Talk:Alocasia macrorrhizos

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:55, 16 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Merge from pulaka

This seems like a clear-cut case of two articles about one thing. Thoughts? Rotcaeroib (talk) 22:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the two plants seem to belong in different botanical genera (unless one is a minor synonym for the other??) so would be significantly different. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.3.85.203 (talk) 14:12, 30 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

They seem to be listed as separate in taxonomy databases. See for instance Encyclopaedia of Life. There are quite a few plants in the Araceae grown as root crops. As it's been a few months, I'm going to be bold and remove the merge template--let me know if you think that's too hasty. Thomas Kluyver (talk) 18:23, 12 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling

Can the reference for correctness of the ending be included please. Google scholar seems to produce more results containing macrorrhiza rather than macrorrhizos. Shyamal (talk) 06:43, 19 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just cruising by after finding the internet collectively confused about Alocasia Macrorrhizos / Macrorrhiza spelling. As it seemed that Google search was emphasizing the latter, I hoped Wikipedia would explain why (nope). This talk page was my last hope. Thanks Shyamal for mentioning it.

As an unskilled editor and non-expert I won't attempt to address, but since talk has been quiet on this for 12 years, let me try to be helpful*.

International Plant Names Index (IPNI) Lists Macrorrhizos as definitive, with reference dating back to 1839. I was surprised to learn it has 29 synonyms, including Macrorrhizon. (And two varieties.) Not among them: Macrorrhiza. However, there is one page that includes Macrorrhiza -- which notably ends with a tip to use the -os spelling. The authors, close contemporaries George Don and Heinrich Schott, appear to have applied -zos and -za respectively.
Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) Lists Macrorrhizos, with Macrorrhiza as a synonym.
Plants of the World Online (POWO) uses the same database as IPNI. Here is its page on Alocasia Macrorrhizos.

ChatGPT offered with dubious helpfulness that it thought Macrorrhizos and Macrorrhiza are probably masculine and feminine. Maybe back in 1839 Austrians and Brits habitually conflicted over taxonomy. Or they just didn't have the internet.

I doubt I it.

When I started this, I thought that a sentence to clarify the spelling could be a benefit to the internet generally, but I changed my mind. I wasn't even right about Google search playing favourites, though I'll maintain that the -za ending is perplexingly common in results. Aside from that mystery, there's not much special about this example. Now that I've poked around a few hours like some wannabe botanical clerk, I see that synonyms and alternate spellings are integral to taxonomy, and if we're going to address one case for any one species article, then there's probably an enormous slippery slope for anything classified under [[Life]]. Heck, there's probably a Wiki guideline for this already.

I'll still click reply, in case any of those links help someone -- though if you're reading this, more likely I've just wasted your time. (Sorry.) Ivocanevo (talk) 05:33, 21 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]