User talk:Plantdrew/Archive 2

Various taxonomy questions

Buteo platypterus brunnescens

Hello. Please check this article. I had the subspecies in Toro Negro State Forest mixed up with the regular Broad-winged Hawk, but now it is corrected. This article took trinomial authority rather than the usual binomial authority. Please check that out as well. Thanks! Mercy11 (talk) 04:24, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

I made a few changes, which I think are well explained in the edit summary. Let me know if you have any questions. Wikipedia:Conservation status gives some information about the possible values you can use with the taxobox's conservation status parameters. Plantdrew (talk) 21:08, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Mercy11 (talk) 19:29, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Manilkara zapota vs. Manilkara bidentata

Hi. Perhaps you could lend your expertise, or at least your opinion on this matter. PR DNER in its "Hojas de Nuestro Ambiente", page 2 (HERE), states that Manilkara zapota has a common name of "Ausubo". However, in checking TPL, Tropicos and USDA none of them call Manilkara zapota "Ausubo" and instead call it "Sapodilla." In addition, Wikipedia redirects "Ausubo" to Manilkara bidentata and it redirercts Sapodilla to Manilkara zapota. Also I noticed that both of these species (Manilkara zapota & Manilkara bidentata) belong to the same order (Ericales) and family (Sapotaceae). When I checked Manilkara zapota in TPL, Tropicos and USDA, none appear to call it "Sapodilla", and one of them (USDA) calls it "bulletwood", a named mentioned briefly in the Manilkara zapota article as a local name. Frankly, the more I looked at these two scientific names, going back and forth and comparing one against the other, the dizzier I got. In any event, the whole thing appears to be an error in the PR DNER's publication in question. I was just wondering if you agree with this, or if perhaps there is something else I am missing. I would like to correct the 4 Ausubo entries in the Toro Negro State Forest article, or perhaps add a brief side note to it explaining the error or ambiguity/dilemma. BTW, I also came accros the Spanish name "níspero" as the common name for one (or both?) of these trees, a name I recognized is used in Puerto Rico but I cannot attest for which tree. Either Manilkara zapota or Manilkara bidentata is the actual species so abundantly spoken of as growing abundantly in the forests in Puerto Rico, but I don't know which one, so I don't know what to fix. Perhaphs you can help sort out this whole thing. Thanks, Mercy11 (talk) 19:29, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Ugh. There is quite a mess here, and this is why plant editors like to avoid common names for article titles. It appears that ausubo may sometimes refer to species besides M. bidentata, but I'm not seeing that M. zapota is one of those called ausubo. The spelling "ausubo" looks to me like maybe it was originally a Tupi language name for a tree that has passed through Portuguese and Spanish into English, and it may very well have meant different trees to people speaking different languages and living in different areas. But it does seem that current sources on the internet mostly mean M. bidentata by ausubo (and M. zapota for sapodilla).

I'm pretty sure PR DNER got this wrong, so go ahead and link to M. bidentata in the Toro Negro article. From the research I've done, M. bidentata seems to be a common species growing wild in forests of Puerto Rico. It is an important timber species, but the edible fruits aren't especially valued. M. zapota is also in Puerto Rico, and is cultivated for its edible fruit; I'm not sure if M. zapota is common outside of cultivation, but it seems to probably be much less common in forests than M. bidentata. Tropicos has "níspero" as a common name for both species (in Central America), and the Wikipedia article Níspero lists several more, all fruits. Ausobo seems to be a common name for several somewhat similar/related trees used for their timber, while níspero is a name for trees used for their fruits. I'm curious; would you say níspero is a fruit tree? Plantdrew (talk) 02:26, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean by "I'm curious; would you say níspero is a fruit tree?". Did you mean to write/ASK "I'm curious; WHY would you say níspero is a fruit tree?" or did you mean to write/SAY "I'm curious; would you say níspero is a fruit tree [and not (e.g.) a lumber tree]?" Please clarify.

Let me clarify that when I said "'níspero'...a name I recognized is used in Puerto Rico but I cannot attest for which tree" I was really refering to the fruit, not the tree per se. It would had been clearer if I had worded it, "'níspero'...a name I recognized is used in Puerto Rico but I cannot attest for the fruit of which tree."

Also, I am surprised with you conclusion:

You appear to be saying that the Puerto Rico DNER article should have said "...que se encuentran en el bosque son: tabonuco (Dacryodes excelsa), ausubo (Manilkara bidentata), jaguilla (Magnolia portoricensis)...".

I would had thought you were going to conclude that DNER should had said "...que se encuentran en el bosque son: tabonuco (Dacryodes excelsa), sapodilla (Manilkara zapota), jaguilla (Magnolia portoricensis)..." As always, Thank you. Mercy11 (talk) 03:12, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I meant to ask whether nispero referred to a fruit tree or a lumber tree. And with your request for clarification it seems to be a common name for fruit trees (applied to several different species of trees in various regions), not lumber trees. And from what I'm finding (which supports your research into sapodilla/ausobo), DNER has the wrong species (M. bidentata not M. zapota) for the common name "ausobo", not the wrong common name for the species M. zapota. M. bidentata is a common wild growing forest/lumber species in Puerto Rico, M. zapota is a cultivated fruit species unlikely to be abundant in Toro Negro. Plantdrew (talk) 04:47, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Drew, the nispero I recall in Puerto Rico always refered to the fruit sold in the supermarkets and fruit markets. Therefore, yes, I would assumed that the tree from which the fruit came was also called a nispero tree. However, unlike, say, the avocado fruit, for which I have seen and can identify both the fruit and the tree, in PR I saw the nispero fruit but not the tree it came from. (People would call the tree from which the avocado fruit came an "avocado tree" and I would assume that they would also call the tree from which the nispero fruit came a "nispero tree"). BTW, you have misspelled "ausubo" 3 times; you are calling it "ausobo". Not a biggy, just thought I would point it out in case I was missing something. I don't know if you are saying that this is how it should be spelled. Anyway, thanks for your help on this ugly mess.

One more observation: DNER says the tree in question is abundant ("common") in that forest and since I know for a fact that the Toro Negro State Forest covers only about 20% of the entire cloud forest in that area (the rest being adjacent forests in private ownership), then --if DNER was referring to the fruit tree-- such fruit would also be adundant in the markets. But it was never my experience that nispero was abundant in the fruit markets (I am not being naive here; I am still taking into consideration other factors that would also result in lower availability of a fruit in fruit markets in addition to the relative number of trees of the species that yield such fruit). Such lower availability reinforces your theory that DNER was referring to the lumber tree "ausubo (Manilkara bidentata)" and not to the fruit tree "sapodilla/níspero (Manilkara zapota)".

So, from what I read in your last paragraph, I am going to conclude that the DNER brochure was referring to the lumber tree ausubo (Manilkara bidentata), not the fruit tree sapodilla (Manilkara zapota). I am going to assume their statement should read, "...que se encuentran en el bosque son: tabonuco (Dacryodes excelsa), ausubo (Manilkara bidentata), jaguilla (Magnolia portoricensis)...", and that they simply got the scientific name wrong (perhaps some hungry DNER employee must have been longing for the fruit when drafting the text for that brochure!!!). I hope I got it straight now. One last check before I make the changes: did I get it straight now? Thanks. Mercy11 (talk) 13:57, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

You have it straight now. I think context is important in applying the common name. Both species could probably be called nispero if we're talking about fruits, and both species could be called ausubo if we're talking about lumber. But M. bidentata is the common lumber species in Puerto Rican forests, not M. zapota (which is the more common fruit species). And there are probably other lumber/fruit species of Manilkara elsewhere in Central America and the Caribbean that are also sometimes referred to by these common names. Plantdrew (talk) 16:17, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Macrobrachium crenulatum

Hello! Wandering if you can review this article for me. BTW, someone added italics to the name in the article (not the title, which I had already done). If we need italics in the text also, then I would need to go back to all the 10 or so articles I have created (fauna and flora) and for which I never added italics to in the body itself. Please advise. Mercy11 (talk) Mercy11 (talk) 19:26, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The article looks good to me. Genus and species should be italicized in the text (but the scientific names of ranks above genus should not italicized). I went through all the articles you've brought up on my talk page and double checked for italics. Most were already properly italicized, and I fixed the two that weren't. Plantdrew (talk) 20:09, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Epilobocera sinuatifrons

I am not sure if I did the "Status" field in the infobox in this one is done correctly. Would you check it out also. While there, feel free to check on the correctness of the other items as well. Another thing, PR DRNA's spells it Epilobosera sinuatifrons in its literature. I couldn't find it spelled like that online. so I assumed it is spelled Epilobocera sinuatifrons. If not, then we will need to move the article. Thanks! Mercy11 (talk) 19:25, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

The main thing that was missing with the status was to use the |status_system parameter in the taxobox to get the graphic of the possible statuses to display. The reference can go under the |status_ref parameter, but it's not a big deal if you've got the reference following the status/status_system parameters. Epilobosera is a misspelling by DRNA ("cera" is Latin for horn, as in Triceratops, "sera" doesn't mean anything). Plantdrew (talk) 21:35, 24 September 2013 (UTC)

Sicydium plumieri

Hi- Would you check out this article. I overlooked asking you to take a look at it when I created it a few weeks back. In particular, please check out THIS recent edit. Thanks. Mercy11 (talk) 19:33, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

It looks like Divingpetrel has a lot of experience with fish articles. I don't really agree with their removing the reference from the taxobox, but I don't see a lot of references for the binomial authority in taxoboxes. Maybe there should a reference there; it wouldn't hurt. I added the reference back as a reference for the synonyms; I think anybody who's likely to be interested in the binomial authority or synonyms will understand that the same source is likely to include both pieces of information.

I know Toro Negro is driving your interest in creating these, and it currently accounts for 2/3 of the incoming links to S. plumieri. I wouldn't have removed the bit about Toro Negro yet, but in a more developed article, it wouldn't be worth mentioning every protected area where a widespread species occurs. It might be worth adding Puerto Rico and Jamaica to the description of the range, although I've simplified the description of the range by removing the bit about it not being recorded from Hispaniola. Plantdrew (talk) 01:32, 27 September 2013 (UTC)

Cinnamon

Now it will be clear. Happy editing. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 22:53, 7 January 2014 (UTC)

2/3 ??? Wow!!! Thanks for your never-ending support and advise. I have been busy both in real life and in not-so-real life to work on more plant articles but will be working in at least 7 more as soon as this next week. I agree with you about Divingpetrel; he seems to be a great source for fish articles. Thanks again, Mercy11 (talk) 21:21, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

Cinnamon liquors are a real trend. Not much to my taste (the blogs which I read but did not cite all say these (e.g., Fireball Cinnamon Whisky) are for shots, and that they are 'great drinks, don't taste like whisky, and are not for sipping). But there is a lot of product out there. 7&6=thirteen (☎) 10:56, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Cyathea × dryopteroides

Hi Drew, let me ask a perhaps somewhat stupid question: Why is there an "x" in the middle of this name? Is that an error or intentional naming? I also looked at one of the references they give in the article but I couldn't find the "x" in it. Do you have a minute to explain (or just answer) that. Thank you. Best regards, Mercy11 (talk) 21:21, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I've been a little busy myself lately, so may be slow getting back to you the next several days. The × sign is used in names for hybrid plants and is intentional. I'm not sure if calling this plant a hybrid is correct though. The statement in the article that it is a hybrid is "citation needed", and in a very preliminary search, I haven't found a source for it being of hybrid origin (although it does apparently hybridize with other related species). The Plant List has it as Alsophila dryopteroides, but I'm a little skeptical about classification. The classification in Alsophilis is based off a Tropicos record citing a US government source. But the US government seems to mostly place the species in Cyathea (though I can't check gov't sources directly right now with the shutdown).

tldr; Nothing inherently wrong with the "×", but need to check further to see if it's appropriate in this case. Plantdrew (talk) 03:33, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

Prestoea montana?

Hi. Hope everything is well. Do you think my edit HERE was correct, not correct, or impossible to tell? Thanks! Mercy11 (talk) 14:18, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Your edit is correct. Some sources include montana as a variety of P. acuminata, rather than recognizing it as a full species. But regardless of whether it's treated as a variety or a full species, plants in the Antilles are montana (regular P. acuminata is on the Central/South American mainland). And Wikipedia currently treats it as a full species in the article Prestoea montana. Plantdrew (talk) 15:21, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Pinus caribaea?

Hi Drew. Has been some 2 months since you last oriented me in the turbulent waters of taxonomical identification. I am hoping you don't mind if I continue here (rather than the bottom of your talk page as preferred by some editors).

In any event, this time the problem is in identifying a tree whose wood has been known in Puerto Rico as pichipén. I would like to edit the Pinus caribaea article but decided first get your opinion and advise.

HERE pichipén is called "Honduran pine" and then goes on to talk about how the tree is used on the campus of the University of Puerto Rico College of Agriculture (RUM).

And then HERE (p.9 footnote 17) it states that the word pichipén is an Anglicism derived from the sound conversion of the term "pitch pine" ("In the building plans, Domenech specified that all wooden flooring boards, ceiling rafters and beams had to be made of "el mejor pichipen americana" (the best American pichipen). The word pichipen, is an Anglicism derived from sound conversion of the term 'pitch pine'."

The same term ("Honduran pine") is used HERE (the website is by the UPR-Mayagüez Department of Biology Herbarium, that is the RUM), and several months ago I used that reference in the Toro Negro State Forest article but never used the pichipén name as I didn't suspect back then that it may be the same tree.

I am puzzled in trying to identify this tree, in terms of its species and subspecies ("variety"), particularly since - if it was in fact the same as Caribbean pine - the Caribbean pine article states that "The species has [ONLY] three distinct varieties, one very distinct and treated as a separate species by some authors: (1) Pinus caribaea var. caribaea (Pinar del Río Province and Isla de la Juventud in western Cuba); (2) Pinus caribaea var. bahamensis (Grisebach) W.H.Barrett & Golfari – Bahamas pine (The Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands); and (3) Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis (Sénéclauze) W.H.Barrett & Golfari – Honduras pine (state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua), and Puerto Rico is not mentioned in any of these. Perhaps becuase it was "introduced" to Puerto Rico and, thus, not native to the island?

Any ideas would be most welcome! Regards, Mercy11 (talk) 18:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Pinus caribaea var. hondurensis (Honduran pine) is, as far as I can tell, the most common/widely planted pine in Puerto Rico. I'm sure the reason Puerto Rico isn't mentioned in the Caribbean pine article is because the tree is introduced there. I wouldn't be surprised if there are at least a few plantings of other varieties in Puerto Rico (there are plantations of var. caribaea in Cuba), or even plantings of other pine species, but P. caribaea var. hondurensis is the common pine in Puerto Rico. "Pitch pine" usually refers to Pinus rigida, but P. caribaea has also been called "pitch pine" (or "Honduran/Nicaraguan pitch pine"). I think you can go with the source that says "pichipén" is "Honduran pine". Plantdrew (talk) 20:27, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I have updated the Toro Negro State Forest article based on that information. Mercy11 (talk) 03:37, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi

I noticed you made some edits to a couple of my attempts at new articles. Thank you for helping. I like your two plant boxes on your user page so I've put them on mine. HalfGig (talk) 00:14, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

There have been a lot of new Cucurbita articles popping up lately. Thank you for your work on those. It's nice to have another editor interested in plants. Glad you liked my userboxes. Plantdrew (talk) 04:53, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh, thank you. I really like working on Cucurbita related articles. I have that articles listed at the "good" nomination page right now as I hope to make it the best of the group. HalfGig (talk) 23:04, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Half Million award

Thank you for giving me the half million award for the Onion GA. Please could you revisit my talk page because it has gone wonky since your visit and I can't see how to put it right. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:13, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Oops, sorry about that. I guess Chiswick Chap fixed it? That was the first time I'd tried to give anybody an award, I didn't realize I'd pasted it wrong. Thank you for working on improving various food plants. Plantdrew (talk) 19:24, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Barnstar of Diligence

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	For your diligent work editing/reviewing organisms found at the Toro Negro State Forest. Sincere thanks! Mercy11 (talk) 19:44, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I appreciate the recognition, and am glad to have helped you with the articles you've created. Plantdrew (talk) 06:46, 20 September 2013 (UTC)

Plant assessments

Thanks for the message. I really appreciate your work, BTW—you've had a huge impact on bringing down those unassessed numbers, more so than I have. It looks like the backlog really will get finished off sooner rather than later, and with TedderBot up and running again, it's not so hard to keep tabs on new articles. As regards the orchids, I don't have the level of expertise to know what has and hasn't been reduced to synonymy, so I've just been tagging them as stubs. Hopefully, an expert will come along someday and reduce many of them to redirects. Choess (talk) 17:49, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I lack the expertise as well to be sure whether the orchids should be redirects. I'm fine assessing them as stubs for the present. I've been a little busy lately and haven't had much time to work on the remaining unassessed articles, but I'd really like to get them finished. The remaining unassesseds are kind of tough; I've been skipping anything where I'm not reasonably certain of the class or importance. I expect some will be pretty obvious on second glance when I cast a less conservative eye on them. If you've got the time, it would be very nice if you continued working your way through the alphabet to assess those articles I've skipped. I'm not very enthusiastic about staying on top of the new articles. There was a period in July/August (before the bot's hiatus) where we were both assessing new articles. I'm happy to mostly leave that task to you, if you've got the time to keep up with the new articles. Plantdrew (talk) 03:20, 23 September 2013 (UTC)

Vital articles/Expanded

I moved the food plants like you suggested, but I haven't done any of the rearranging you recommended in your first and last comments. If you've got a chance, feel free to reorganize the plants as you see fit. Thank you for your contributions to the Vital Articles project! We'd never get anywhere without input from knowledgeable folks like you. Cobblet (talk) 09:28, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I've started reorganizing. I think it will be a lot easier to pick out candidates for removal (or missing vital candidates) once the edible plants are grouped by similar uses. Plantdrew (talk) 15:06, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm sure you've noticed, but I've finished the reorganization for now. There are 13 "other vegetables"; Coconut certainly doesn't belong there, I'm mulling over whether to put it with the other nuts. Many of the remaining "other vegetables" could be called "stem vegetables" or "inflorescence vegetables", but I'm not sure it's worth trying to use such specific categories. Maybe I should broaden "leafy vegetables" to include stems and inflorescences.

I'd trust your judgment over my own on classification issues like these. Cobblet (talk) 23:19, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm working on comparing the Vital list with a journal article that attempted to enumerate the ~100 most important food plants globally (and a book called "Top 100 Food Plants" which builds on the list in the journal article). I will be proposing some additions and removals. Do you have any thoughts about what Vital article quota should be (both for plants overall, and food plants specifically)? There are 131 general plant articles now and 146 food plants (and several removal proposals are pending). Plantdrew (talk) 19:52, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I honestly have no idea how many articles on organisms we should have. I will say that having about 10 amphibians and 50 reptiles looks about right to me, and that it seems unlikely to me (but I have no rationale for thinking this way) that reptiles should comprise less than 10% of total animals, which implies we should have at most 500 animals. It also seems that having 40-50 organisms other than animals and plants is about right. So it seems that the number of plants should fall somewhere in between, but exactly where I have no idea. I know, I'm not being very helpful :) I'd be very interested to hear User:AfadsBad's take on this issue. Cobblet (talk) 23:19, 30 September 2013 (UTC)

I think we are overdone in Western culture to such a degree that representing the animals will be hard. We need one article on Beethoven and one of his symphonies, an article on Bach and one of his works, not four; we have three Russian ballets. We set a number, now we have to represent as much as we can within that number, not represent every single major item. We have to look at sets of items, but we first have remove a lot. Plants will be different from animals, in that most important plant species will be crops, and we will have to have the Solanaceae and potatoes and tomatoes. Plantdrew, however has rated plant families, so we will have an easier time deciding which. I think we need to remove the fluff, first, then start at the top, make the groups as big as they are, then deal with the count. --(AfadsBad (talk) 23:33, 30 September 2013 (UTC))

The only reason why I haven't suggested more musical works to remove is because it's difficult to talk about what to remove when you don't even have the most representative list to start with. And just the removal of Peter and the Wolf has taken longer than I expected. The bias toward Western culture is equally noticeable in the list of artworks and architectural landmarks, although both those lists probably need expanding when compared to music and literature.

In any case, for lack of a better way to proceed, I'd suggest keeping the list of plants at roughly the same size as it is now (~275 articles). It ought to be easier to cut the animals than the plants. Cobblet (talk) 00:21, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I think the basic things that would make a plant article vital are taxonomic importance (large taxonomic groups, or evolutionarily significant groups), ecological importance (dominant plants in particular habitats), and human relevance (food is a biggie, but also as ornamentals, common weeds/invasives, medicinals/drugs, and non-food crops (fibers, forages, oils, etc.)). I don't think we'd need very many more slots for good coverage; swaps can help.

We've got articles of taxonomic importance pretty well covered. Ecological importance is skewed to plants of North Temperate regions; need more Southern Hemisphere and Tropics, but there can be swaps. Food is well covered; might need to swap some ornamental monocots out for more ornamental dicots. The other human relevance categories I can think of would be well covered with a handful of additions.

I'd appreciate it if you two could look at User:Plantdrew/Vital. It's a list of possible adds/deletes I compiled after going through a couple lists of important food plants (with a few additional spices and non-food crops). I've bolded the entries I intend to nominate; if any other strike you as worth bringing up (or not bringing up), maybe add SC/SA (Support Cobblet/Afadsbad) or OC/OA (oppose) after them, or offer more detailed comments. Plantdrew (talk) 01:42, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! I added some quick comments in italics. Haven't really suggested new removals (sage perhaps) because I'm pretty comfortable with removing even most of the unbolded suggestions. Besides foods, we need to consider trees and other types of plants of course—I suggested maple and willow for starters. Cobblet (talk) 03:20, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Replied to some of your comments. Trees are the big thing in what I was calling "ecological importance"; maple and willow can be swapped in, but I'd like to see some more tropical trees. Ficus might be a good one.

Ornamental plants aren't my expertise, and I haven't really started to look at ornamentals included or missing from the Vital list. Saintpaulia might be a good addition. There's maybe a broader category of "aesthetically notable plants", that could include: indoor house plants, outdoor ornamental plants, cut flowers that you might buy from a florist, and wildflowers. These can overlap; roses are important both as outdoor ornamentals and cut flowers. Indoor & outdoor plants can be grown for their foliage, flowers or both. Non-cultivated wildflowers probably aren't really Vital; I've suggested several for removal. The wildflowers that might be vital are also weeds; dandelion is on the Vital list. I suggested clover as a possible addition, as a culturally notable weedy wildflower and as a forage. I really need to put some more thought into aesthetically notable plants. Plantdrew (talk) 05:09, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

It might be useful to look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Popular pages to check for glaring omissions. Cobblet (talk) 07:26, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

I went through the first 200 or so and it looks like the almost everything is on the Vital list, or my list of potential additions (after about 200, there start being more that aren't listed). Articles on chile pepper cultivars, drugs and diet fads (Moringa is the latest diet fad) tend to get a high number of views but surely aren't vital. A couple I wasn't sure about adding get a surprising number of views; Fenugreek is #53, Fonio #69. I'll add a few more as candidates on my Vital sandbox. Plantdrew (talk) 20:03, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

Fenugreek is probably vital, or could be due to its use in India, alone, but also MidEast, North Africa, Greece. Fonio is a major grain in very limited areas of tropical Africa. It is getting so many hits due to research, not usage, I guess. --(AfadsBad (talk) 20:19, 1 October 2013 (UTC))

Somebody must've just started marketing fonio in the US; this trend isn't just research. No need to chase the latest fads with the vital articles though. Plantdrew (talk) 20:35, 1 October 2013 (UTC)

FYI

Chloroplast is up for Good article nomination.—Love, Kelvinsong talk 00:46, 12 October 2013 (UTC)

I hope it goes well. Plantdrew (talk) 01:49, 15 October 2013 (UTC)

Henry Siebrecht

I read your solid article on Henry Siebrecht - I'm interested in how you came by the information (well, perhaps more to the point, what your connection and/or interest in him is). I'm his brother's great-grandson. I can be reached at bentz (at) bentz-engineering.com.

BryanBentz (talk) 12:27, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi there. It's not my article; although I did create the talk page in a fairly minor edit. User:HowsMyRing is responsible for the article. That user's only contributions are the Henry Siebrecht article, which is kind of interesting. Perhaps they are a distant cousin of yours? I'll repost your query to HowsMyRing's page. Plantdrew (talk) 16:09, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Brucea/Bruceomyces

Hi Plantdrew, I was wondering how you came up with a replacement name for Brucea? Bruceomyces is listed in neither Index Fungorum nor MycoBank (whereas Brucea is in both cases, and considered valid), and I cannot find any reference to Bruceomyces in a Web of Knowledge search. Sasata (talk) 18:41, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, strange; I actually found it in Index Fungorum, following the "homotypic synonyms" link from the Brucea castoris record. Here is the record for Bruceomyces in IF. Sorry for not including the reference in the article; I wasn't quite sure whether to include an IF reference since IF doesn't explicitly synonymize the genera (just the species), and IF places it in an order, leaving only family as incertae sedis (is there some debate about ordinal placement, or is IF reflecting new research?) Plantdrew (talk) 19:09, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

I figured it out (must have typed it wrong in IF initially). It looks like an interesting species, I will probably work on the article a bit more. Thanks for your efforts with WP:Plants (and occasionally WP:Fungi), I've been seeing your helpful work pop up on my watchlist the past few months. Sasata (talk) 20:23, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for the thank you. Serendipitously, I collected some lichens earlier this week about 12 miles from the type locality, and was working on processing them today, so it was interesting to see your edits fleshing out the article. I'll have to keep an eye out for beaver chewed grand firs next time I'm in Oregon. Plantdrew (talk) 21:09, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Jania

Hi Plantdrew, if you have time, could you take a look at the talk page for the disambiguation page Jania, to see if it is set up as it should be? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:32, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

I added the DAB project banner, and assessed as DAB class for the other projects. There aren't many "true disambiguation"* pages tagged with any project banners besides the DAB project; it certainly seems good to add other appropriate banners, it just hasn't been done much (I'd probably start with Category:Genus disambiguation pages if I was going to work on that).

by "true disambiguation" I mean pretty much anything besides lists/set indices of common names. I assume you're checking in with me because I messed around with some you'd done like Milk thistle (disambiguation); I wasn't very comfortable calling that as a DAB in the title, or classifying it as a DAB for a WikiProject. But if there's at least one non-plant use of a term, or only homonymous scientific names being disambiguated, calling it a DAB seems fine to me. Nettle (disambiguation) seemed fine to me as a DAB (though I could also see making Nettle a SIA for the plant names; see Sycamore/Sycamore (disambiguation) for an analogous situation). Plantdrew (talk) 19:13, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Actually I've just set up Nettle (disambiguation) as a DAB which links to an SIA. It seems to me at present that when an ambiguous word should be disambiguated to a list of plant taxa plus other non-plant uses, rather than try to have plant and non-plant uses on a single DAB page, it's better to have a separate SIA which is linked from the DAB page, as per Lotus. The pattern would be that there is a DAB which links to the SIA "List of plants known as X" as well as individually to all non-plant uses. "X" could either be the title of the DAB page (if plant and non-plant uses were both common) or a redirect to "List of plants known as X" (if the plant uses were the most common) with the "List" page then having a hatnote linking to "X (disambiguation)".

The advantage is, as has been noted before, that SIAs aren't as restricted in structure as DABs. A DAB can't explain or comment or have wikilinks other than to disambiguated articles. It can't have images. An SIA is like any other list article. The known disadvantage is that editors who wikilink to an SIA don't get the warning they get if they wikilink to a DAB.

However, there may be other disadvantages or problems I haven't thought of, so I'd like to know what others think. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:39, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both. The reason that I asked Plantdrew for advice is that I don't have particular opinions about how these pages should be structured but find it intensely annoying when people remove useful information on the grounds that a page has a deprecated format. Consequently, I'm very glad that you are both keeping up with that kind of discussion and are available to advise. With Jania there was no talk page and I wasn't sure what should be there; finding a similar "true disambiguation" page with a plant on it, to use as a model of best practice, was surprisingly difficult. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 23:57, 28 October 2013 (UTC)

User:JHunterJ seems to be something of an expert on disambiguation pages and he's now accepted the Nettle DAB + List of plants known as nettle SIA combination. So I think we can take this as a model that can be copied in future. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:06, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Excellent. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:17, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

After arguing with JHunterJ some in my first encounter, I've been trying to follow JHunterJ's view on how to handle DAB pages and ambiguous plant common names (though I've come to see the benefit of using SIAs for common names, that was JHunterJ's suggestion, not my idea). I had a recent discussion with another editor heavily involved with DABs who didn't think going the SIA route was necessary; JHunterJ's views aren't shared by all DAB editors, but seem pretty reasonable to me once I took the time to figure out what the issues were. Plantdrew (talk) 15:37, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

You have reached a higher plane than I have in my recent dealings. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 17:28, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Oof. That is regrettable. I've been worried that some genus DABs wouldn't fly with WP:MOSDAB fundamentalists. The authorities really are necessary for disambiguating the various Schizonotus. Plantdrew (talk) 04:34, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

The fundamentalists seem to want the part before the comma to be only the disambiguated word, with at most "a" or "the" if needed but nothing else. Um... So perhaps we have to write:

• Schizonotus, a rejected name (authority Lindl.), synonym of Sorbaria, in family Rosaceae

Irritating, but better than no authority. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:05, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

That's a good idea I hadn't thought of, but I'm content to let it rest in the eviscerated form that it now has. In this case it would be good if someone were to write a page about the wasp genus, so that the disambiguation page can be moved back to where it belongs, at Schizonotus (disambiguation), but it would be a sad page lacking a photo. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 22:14, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

"Historically recognized plant" categorization

I've tried to write up what we discussed and have been doing at WP:PLANTS/Categorization. (The page needs several more sections, of course, on "normal" categorization.) Could you have a look – feel free to make changes – before I advertise this new page at WT:PLANTS for general comment? Thanks. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:02, 30 October 2013 (UTC)

I added a little about why Cryptogamae is categorized, though that could rephrased, or perhaps spun out in another (future) section covering categorization more generally. I'm not totally committed to categorizing scientific name redirects, rather than the articles at common names, though I'm assuming this is a reasonable practice (I think it's most appropriate in the categories where rank (genus, family, order) is specified). I guess it's nomenclature vs. classification, and I'm maybe coming to much on the nomenclature side, when categories are more relevant to classification. I'm still not totally sure about including Phanerogamae as historically recognized; seed plants are a current taxon, but the name Phanerogamae only makes sense as a counterpart to a historic taxon.

I do think you've written quite a lot of detail on adding article to a portion of the category tree that will see very few additions (I'm sure we have quite a few historic genera that need to be categorized, but articles on historic taxa are a tiny fraction of those on current taxa). Are you planning on just covering the taxonomic categorization scheme, or will you be expanding on some of the other schemes in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Plants/Template#Categories? Plantdrew (talk) 02:34, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Assuming no-one else wants to do it (do feel free!), I think there need to be explanations of the "normal" categorization via the classification hierarchy, the "brown" classification in the diagram I pointed out to you, and the issue of categorizing redirects from the scientific name. All of these have been discussed before at WT:PLANTS, but it seems never written up. I learnt from these discussions how it was done when I started editing plant articles, but as a project we've not been good at recording outcomes. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:17, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm somewhat interested in trying to cleanup/document the usage categories, but I'm also pretty discouraged by how messy they are. I might take a stab at working on them. Plantdrew (talk) 18:13, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I agree they are very messy. For example, categories such as "X families" and "X genera" simply don't exist in some angiosperm orders. Whether the article or the redirect is categorized (or both) varies inconsistently. Sometimes the requirement for categories to be of a reasonable size (say 9-10+) is respected, sometimes not. In the past I've worked at it a bit, then got discouraged and given up. But perhaps if how it should be done were documented better, others would help to sort it out?? Peter coxhead (talk) 23:18, 1 November 2013 (UTC)

Reliable sources

Please add some reliable sources to your recreation of Coleus. Also in future please use {{EB1911 poster}} rather than the redirect {{Wikisource1911Enc}} as name poster is the de facto standard for this type of Wikisource "poster" template (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikisource/Citation Uniformity). -- PBS (talk) 23:46, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

I'll see what I can do. I wasn't excited about having to "recreate" Coleus. I would've preferred to keep it as a DAB, or a redirect (with hatnote) to Solenostemon scutellarioides, but the consensus at Talk:Solenostemon#Requested_move seemed to favor an an article at the Coleus title. Plantdrew (talk) 04:45, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Moves

After thinking about it a while, I think I'm OK with the water hyacinth move, although we should have a hatnote atop E. crassipes to note that the whole genus can be referred to by that name. It might be nice to pipe some of the incoming links, too, when they're definitely to E. crassipes. I may not get to this tonight-other fires to put out-but I'll work on it soon. Feel free to add more taxa. One of the reasons I asked for the admin bit way back when was to be able to do exactly this sort of cleanup. Choess (talk) 04:18, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for considering it. I've gotten caught up in a couple other things as well but will check on incoming links to water hyacinth and see about suggesting other taxa soon. Plantdrew (talk)

No problem. I followed up on your comments at WS, which will probably end badly for me. It's too bad—I think the project has potential as a taxonomic "framework" and source repository for us to follow as we write—but there's obviously a severe vested contributor issue. And I really don't have the energy or enthusiasm for some sort of governance brouhaha at Meta. Choess (talk) 03:35, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Herbalism

Hi Plantdrew -- I see that you have an interest in herbalism. Since you last edited the article, several editors arrived and decided to remove all of the (in their words) "hard science findings" and all of the historical information from the article, and move these to separate articles. Here is what the article looked like after these edits vs. this version which contains all of the historical/phytochemical info. I undid these revisions, because I think that removing all of the science and history of herbalism leaves the reader with the false impression that herbalism is based completely on tradition, with no basis in science. My view is that the article on herbalism should include both traditional and science-based practices (because this is what herbalism is -- a synthesis of traditional and scientific ideas), and that history is very important (especially in this particular subject) and should not be completely removed from the article. Anyhow, I'd like to hear your thoughts on this and any ideas you might have for how to improve the article? Thanks! -- Jrtayloriv (talk) 18:39, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what to do. History is pretty crucial in a discussion of herbalism. I do think traditional/historical and science-based practices should be present in the herbalism articles, but there are a large number of separate articles (phytotherapy, pharmacognosy, et al.) covering science-based practices. There's a lot of potential for overlapping content, and I'm not sure how to (or whether to) sort out the scopes of this group of related articles. Sorry, I don't really have more insightful comments or more concrete suggestions about how to proceed. Plantdrew (talk) 21:46, 27 November 2013 (UTC)

Infobox for Karat banana

I noticed that your assessment of Karat banana said that there should be a cultivar box. I've added one, but I'm never very happy about this infobox for "vague" groups of cultivars, like this one. "Karat banana" seems to be a local pidgin English name for orange-coloured bananas, so doesn't refer to either a formal cultivar Group (they are part of the Fe'i Group according to some sources) or an individual cultivar (since there are distinct kinds of Karat bananas according to sources).

The general problem is that the ICNCP is new and is used by only a small fraction of the literature, so the naming of cultivars is generally extremely fuzzy. If you look through Category:Cultivar articles without infoboxes it seems to me that a minority could easily be given infoboxes, but in many (if not most) cases the status of the described entity isn't clear. Just to pick one random example, consider Carolina Reaper. Firstly, the article says that it's a hybrid but then gives a single species name. Secondly, it's not clear whether "Carolina Reaper" is a trade description or a cultivar name – I suspect that the cultivar name is "HP22B", so that the article's subject is probably "Capsicum ('HP22B') Carolina Reaper". But this is too speculative to put in an infobox!

I wonder if there is any way of changing the Infobox Cultivar to deal with the reality of WP articles? As well as possible entries for "Group" or "Cultivar" there should perhaps be something like "Common name". Peter coxhead (talk) 13:14, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I think we do need something a little more flexible than the cultivar box. The ICRAs simply don't exist for most food plants (and when they do, their records are often not readily available). ICRAs cover ornamental plants better, but there's still limited availability of data. We've got things that might be best treated as cultivars, but which haven't been formally named as such. We've got articles with standard taxoboxes with presumably ICNafp compliant "varieties" (L.H.Bailey is responsible for a bunch of these, e.g. Daikon). Citrus articles have standard taxoboxes, using either Tanaka's binomials (e.g Tangerine), hybrid names (e.g. Rangpur) or hybrid formulas (e.g. Yuzu). Cultivated citrus taxonomy is really a mess; I'm not going to sort that out, and I don't think we can move to a cultivar based naming system for citruses at present.

Then there are Template:Infobox pepper, Template:Tomatobox, Template:Infobox grape variety, and Template:Infobox olive cultivar being used in place of a cultivar infobox. Are you aware of any more specialized infoboxes like these?

Adding "common name" to the cultivar infobox to cover "varieties" that don't have formal cultivar name sounds like a good idea. Should it still be called "cultivar infobox" if it covers entities that aren't formally named cultivars? I'd lean slightly to calling it a "variety infobox", but recognize that that's problematic as it covers the general semantic concept of "varieties" rather than the strict taxonomic concept. I suppose the specialized infoboxes could be turned into nested templates that call the "cultivar infobox" and then include additional parameters relevant to a particular genus/species.

In short, I'm not going to get hung up on whether something is a formal cultivar or not, but support modifying the cultivar infobox to be able to more broadly accomodate cultivated plant "varieties" (s.l.). Plantdrew (talk) 19:32, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Terminology is a key issue. One problem is that the ICN has "stolen" words that could be used, like "variety" and "form", so a "variety infobox" could appear to be just a special case of {{Infraspeciesbox}}. Perhaps it would be possible to use the full form "cultivated variety" in the s.l. sense and "cultivar" in the ICNCP sense? Or is this just too confusing?

Otherwise, I agree that many fruit/crop articles are a mess and it's not at all easy to see how to sort them. My initial step of not adding an infobox to Karat banana was perhaps cowardice, but perhaps discretion... Peter coxhead (talk) 18:17, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

¡Feliz Navidad!

	Merry Christmas and best wishes for a happy and healthy 2014!
	Mercy11 (talk) 03:40, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanx for suggestions

Thanx for the suggestions you made concerning a few pages I've created on plant species. Your note was dated Dec 21 but I discovered it just yesterday. Still trying to learn this system. Indeed, that is part of why I have been doing this, trying to learn the system. That plus I have been having fun with this. You made some very good suggestions. Problem with one, however, (adding photos from Wikipedia Commons) is that I do not trust the identifications of the plants in the photos. I have noticed some errors. One of the first pages I made was for Yucca declinata, a plant for which I happen to be the binomial authority. I do have some photos here, sitting on my own hard drive, but for some reason the Wikipedia system would not allow me to upload them. Then someone else edited the page, adding a photo. I knew as soon as I saw it that this was the wrong species. All I could do was to delete the photo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Laferriere (talk • contribs) 13:07, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

botanical terminology

Hello again. I just noticed the comments on your talk page dated Dec 24 concerning terminology to be used in info boxes. I understand that terms such as "type" and "variety" have one meaning in botany, different meanings in everyday speech. Same with "berry," "fruit," "herb" and lots of other terms. I once wrote a paper for an educational journal (American Biology Teacher) on this very subject.

I would strongly caution against using such words with different meanings than what they have in formal botany. Botanists will have a fit and will complain to no end about this. Certainly, the lay uses of these words came first and the lay meanings are not about to change, but botanists have come to think that their definitions are "correct" and lay definitions "sloppy" and "wrong." Best to humor them by using some other terms on which botanists and non-botanists can agree on. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Joseph Laferriere (talk • contribs) 13:21, 31 December 2013 (UTC)