User talk:Leo Breman/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Protected Puerto Rican boa

Came through plumbing two years ago

Hi Leo. Here's something that shocked us. and. maybe you're probably not going to believe this but this snake came through the (outside of the main home) toilet in my mom's home in Morovis, Puerto Rico. They grabbed a broom and it curled around the broom and they carried it out into the yard. So their neighbors told them it's one of those snakes that was about to become extinct and is protected. I know it looks much darker than the Puerto Rican boa. I named the image that because that's what I was told it is, but who knows? I wouldn't know what kind of snake it is but I heard it's a Puerto Rican Boa. The photo was taken with a cell phone, in a panic, and the camera was shaking and so the image of the snake is slightly blurry.Thanks for looking. --The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 00:05, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Oh wow! It's so big! But it is for sure the Puerto Rican boa. The colour is correct, very dark, and it is quite fat. There are only two other snakes on Puerto Rico which are pretty long, but this one is the biggest, and the other two are much thinner. So I think 100% for sure it is the Puerto Rican boa. Too bad it's not a sharp photo.... I am going to look at the protected info another time, because it is strange -the IUCN says it is not threatened, so I am not sure if it is rare, but maybe it is still legally protected. All the info on the Wikipedia page was uncited before I came -I left the text for now, but I will check it carefully later and delete it if it isn't true. I downloaded a bunch of Spanish articles in local Puerto Rican newspapers and something from the local environmental services just now, that's why I changed the "common name" to what I found in those articles - I think the common name should always be what people use in their daily lives, and Spanish is still the main language on Puerto Rico. I will read them carefully, there is something about it being protected... maybe by the local government? Maybe by the US federal government? Maybe by CITES? Also I found the original description in Danish from 1843 online- I will try to read it carefully (this old Danish is a bit difficult), because if anything is true about people making snake oil from this boa it should be in there... I'm not seeing the word olie... it looks like fake information! Leo Breman (talk) 00:43, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. The island people don't think the Boa is threatened and the people surely feel threatened with snakes coming through the plumbing! LOL. Thanks for classifying it for me. You sure have a lot of patience looking through all those docs. More power to you. I'm curious. If I have time I'll translate the description from Danish to English. Do you know Danish? --The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 01:11, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome. I can imagine such a big brown thing going the wrong direction is in your plumbing is unwelcome! I wonder how it got inside in the first place? Once it got inside, it couldn't turn around of course, so it must have just kept going hoping there was a way out... No, Danish is new for me, but I speak Dutch and know some Swedish and German, so it's not impossible to translate, but Danish has changed its spelling since the last century, so some words are hard to find if they aren't obvious. Yesterday when working on an anole (much of the first information on Puerto Rican reptiles is in Danish because they were quite busy in their old colony in the Virgin Islands and had some really expert herpetologists in those days, and almost nothing is in Spanish -until the Spanish War of Succession, Spain was trying to keep everything in America a secret) I wanted to know what "tverbaand" meant, it took me ages to figure out it is now spelled "tværbånd", and now I realise "tvær" is like German "quer" or Dutch "dwars" =cross! "Tve" means 'two', so the whole time I was thinking it meant something like 'double'. Also some of the technical language about the scales is difficult. There isn't a good article on Wikipedia to link to explain what everything means like in these pictures.

You know, I said 100% for sure, but it is possible it is an escaped pet and actually another species. The photo is too blurry to know 100%, I shouldn't have said that. But still, the colour, the size, the thickness, let's say 95%. Cheers! Leo Breman (talk) 01:57, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

I'll definitely only stick to translating English to Spanish (and vice versa) and maybe some German to English. Cheers!--The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 14:06, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

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Kirtland's warbler

I read your edit summary gnashing about "Australian pines" I think the article itself is referring to Austrian pines an invasive species. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 02:39, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Hiya. No, it took some looking up, but apparently Australian pine is a local name in Florida for casuarina, a common ornamental in the Bahamas -I was just about to delete it and leave the Latin. Not aware of Austrian pines being widely planted in the Bahamas -I'm only focussing on the Caribbean. The authors of that report appear to consistently use Florida names instead of local common names -they have a table somewhere explaining what they mean (they were obviously using a foreign guide book). Makes more sense to me to use the common names used locally, if common names need to be used at all. Thanks for giving it a go anyway though! Sorry, I gnash a lot... Cheers!Leo Breman (talk) 02:57, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

edit sums

Greetings, When needed a long edit sum (example) that describes the content of the edit is great, but making argument by edit sum isn't so useful. Just my view of course. Multiply by 10 when its a protracted complex discussion. Not mad or anything, just a suggestion NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 08:27, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry man, confusing the meaning of the word ecology with that of environmentalism just really bugs me for some reason, and it got the better of me that day. Not sure how complex this is, saying an article about the psychology of environmentalists is about ecology is like saying an article about Coltrane is about structural engineering (because that is needed in mines and metal instruments are used in jazz). I get the confusion extends to a fringe beyond Wikipedia with concepts such as deep ecology having little to do with ecology, but I try to play my part in abating it. Cheers, Leo Breman (talk) 17:27, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

WT:PLANTS

I don't want to be unresponsive, but I'm not sure what to make of the discussion at WT:PLANTS, and I think when people there see where I'm headed they won't have any problem with it, so maybe it's better if I just get some writing done. I want Featured Lists to be somewhere in the mix of what I'm writing, but taxon lists may turn out to be more trouble than they're worth. If so, that's not a problem for me. I'm not sure yet where Fritzmann and the St. Johns wort lists fit into this. - Dank (push to talk) 14:58, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Friend, please don't take anything I say the wrong way! I'm not a (very) cranky person, more argumentative and jokey -it comes across wrong in text I guess. Okay, I'm quite critical, but also of myself. And I write too much, case in point. Regarding the other people who responded to you over at WT:PLANTS, they are all pretty serious plant lovers, and just trying to respond to you as honestly as possible. I'll even have to admit some know more about taxonomy than myself, hehe. Some people around here have been questioning the wisdom of copying taxonomy lists from elsewhere: it takes traffic away from those sites, and things at Wikipedia are never updated in a dedicated fashion (unlike LavateraGuy's beautiful and highly useful Malvaceae website, for example). The List of Lilium Species hasn't been updated since 2015, for example.

I very much agree -get some work done and see how it turns out! People aren't trying to be discouraging, but I guess need to see where you're coming from. Why don't you just pick a small genus as an experiment, I don't know, Marrubium or Phoenix (the palms) or something. I still think lilies should be doable, it will be relatively easy to find pic.s and info. I think grass species is way too ambitious, you saw the problems Fritzmann encountered with less than 1/25th of the number.

To reiterate, personally I've never bothered with rankings, in my experience they are rather arbitrary -very much depends on the reviewer. For example, to be honest I think that list of Basil cultivars isn't all too good, but it's apparently a Featured List. Regarding Hypericum I was picturing how I personally use lists on Wikipedia, and to me it seems unhelpful to split the list, for the reasons I gave. I really like that list myself, with the pictures and all. But if making FLs is what you want, just go for it.

And then one last bit technical thing, which you probably already know to some degree: the PoWO or WFO are not accurate taxonomy resources; you see they are just lists of names -for example, sometimes taxa don't exist and are just 'ghosts' found in literature, often some (Russian) works haven't been imputed, and sometimes the standard floras of the world use different names for the same taxa, synonyms, neither database resolves this -WCSPF did that, but the guy behind that has moved on to other projects. Monographs are the most accurate resource, but many genera have not been looked at for over a century. This is maybe what Coxhead was getting at; nothing in taxonomy is settled and referencing is critical. Often times regional sites are better, i.e. Atlas of Florida Plants, Flora do Brasil, chinaplantspecies.org, but sometimes they aren't. Sometimes taxa are recognised by one authority but aren't by another -it's a judgement call which PoWO or WFO don't set out to make. It's tricky. You can never say "the genus contains the following # of species", it is always more accurate to say "According to blabla website on blabla date the genus contained the following species". See Rheum for example where I found the Kew databases inaccurate and used incomplete regional monographs. Some Scottish professor who thought only English language resources can be accurate didn't like that, hence the convoluted sentence.

Cheers! Leo Breman (talk) 17:27, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the long note, I appreciate it.

Because of CRISPR and other technologies, I think gardens and gardening will assume a greater relevance and importance for a wider range of people, probably sometime during the 2020s. So, I'm thinking this year is a good time to do some work on botany articles, and just generally to be seen as a member in good standing at WP:PLANTS. I have weak gardening skills and no botany skills ... but I'm slowly getting up to speed on taxonomy, I know my way around GAN, FAC and FLC, I'm reasonably familiar with Botanical Latin, and I'm willing to pitch in. So, odds are good that I can find some way to be useful to the wikiproject without causing too much trouble. It's the "member in good standing" bit that makes me look at what Fritzmann is trying to do and think: given the two previous failures at FLC with Hypericum, I could save him (them? not sure) a lot of trouble, if that's what he wants to do. I think you're right, it makes sense for me to tackle a smaller genus at some point (and I should be prepared for people to argue about species inclusion), but first I'll try writing disambiguation pages and other pages that are more about Botanical Latin than about taxonomy, so that I'll have a better idea what I'm doing. No worries ... I didn't feel put off by anything you or others said, I just don't know how to proceed (yet). - Dank (push to talk) 18:17, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

About GAN, FAC and FLC ... I contemplated a longer reply, but I'll just say this: I've been involved with review processes for a long time, and I regard a lot of the reviewers as colleagues, but I'm not "sold" on those processes. They work for some people and some wikiprojects, and not for others. It's largely a matter of taste, and luck. - Dank (push to talk) 18:56, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Cool, I really hoped you weren't put off. Yeah, Fritzmann asked for help at a certain point, so some other people got involved, but it's simply a massive undertaking. And he was working from a recent monograph which made the taxonomy part easy. If you're going to tackle a genus which has seen no recent systematic and comprehensive treatment, like roses (I think), it'll be extremely difficult, if not doomed.

I've noticed that there's been an escalation in quality demanded in "good" and "featured" articles, some of the early articles which were deemed "good" in 2008 really don't pass muster these days (which is a good thing I suppose). There are some people writing plant articles who just churn out high quality stuff at high speed without ever communicating at the talk pages or asking for reviews, and on the flip side, there are people who really need the validation of a review, and more questionably, there are people who rate themselves, so there is rather a huge disconnect here -you can't really rely on the ratings. Also, much of these reviews are about style issues, something I don't massively care being bothered about -taste issue I suppose.

If you do Latin, watch out: there is one extremely knowledgeable person about, but he's not the friendliest! Few people are so good as him at Latin grammar, but sometimes he's better than taxonomists and the etymology is correct even if the grammar was done poorly. Source your stuff well, and just bring it to WT:PLANTS if you can't agree. The way we're dealing with it now: it's best to cite directly from the primary source for an etymology, with other sources as supplementary to help explain. Citations to Liddell & Scott are also great. Stearn is also usually always on point. But many of the websites out there aren't really expert. And you can link to Latin words to Wiktionary like so: carnifex, although that's just extra.

Regarding disambiguation, if you need an idea, here's one that's been on my to-do list (which means nothing, I never actually do anything on the to-do list): Halfa grass -if you look at older dictionaries, this name originally meant other species from Spain/Morocco used for basketry, but I think it relatively recently got transferred to a local Levant species with the migration to Israel -i.e. the name means different species now. I'm not entirely sure, and can't remember which species are involved exactly, so it needs some research first. The present article would need to be moved to the Latin name, and a disambiguation page needs to be made, and then all the articles linking to it probably need to be checked as to which species they actually refer to/updated. But just a thought! Basketry isn't exactly gardening.

Best regards, Leo Breman (talk) 20:09, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Any thoughts on User:Dank/Latin and Greek botanical names (V–Z)? - Dank (push to talk) 03:31, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

Hiya Dank, very sorry, been busy, haven't signed in in a bit. It looks very good. I really have nothing to add; the references are top and the column structure is good. Great work! Leo Breman (talk) 13:36, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. It's at User:Dank/Stearn's botanical names (T–Z) now. My nomination at Featured List Candidates failed yesterday, and I deleted the article. I summed up the current state of affairs in my last comment on my user talk page, here. I need to get a better sense of what botany editors are looking for in lists like these. Any help surveying their preferences would be much appreciated. - Dank (push to talk) 17:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Eh? I looked at it a day or two ago. I'm sorry to hear about the state of affairs. Just because it failed FLC doesn't mean in need be deleted, does it? It might be useful at the Wiktionary project... Well, as I always have an opinion on stuff: Maybe redundancy is a problem. I did think about using your list, but I've sort of developed a standard way of writing etymologies. I thought about using it when using botanical Latin in plant descriptions (i.e. verticullate), but there is already a list of botanical terminology. Still, I find it hard to accept there is no useful botany project out there for you; you'll think of something! ...I might have an idea; a year ago working on Central American biota/parks I thought up having a biodiversity template for national parks, a type of list you could embed as a scrolled window with cited distributional records for flora and fauna, like a checklist basically. Would be highly informative and could streamline relevant info but would be hard work and need wider discussion. Anyway, cheers, Leo Breman (talk) 17:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

What is it that's redundant? - Dank (push to talk) 18:01, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I didn't read the whole discussion as to why it failed FLC. What I meant with redundant was that maybe people didn't like your list because the info is already in the "list of botanical terms" and Wiktionary. ? I'll read the entire thread in a bit, sorry, busy editing something. Leo Breman (talk) 18:07, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

No rush. This isn't meant as arguing with you, but just to let you know what my replies will be when challenged: at most 1% of the terms at Glossary of botanical terms overlap with my lists. The meanings at List of Latin and Greek words commonly used in systematic names are mostly aimed at zoologists, the list is much shorter than my series of lists will be, and it is largely unsourced or sourced to a website of alpine plant names that claims it was last updated in 2005. (I'm not saying it's a bad website to use, I wouldn't know, I'm just saying I'm not going to use it to win any arguments with Wikipedians). But it's not just Wikipedia ... I can't find anything on the web like my lists, i.e. focusing on Latin and Greek root words, limited to the highest-quality botanical sources aimed at a broad readership, balancing sources against each other instead of parroting them, and (within those constraints) comprehensive. I think my lists are worth doing, but I'm not going to put them back in article-space until I get an answer to these questions: what's the best way to come up with a list of 3000 to 5000 mainly Latin- and Greek-derived taxonomical names? (I'm not excluding all other languages, of course, and I'm currently excluding names derived from people and places, but that's negotiable.) Is there a better way to generate the list than following mainly Stearn, as curated by Gledhill, Harrison and Coombes? How do we win an argument with Wikipedians over how the lists are generated? - Dank (push to talk) 19:28, 15 April 2020 (UTC) (FWIW, I always let Johnboddie, my partner, decide on a case-by-case basis how involved he wants to get in these conversations ... he's putting in most of the work on several lists, but he has a low tolerance for drama. He'll probably show up during the discussion at WT:PLANTS. - Dank (push to talk) 19:36, 15 April 2020 (UTC))

Hmmm, ok, not redundant then. I only know of one thing more authoritative than Stearn or Lewis and Short, but it's not online (yet) and Latin-German. If you're gonna follow someone, it must be Stearn. As to how to generate such a list without using him as template, pfft, I don't know. I still need to read the discussion. Leo Breman (talk) 19:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Per the most recent discussion at WT:Copyrights, it's fine to use Stearn as the starting point for my lists ... I'm not violating compilation or other copyrights because the lists are being curated by other RSs and because most of his entries are being discarded (mostly names derived from people and places). Again ... not in a rush, it will be several days before I post at WT:PLANTS. - Dank (push to talk) 20:44, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Rosetta Barnstar
	imjku,xlcmkd9rtloikrcljudsjfzhdiuv,min tbzjc8sx7etgju4dnc dfycfr7tjructb dyghnjvtmc iutgyujgdhm8ynitv7bhunfvjng8 vufxudfgjvngc ucfbmyghnvftucygfbvtbyvhzcxjkdkxi.flm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oneillge2029 (talk) 22:01, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

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Agroecological restoration

Your extensive deletes in Agroecological restoration may have been well grounded, but instead of leaving the article in a minimally satifying state, you even (inadvertently, I think) crippled the introduction. Could you please see to the article once more and make sure that it doesn't degenerate towards a mere draft, please? Thank you! -- Kku (talk) 15:17, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi Kku. Even more extreme, I wanted to rename the article to "biodiversity in agriculture", as that is what all the sources are about. None of the sources use the term "agroecological restoration". In conventional/standard agronomical terminology it doesn't even make sense. It's like having an article about how vaccinations cause autism called "medicinal restoration", cited to Gray's Anatomy. But someone reverted me, and refused to engage on the subject (see talk), so I let the article hang. If you agree it should be renamed, I will write up the article, but I can't write about "agroecological restoration" as such, as there is nothing to write about, following the sources. Respectfully, Leo Breman (talk) 18:13, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Speciesbox parameters

Hi, just to note that {{Speciesbox}} requires either of two parameter formats:

1. |taxon=, e.g. |taxon=Protea madiensis
2. |genus= plus |species=, e.g. |genus=Protea plus |species=madiensis

Having both present as originally at Protea madiensis and some other Protea articles causes the article to be put in a taxobox error-tracking category. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:24, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Hiya, ya, already noticed you rummaging around, and figured I screwed that up. I didn't know what to delete a bit back, and the page seemed fine in preview mode, so I left it, and later articles inherited the mistake. I'll not do it again!

Authority for Protea canaliculata

Please see Talk:Protea canaliculata for a comment on this matter. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:56, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Viriditas

While I agree with your judgement about writing and source quality, we need some mentioning of viriditas in Hildegard's article. There are plenty of good sources around. Incidentally, the term came up in conversation last week, - it actually looks quite central to her mysticism. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 19:48, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi there, I am unfamiliar with the significance of the term to her. In any case it had nothing to do with music (in which section it had been placed), nor could I figure where to place it as it didn't appear to jive with the text given about her theological philosophies, and the sourcing looked fringy. Lastly, it was so poorly worded that it was unclear what the writer was attempting to communicate. As I am unfamiliar with her mysticism (frankly, rather uninterested too), and the factoid looked topical (green is 'in', it's common to reinterpret history to fit your beliefs in the mouths of long-dead famous people) and questionably tied to the summa of her Christian thought, I removed it. If you have good sources, please go ahead and add something about it!

Regarding this woman, I am mostly interested in her botanical writings. I remember reading somewhere a number of years back that she did not actually write her herbal, Volmar (monk) did, and wanted to double-check my facts, but I see no mention of this on Wikipedia. The thing I read was about 10 years ago, something German and a journal article of some kind... (an hour or more later...): it had something to do with this new edition.

Furthermore regarding Hildegard, the main thing I want to do if I get around to it is tone down the stannish text about her in the article on herbals (the books) to a single short sentence. What it says right now is simply tendentious. This segués into another criticism, many of these articles on woman in science are a bit ... well, could do with a bit more neutrality. But they are popular! I rarely interact with anyone on the botany articles I usually write... Best regards, Leo Breman (talk) 23:12, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

sacrorum

Sorry to bother you with this, but all I really need is an opinion and I'll be good to go. There's only one epithet that doesn't fit neatly into my selection criteria at List of descriptive plant epithets (I–Z): sacrorum appears in List of Galium species and Artemisia (genus), but is listed as a synonym only at both POWO and WCSP. Is it reasonable to assume it's a synonym in both cases now? - Dank (push to talk) 02:56, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, if G. sacrorum and A. sacrorum are both considered synonyms in POWO and WCSP, yes it's reasonable. I think we've discussed already that this is not really a deal-breaker regarding etymologies -the meaning behind the word remains, even if there are no longer species, but I gather your selection criteria then precludes this word? I checked IPNI, these two names are the only two instances that that particular specific epithet has ever been used (in naming plant species). Cheers, Leo Breman (talk) 08:20, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that's what I needed. Understood ... I'm not claiming that the epithet isn't worth discussing. (Btw, I should have been clearer, it's true that sacrorum is listed as a synonym only at WCSP ... but just for Gallum.) - Dank (push to talk) 11:01, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Ah. If WCSP says a taxon is a synonym, but PoWO says it's a valid species, or the other way around, it usually means something is going on -taxonomic disagreement between experts. I saw it last week with Widdringtonia whytei -it was seen as a synonym by Govaerts, the Belgian guy who originally complied the WCSP, based on two older papers. Farjon, the Dutch guy who is considered the big conifer kahuna, disagrees for some reason, and PoWO went with Farjon. For quick and dirty, it's still best to go with the WCSP if you don't know any better, with the WCSP there is a proper bibliography for referencing why a particular taxonomic decision was made, and the quality of work is high... But it depends.

Learning a lot. WCSP doesn't have the genus Artemisia at all. - Dank (push to talk) 16:42, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Yup, WCSP pretty much stopped when Govaerts left. Damn shame, nothing like it. Artemisia is in the Asteraceae family, the main international taxonomic resource regarding synonymy was/is this, but it's often out of date. Leo Breman (talk) 17:32, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Next book purchases

Trying to decide what to buy ... I see that the most recent two editions (vols. 14 and 15) of The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants are available cheap(er) now on Amazon, and I see some editors (like Abductive) have been citing (at least one of) them a lot. Recommended or not? - Dank (push to talk) 12:26, 29 August 2020 (UTC) What do you think of The Flowering Plants Handbook (Byng) and Plants of the World (Christenhusz et al.)? - Dank (push to talk) 18:05, 29 August 2020 (UTC) (striking FGVP ... ordering them now!) - Dank (push to talk) 16:15, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Dank, Christenhusz et al. Well impressed. I can be more specific why I think Christenhusz is superior, but, Christenhusz is my advice. Leo Breman (talk) 20:44, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Bought it, thx. - Dank (push to talk) 21:01, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

Archives

Hello there brutha! Your talk page looks quite long already. Would you like me to help you with an automatic archive bot setup? Much love <3 Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 08:40, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Sure man, go for it! Oh wait, I need the 'Fixing Protea articles' thing not to be archived. Thanks, though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leo Breman (talk • contribs) 08:52, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Actually there's a preset where you can ignore archiving, but fear not, I will just set it to one year for now. Cheers :D Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 09:33, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Good news, I've found a way. Just use {{subst:DNAU}} to make sure that section doesn't get archived. Much love <3 Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 09:38, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Cool! Thanks. I'll stick the code on the top of the section, then. Cheers, Leo Breman (talk) 09:41, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

Oh! There's already something there... Thanks again. Leo Breman (talk) 09:43, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

My pleasure, always happy to help :D Vincent^LUFan (talk) (Kenton!) 10:01, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

DYK for Mucuna urens

On 16 September 2020, Did you know was updated with a fact from the article Mucuna urens, which you recently created, substantially expanded, or brought to good article status. The fact was ... that irritant hairs on the seed pods of the horse-eye bean have traditionally been used to get rid of intestinal worms? The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Mucuna urens. You are welcome to check how many page hits the article got while on the front page (here's how, Mucuna urens), and it may be added to the statistics page if the total is over 5,000. Finally, if you know of an interesting fact from another recently created article, then please feel free to suggest it on the Did you know talk page.

 — Amakuru (talk) 12:02, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Genus abbreviation

I can't resist saying what a pleasure it is to see someone who employs the convention of using the first two Latin letters to abbreviate a genus name beginning with "Ch", particularly one derived from the single Greek letter χ, as you did in the text of Chilocardamum. When I implemented {{Taxon italics}}, which has an option to abbreviate genus names, I remember asking somewhere for comment on how to abbreviate genus names beginning with sequences like "Ch", "Ps", "Ph", but the few who responded thought this was now old-fashioned, so {{Taxon italics|abbreviated=yes|Chilocardamum patagonicum}} → C. patagonicum, and this would be the default in an automated taxobox for this species. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:05, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

Peter, yes, you are correct, the correct spelling is with a χ. I know you told me about this earlier, but I want to do it correctly regardless. Leo Breman (talk) 19:54, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

More OR thoughts on Rafflesia patma I cannot prove

A likely interesting article was written in Dutch in 1825 by Blume in the popular Indisch magazijn iets over de planten onder de naam patma, bij de hindostaners en de Javanen bekend... unfortunately Google, which I refuse to use. Blume was sent to Java in 1819 initially employed as the 'director of vaccines' (smallpox?), even before leaving he wrote about his belief about promoting the usage of local medicinal herbs (jamu) in this regard. In the Javanese chronicles of Serat Centhini of 1814 the patmo is mentioned often, as Amongrogo has numerous lotus visions during his travels. There are also the herbal works of the Sultanate of Mataram from ~1700. Blume found the rafflesia flower on an expedition to Nusa Kambangan, where he went specifically seeking a special flower he had "heard about from the locals": it is thus tempting to connect this to the legends of the wijayakusuma ('flower of victory'), which is said to grow on the island and bring a person back from the dead. Javan princes still sent to this island to search for this flower in his time, finding a flower would secure the kingship. Leo Breman (talk) 23:18, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Common-adjective plant epithets (E–H)

(That link will turn blue today I think.) Quick question: reviewers will want me to support the claim that a few of the words that don't appear in my list are considered synonyms. I get that POWO and WFO aren't always as up-to-date as monographs ... but all I need are a couple of sources that show evidence that the major databases have decided to reject a scientific name on the grounds that a different name has a better claim. I'm pretty sure the reviewers are going to want me to cite one or two databases, not ten (which starts to feel to them like OR). Are there better options than WOFO and WFO? - Dank (push to talk) 19:07, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Hiya! I'm not sure I understand your question, but I'll try to answer... Ehm, I did look at the version you posted before. I noted that there were two different Latin words for 'hedgehog', i.e. synonyms. Is this what you mean? I'd retain both words in the list!

I personally prefer the newer PoWO to WFO, because WFO suffered from the same problems as TPL - the Tropicos database doesn't always mesh well with the Kew databases. The best big database as far as pure taxonomy is concerned is WCSP, in my opinion. If you mean that you haven't added an explanation for a specific specific epithet/Latin word because the species used as an example in your sources bears a taxonomic name that is now considered a junior synonym... well two thoughts: 1.) I'd use WCSP to explain myself to reviewers, second choice PoWO. 2.) I'd add the word anyway: perhaps the word was used in another species not given as an example, and just because the name is no longer considered valid doesn't mean that an editor might not want to link to your list for an explanation of the meaning, or that a reader might not want to look up the meaning of the word.

I hope I helped you. If I'm not getting the question, please let me know! Cheers, Leo Breman (talk) 19:38, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

That's perfect, thanks. I think I mean by "synonym" what you mean by "junior synonym". The only thing that I can't do ... because of copyright and other issues ... is put every common (i.e. non-proper) noun and adjective from each of the 3 books into the table. It will probably be sufficient to list the synonyms on the talk page ... if not, I'm sure I'll get an earful. - Dank (push to talk) 20:39, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

@Dank: I'm not sure that whether an epithet is used in a taxonomic synonym is relevant. Some synonyms are much better known than the currently accepted names, which have changed in recent years with the increased use of molecular taxonomy. (E.g. Rosmarinus officinalis is undoubtedly better known than the currently accepted name Salvia rosmarinus.) What matters is surely whether the epithet is sufficiently common, not whether it's used in a name that happens to be accepted at present.

But there's a non-taxonomic sense of synonym which I think is more interesting, i.e. epithets that have essentially the same meaning, e.g. one derived from Greek and one from Latin, like melanus and ater or cyaneus and caesius. I think it would be useful for our readers to point from one of these to the other(s). Peter coxhead (talk) 19:36, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't have any strong feelings about what to include, and what you're saying makes sense to me. The only real constraint is the order that we get things done: I'd like to get List of descriptive plant epithets (A–H) and its twin through WP:FLC soonish. [I'm largely working in the dark on how to do that ... I haven't had extensive comments from reviewers yet. They're probably not going to be interested in what I think should be included ... they'll want an argument that one or more sources should be trusted to decide, and then they'll want everything from those sources, minus some kind of reasonable exclusion criteria.] After that's done, we can create any number of summary-style sub-articles that include many more epithets than are likely to be allowed in the two FLs. - Dank (push to talk) 20:05, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

In this transition time of learning to use the English language correctly, and to override the strange rules of journalism, we will prevail with logic in fairness in English with regard to use of adjective and nouns for plants and animals. The majority of people do not use scientific names, but we use names of our native language of North America, whether English (USA), French (Canada), and Spanish (Mexico).

Birders (bird watchers) and Ichthyologists (fish watchers -aka fisherpeople) have already established in their books to not use the words "common" and "vernacular" and instead refer to these animal names as English names, French names and Spanish names.

Thus, every bird and fish now have three official names for the public and scientists can use their Latin names and Greek names for as their zoological names.

Notice I avoided use of the term and phrase "scientific name" as also pointless, since scientific names also refers to all names of taxonomic categories above the genus and species.

On and on, across the universe. Peace, 'Roy' Robert Jan van de Hoek (talk) 23:16, 13 November 2020 (UTC)

Roy, dude! what!? Dank is talking about making a list with which to explain the etymology of scientific names (aka 'epithets'), rank doesn't matter.... melanus means black in Latin, atrox means the same in Ancient Greek: if you know the meaning of the words, it is easier to remember. English, French, Spanish -any language really, are per definition common or vernacular names, as opposed to scientific. I think you're not getting the point here! I don't want to be unkind, but what you just wrote is ... well, highly confused. Leo Breman (talk) 03:05, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

Guy taking the piss

I found a dude, @JoeArc: who added false info from 2007 to 2011 to Wikipedia as a joke. He did it really subtly, almost everything he added has never been challenged and is still online, even though thinking logically much is obviously nonsense. The info was copied into other pages in some instances, and false references added! From Wikipedia, this info has now spread to such institutions as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Actually kudos to this guy, and shame on all you silly idiots who never bothered to check your facts. He stopped after being challenged after he added fake stuff about Chinese people attacking Vietnamese, but no one actually bothered to remove the fake news! Also kudos to @BhagyaMani: for adding citations-needed tags, as that is what set me off to see if I could vet the info. Everything he added was bullshit, except the stuff about Cajun cooking and an American football player from the same region. Kids, never trust Wikipedia! Leo Breman (talk) 13:40, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

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Heads up

Hi Leo! Regarding this edit: it may be fine or not, I don’t know, but the photo has an Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license attached to it, which states -

“You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use”.

You may know better than I, I’m just letting you know about it as a heads up. I’m not in any way an expert in copyright law. It just gave me pause. If you do know better, then feel free to ignore. Peace. Hamamelis (talk) 23:37, 7 December 2020 (UTC)

Right, I'll just remove the picture then, it isn't that good anyway. I took off the info because it looked adverty. Thanks for the head's up. Cheers, Leo Breman (talk) 20:55, 8 December 2020 (UTC)

Hey, no problem! Peace. Hamamelis (talk) 03:55, 9 December 2020 (UTC)

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