Talk:Amanita ocreata

North-south limits/Toxicity

Dear Peter, I'm fond of the fact that WP isn't a book or I'd be wasting alot of paper. Given this little toadstool is from your neck of the woods, are you able to stick in any other material that refers specifically to A. ocreata alone? e.g. toxicity relative to others, ref for description, occurrence (north/south limits?) etc. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:27, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Hi – sorry I haven't been very active lately. I'll have a look at some references on the article. I'm pretty sure, like other California "oak amanitas" that the north/south limit is from southern Oregon to northern Baja California, basically, the California Floristic Province. I have mixed feelings on the section on toxicity – its well researched and written, but superfluous. What I mean is, the specifics about its toxicity are true of all amanitin- and phalloidin-containing Amanita rather than being specific to A. ocreata. I think that most of the information on toxicity should be moved to another article. In fact, I think that information on amanitin poisoning on Wikipedia is kind of a mess right now – split up among several articles in a not particularly logical way. Peter G Werner 16:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

GAC comments

This is a well-cited article, and overall looks good. However, I already see problems when compared even minimally to QA Amanita phalloides:

• Please expand the intro of the article, per WP:LEAD. There is no way the six sentences at the top of this article summarize everything in this article (and if they do, the article is not broad in coverage).

(ok..doing)

• There is one section, Distribution and habitat, which is only two sentences long. Surely more can be said about its distribution and habitat than two sentences (one sentence on distribution, one on habitat?). There is no need for a whole section containing only two sentences. A range map would also be nice here, if you can't say a whole lot more about the range.

(was trying to keep to book refs, but there is some stuff on the web. Have requested a journal article which may help with this)

• "Along with its geographical namesakes, it is one of the most poisonous of all known toadstools and is responsible for a number of poisonings in California." Makes it sound as if its geographical namesakes are also poisonous. What are its geographical namesakes?

(clarified this - meant all spp. called destroying angels)

• A citation is needed for "The cap is initially hemispherical, before becoming more convex and flattening; reaching up to 12 cm (5 in) in diameter." (It's not in the source cited for that paragraph). (got proper ref)
• "Not only humans have been poisoned;" grammar. (removed)
• More tomorrow, as I begin a deeper review of this article. Firsfron of Ronchester 09:06, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

It is already looking better, Cas. Firsfron of Ronchester 17:54, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

• Feeling much better as I have now read a landmark 1977 paper on this fungus :). There is more info on range subsequent to the paper I'll try to locate again online now and then figure out a map strategy. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:38, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, great. Thanks Cas. Firsfron of Ronchester 13:24, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

Frustrated as no distribution bits really give an idea of how far inland the thing grows (just the north/south limits and mention of Sierra Nevada foothills), but I'll keep looking. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:00, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't kill yourself over this, Cas; I'm very happy with how the article has shaped up; it has improved so much. I was just looking for decent-sized sections, and you've definitely accomplished that. I can't do a full review tonight, because of the surgery, but I will give this a thorough going-over tomorrow. Thanks so much for responding so quickly to my concerns. Firsfron of Ronchester 04:14, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Occurring vs growing in the Pacific NW? See the first paragraph. Just my two cents ---Garr (talk) 03:13, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I can live with either....Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 09:14, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Good article

I'm listing this article as a Good Article. Many improvements have been made since I made the above comments. The prose is well-written and the lead has been expanded. It contains inline citations from reliable sources. Sections missing citations have now been sourced. The Distribution and habitat section has been expanded. The article is neutral, stable, and the images are tagged with their copyright status.

There are a few things which need clarified, however: "It belongs to the section Phalloideae" What is a section? Does this need a wikilink? The family name is Amanitaceae, which looks very similar; is Phalloideae a family-level name? I'm suspicious about this. And why is Phalloideae in italics? Those are reserved for generic and specific names.

My suggestions for improving this article include:

1. Add an external links section, with links to reliable sources not used in the reference section. Wikipedia is a great place to start research, but users will want to visit other sites as well. Providing an external links section is a courtesy to our readers who will want to find out more when they reach the end of the article. Also link to Commons and Wikispecies if they have anything of value on this species.
2. Watch those italics! I ended up adding a lot of italics in your references. Per WP:MOS subpages, Generic and specific names appear in italics, as do the names of journals. The referencing here was a little sloppy.
3. Range map, if possible.
4. Fix the red links. If these men are notable, they should have articles. If they aren't, no wikilink is necessary.

Otherwise, a good read which makes me leery to eat mushrooms, as the article cautions that these mushrooms look a lot like edible types. Firsfron of Ronchester 05:13, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

OK thanks for that. Phalloideae is a section which is a rank somewhere below subgenus and above series. More common in nonanimal things where you can have a large number of organisms belonging to one genus. I should wikilink section if there is something on WP about it or otherwise clarify - there's this but is not quite specific enough. I might have to write something there later.

PS: One of the reasons these articles don't appear comprehensive is that in most cases there is precious little we know about them. In Australia some 95% of species are undescribed (!) cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 07:26, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

OK, I added section to the taxobox, since it's discussed in the text. Obviously, I wasn't looking for 'comprehensive' on a GA, but there does need to be broad coverage: those underdeveloped subsections with only a few sentences sent alarm bells off in my head. But you've fixed most everything. Firsfron of Ronchester 07:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

This has been a good going-over and I have some ideas over where to proceed from here ;) cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:57, 12 December 2007 (UTC)