Talk:Witch's broom

Section to house anonymous IP-editor musings

"If twigs of witches' brooms are grafted onto normal rootstocks, freak trees result, showing that the attacking organism has changed the inherited growth pattern of the twigs."

More elaboration would be helpful. Is this true no matter what the cause is? If you kill the disease organisms, does the grafted plant still grow oddly? Or do the diseases penetrate the plant where they can't be killed? What actually happens?

Name and plural form

Is it properly referred to as "Witch's broom" or "Witches' Broom"? I've seen both and I'm confused. For example, it is referred to as "witches'-broom" on the Lilac witches'-broom page (also it is hyphenated in this case). Can anyone chime in to settle this, such that it would be easier to link pages together? Itsdavidbaxter (talk) 22:43, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Grammatically "Witch's broom" would mean the broom belonging to one witch and "Witch's brooms" the brooms belonging to one witch, which I don't think makes much sense. "Witches' brooms" would be the brooms of many witches. It looks to me like most of the authoritative sources (e.g. Missouri Botanical Garden, CAB International - CAB Thesaurus) have it as witches' brooms or witches' broom. Tim greenatefi (talk) 09:22, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

I would err on the side of keeping the title in the singular, which is correctly spelled witch's broom (with initial capital per Wikipedia convention). It seems awkward and unnecessarily complicated to express it in the plural or as a single broom belonging to multiple witches. Horticultural publications aren't always edited by people with impeccable English skills. One example is the USDA's improperly hyphenation of certain common names, for example Douglas-fir. That error from many decades ago has been perpetuated elsewhere due to the incorrect presumption that government publications are written with adult supervision. Eric ^talk 15:15, 2 October 2015 (UTC)

Suggestion to merge Chrysomyxa arctostaphyli into this article

• Oppose - every species is notable and therefore warrants its own page, and Chrysomyxa arctostaphyli is a species. This article is about the many species that cause witch's broom on many plant species, and is also notable in its own right. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:39, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose agree with foregoing. JonRichfield (talk) 11:49, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose Witch's broom is a symptom, not a specific organism.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 08:32, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

& c.

Eric

The sentence in question was:

"In normal plant function, an auxin would keep the secondary, tertiary, and so on tips from overgrowing, but cytokinin can sometimes interfere with this control, causing these apices to grow into witch's brooms."

My version:

"In normal plant function, an auxin would keep the secondary, tertiary, & c., tips from overgrowing ..."

Yours:

"In normal plant function, an auxin would keep the secondary, tertiary, quaternary, etc. tips from overgrowing ..."

Okay. These are all pretty awful sentences. But what I was really after was the additional comma. My intuition says we want a comma after "and so on" or "& c." or "etc.", because none of these is actually and literally modifying "tips". Rather, they apply parenthetically to the preceding list. This is pretty woolly; I won't pretend to be certain. I hate this sentence, and I think the best thing would be to find a way to recast it. I understand the reasoning that got us here, but I wonder why we can't live with simply "the secondary and tertiary tips", and trust the reader.

"Quaternary", in any case, is definitely lily-gilding.

Regulov (talk) 18:44, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

@Regulov: Agree, the phrase ain't pretty any way we turn it. I usually think etc wants at least three things preceding it to establish a series, but I can't cite the stone tablet with that decree. I would normally have put "etc,", but I thought the period might be be preferred. I just thought & c was archaic (≠ bad in my book). Note: I had to check quaternary to see if it could even be employed that way; it probably a stretch for normal prose. Could we express the same concept with something like ...an auxin would prevent secondary tips* from (outpacing/out-growing/out-doing) the primary one,..., or ...an auxin would prevent tips* other than the primary from outpacing it,...? *I now note that tips is not defined, so we probably ought to define it or use another word. What do you think? Eric ^talk 19:32, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

How's this?

A tree's characteristic shape, or habit, is in part the result of auxins, which control the growth of secondary apices. The growth of a twig is limited by the auxin, while that of the parent branch is not. In cases of witch's broom, the normal hierarchy of buds is interrupted, and apices grow indiscriminately. This can be caused by cytokinin, a phytohormone which interferes with growth regulation. The phenomenon can also be caused by other organisms, including fungi, oomycetes, insects, mites, nematodes, phytoplasmas, and viruses. The broom growths may last for many years, typically for the life of the host plant. If twigs of witch's brooms are grafted onto normal rootstocks, freak trees result, showing that the attacking organism has changed the inherited growth pattern of the twigs.

Regulov (talk) 15:44, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I might tweak it to "...habit, results in part from the action of auxins..." (really tempted to put stems instead of results, but I resisted); and maybe change twig to offshoot? Eric ^talk 17:23, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for making that edit, Regulov. I still think it would read better results in part from the action of auxins. And, as I think most people, myself included, might not immediately pick up on apices as the plural of apex, nor that the terms are common botanical terminology, I'm wondering if we might consider using a term such as apical meristem instead, if I understand the concept correctly. Thoughts? Eric ^talk 21:18, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I don't think the distinction between auxins and the action of auxins is worth drawing. Puberty is in some meaningful sense the result of the action of hormones on developing organs and tissues, rather than of the hormones per se, but nobody's going to get confused if you just say it's the result of hormones. I also don't think "apical meristem" is likely to be understood where "apices" is not, but I do think it's a good idea to provide the link. Regulov (talk) 22:08, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

References