, possibly mentioning more prominently those species most often called just "jewel orchid". The reason why jewel orchid redirect there is that (I'm not sure why) it was originally created as a redirect to the #Leaves section of Orchidaceae, where it is mentioned under that name. This is the kind of things that occur on a collaborative encyclopedia, and we'd be very happy if you were to help improve it! Circeus (talk) 18:41, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Now Jewel orchid is a disambiguation page. --Una Smith (talk) 20:09, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Rewritten article template

I've looked at the information structure found in existing FAs and the excellent articles written by EnCASF (talk · contribs) and completely rewrote and expanded the recommended template so it actually reflects most of the practices. I'd like to have to have some input about it. Circeus (talk) 20:17, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Love it. My personal preference is to place taxonomy above description, which I have done in numerous fungus and bird FAs, but that bully Hesperian made me do it this way (like the template with description first) for all the banksia articles. ;) Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:24, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

That's gonna cost you your lunch money, Liber. Hesperian 05:50, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit split, honestly. There is an argument for putting a discussion of what the species "concept" is first, but the description is arguably much more practical content to put up first. I went this way mostly because both the Banksia and the other plant FAs did it that way. Circeus (talk) 23:18, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree with putting description before taxonomy, since the taxonomy is in most cases informed by the description.--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:01, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree. In general the characters described helped in discussing later the taxonomic relationships. --EnCASF (talk) 03:35, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I think I'd written a lot of the text which was there before (other than section headings), and your edits/rewrites look fine to me. Kingdon (talk) 02:57, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

An user suggested here to move the taxonomic section (list and descriptions of infrafamilial classifications and list of genera) at the bottom of the article, after -for example- conservation status, uses, and economic importance. It sounds good for me. What do you think about?. Perhaps it is different for a family (a great ammount of info regarding taxonomy) or for a species. Regards, --EnCASF (talk) 21:42, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd strongly recommend an introductory bit of text that notes (a) it's intended for species pages, and (b) not all sections apply to all kinds of plants. I say this based on GA discussions where I had to explain these points to the reviewer in some fashion. Specifically, in the review of Marsileaceae (a relatively obsucre fern family), where the reviewer complained that I didn't fully cover the cultivation and economic uses (of which there are very, very few, of course), but the reviewer was going by the template to judge this completeness. I'd like to have those caveats in the article template before I try to write a page on a major liverwort genus, lest I have to go through the explanations again. I don't want to have to explain about the absence of cultivation information for the genus Plagiochila, or such. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:43, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I thought it ensued normally, but I understand the issue. I would tend to agree, though, that the overall organization of the article is rather... idiosyncratic (I'd probably consider failing the article for that and lacking any sort of nomenclatural discussion, but I'm a sucker for regularity across articles, and it's past 1am, so I'll only expand on this if you're interested). Circeus (talk) 05:34, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

See what editing at 1am makes me do? Anyway to cut to the short bit, as of my typing this, the template clearly does state (IMHO anyway) that some sections are entirely dependent on their relevance. Longer bit: I do think that, although it was good enough two years ago, the article could use a healthy jiggling about of information, if only because "Natural history" feels to me like it is an exceedingly vague header. Circeus (talk) 05:39, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Italicizing article titles

Wow, if you do this, the article name is italicised.

(a) do we like it (I am warming to it)

(b) a bot to do it?

Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:25, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I distinctly remember reading a mention of it somewhere, but I couldn't remember where and had been looking for how to do it just a few days ago XD. I personally like it very much. Circeus (talk) 23:21, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

I like it as well. The relevant discussion can be found here. mgiganteus1 (talk) 23:28, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately it doesn't seem to work all the time. I haven't examples to hand at the moment, but in my travels I have some across numerous articles that lacked the italicised title for no apparent reason. Hesperian 05:45, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

The trick is that the article must have no defined "name" parameter. If one is used, it will not work (as a downside, this means reusing the article title automatically is only possible, I believe on Latin-titled articles) Circeus (talk) 16:53, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

{{italictitle}} can be used if removing "name" doesn't work. This also works if the title has a bracketed section e.g. (genus) - it only italicises the first bit - see Homo (genus). I've been doing this recently and I really think that all species/genus articles should be italicised - at the moment some are and some aren't which isn't desirable in my opinion. It does seem like a job for a bot to do. Smartse (talk) 09:36, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Note that there is an ongoing discussion at the Tree of Life talk page, here regarding the implementation of this more widely. Smartse (talk) 19:52, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Flower IDs

File:Unknown flower 01.jpg

Any ideas what kind of flowers these might be? The first one varied in color from white to magenta. Kaldari (talk) 01:36, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

the first one seems to be a Dianthus. --EnCASF (talk) 02:11, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

and the second one Nigella --Melburnian (talk) 03:45, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Aronia melanocarpa -> Photinia melanocarpa

I sent a picture of an unknown flower to NPIN over the weekend and they got back to today me saying it was "Photinia melanocarpa (formerly Aronia melanocarpa)". Assuming NPIN knows what they are talking about (and I do assume that), how can WP be updated to reflect that? Aronia melanocarpa redirects to Aronia, so I can't just move it. Could someone create a Photinia melanocarpa and make Aronia melanocarpa redirect there? Are more species of Aronia "formerly" too? --Jomegat (talk) 22:09, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

OK, nevermind. After having read the Aronia and Photinia articles, I can see that there is a dispute about the genus. Not wanting to wade into the middle of that, I'm thinking maybe Photinia melanocarpa should be a redirect to Aronia? --Jomegat (talk) 17:10, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I created redirect pages for Photinia melanocarpa and Photinia pyrifolia. If anyone has a strong opinion (or a more informed opinion than me), feel free to do something else. --Jomegat (talk) 17:15, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Following Weakley (cited at Aronia), I'd stick with Aronia (at least more evidence/consensus shows up). We definitely need the redirects from whichever name we don't pick, so I'm fine with what Jomegat (talk · contribs) did. Kingdon (talk) 00:41, 2 June 2009 (UTC)