Talk:Phellodon

Phellodon has been listed as one of the Natural sciences good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: September 20, 2015. (Reviewed version).

A fact from Phellodon appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 20 October 2015 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that black tooth (pictured), the type species of genus Phellodon, is used in mushroom dyeing?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2015/October. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Phellodon, Phellodon niger.

Wikipedia

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Phellodon/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: J Milburn (talk · contribs) 17:07, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Just "claiming" this review now, but I won't be able to get to it this evening. Others are of course welcome to comment/contribute in the mean time- we're a collaborative project after all! Josh Milburn (talk) 17:07, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is "coalesce" not slightly jargon-y for the lead? I'm not certain on that.

Reworded. Sasata (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"of a genera decline of the genus" Do you mean general decline, or have I misunderstood your claim here?

Oops, typo fixed. Sasata (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Baird and Khan investigated spore ornamentation in North American Phellodon species using scanning electron microscopy, and rejected the placement of Phellodon in the Bankeraceae" I appreciate that you can't necessarily hash out the full extent of legitimate expert disagreement, but it's quite striking that this is effectively left "unchallenged" in the article even though you list the family in the taxobox- or have I misunderstood?

I've expanded on this a bit. I haven't found anything (yet) in the literature that directly counters Baird and Khan's rejection of placing this genus in the Bankeraceae, but all recent sources put the genus in this family. Sasata (talk) 18:02, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"concentrical zones" also strikes me as jargon

Hmmm ... this was supposed to be the layman's version of the jargony "zonate" ... I've w'linked concentric, and added a few explanatory words like so: "concentrical zones of color or texture." Ok? Sasata (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"The fibrous flesh is single to double-layered." It's not clear to me what this means

Now explained. Sasata (talk) 18:02, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"monomitic, with generative hyphae" Jargon

Reworded. Sasata (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"cystidioles" is also jargon

Glossed definition. Sasata (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"Many Phellodon species are known from the southeastern United States, which has an extensive history of research in the area" What area?

changed to ", where they have been extensively researched." Sasata (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"In a preliminary assessment for a Red List of threatened British Fungi, P. confluens and P. tomentosus are endangered, P. melaleucus are endangered, and P. niger is rare.[23]" I think this sentence needs looking at. The capitalisation is odd, you twice list "endangered" species and there is no explanation/link for what is meant by "endangered" and/or "rare".

This bit has been expanded, copyedited, and linked. Sasata (talk) 18:02, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The author/copyright information on File:2009-12-23 Phellodon atratus 30824 cropped.jpg could be better. The author's name isn't even mentioned. The other images check out.

Added this info. Sasata (talk) 18:02, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The sources all look great; my only questions: why do you have "(abstract)" in the Niemelä source? Why do you have Harrison 1961 separately when it's only cited in once?

According to my understanding, when a link to a reference is given, it is implied that the link will take one to the source unless otherwise specified. Explicitly stating "abstract" lets the reader know where they'll be taken. Fixed Harrison source. Sasata (talk) 18:45, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Some people might object to the inconsistent number of species and the slight focus on the type species, but I appreciate the difficulty with this issue, and I think you have the balance about right. The biochemistry section is a little difficult for me to follow, but it's the kind of thing I'm always going to struggle with. This strikes me as a very strong article, and I will happily promote once the above issues have been looked into. (Please double-check my edits.) Josh Milburn (talk) 18:02, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for another helpful review Josh. I've reworked the biochem section a bit, but understand it'll still need some more smoothing before an eventual FAC. Hopefully the discrepancy in the number of species is now clarified. Sasata (talk) 18:02, 19 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Very happy with the improvements; I've made a last tweak to the article and an image page, and I'm now happy to promote. Great work, as ever. Josh Milburn (talk) 09:27, 20 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]