I'll probably reword some parts of the Taxonomy section, since I've never been much in agreement with the "name-droppping" aspect of harvard citations in the run of sentences (to me it's full names or relegation into footnotes). The sentence starting with "More recently" seems a particularly bad offender, and on its face even seems to imply that Mornard should "obviously" be known by the reader... Done
I've reworded a significant part of the description flow so that the technical term is the one placed in parentheses or apposition after the initial description, this seems much less disruptive to me.(yes, it's better now)
I'm not sure about the usefulness of mentioning the endoperidium's sessility directly, or at least with this technical term. Is it considered diagnostically relevant in earthstars?(I've clarified that it is diagnostic, see Geastrum pectinatum for an example.)
Actually, just confirming that it was relevant would have been okay. I don't think, mentioning a specific example helps, so I partly reverted.
I've tried to use endo- and exoperidium throughout (if we actually define them early on, we might as well use them!), but I might in place have applied them (particularly endoperidium) incorrectly. You'll want to check on that.(good)
"Because there is a great deal of variation in the persistence, size, structure and shape of the columella, it is of limited value for identification." I'd like to see a citation for that. Done, and I've reformulated it a bit
As an aside, we don't have a good definition of "columella" anywhere on WP: columella is a ref herring, and the definition on the disambiguation page is useless. Do you think you can spare the time to add something to sporangium that could be usefully referred to later?(I added a blurb to sporangium, and columella is now linked to that.) Done
"This is due to the presence of a thin, persistent membrane-like layer of mycelial tissue on the surface of the exoperidium." I think this sentence ultimately does more harm than good. The way I read it it doesn't give enough details, but the questions it brings (why would mycelium not stick? What IS found in other species?) reach nearly outside the scope of the article and would probably require too much extra material. Just stating that the surface has very different properties (and how) seems like it'd be sufficient. Done I've tentatively removed the sentence and reworked the previous one based on Bates 2004.
It may be because it's late, but I can't make heads nor tails of what is actually meant by the following (specifically it doesn't seem to actually describe any variation, just a temporal sequence!) "[...] and in some specimens, this tissue layer remains closely attached as a sheet over the unsegmented part of the outer wall, the part adhering to the rays variously cracked and sometimes finally peeling off in places."
On second thought I think "inner" and "outer" are causing problems here. This way of thinking is okay for biologist, but normal people have problem continuing to refer to a previously "inner" surface that have become the outer one in practice. Maybe talking about the upper and lower face (rather than surface) of the opened specimen would work better? (Have rephrased this section.. better?)
I've attempted to further refine it, though I'm still not entirely happy with it. Tt seems there is some conflation of the cracking that specifically creates the diagnostic "saucer", and the more general cracking across the surface of the ray? (I separated the two ideas into two paragraphs, hopefully that will reduce conflation) Done I'm not sure there's only so much that can be said when you don't actually have the damn thing in fron of you lol
You give a length for the peristome, but no diameter for the ostiole. (Couldn't see this info in my sources... do you think I could safely mention "a millimeter or two" without a source? I can't really see anybody challenging that, but it is OR...)
I'm thinking the simplest approach might be to delete the size measurement. Is the peristome size significantly useful to identification? If not I think it can go without too much loss. Plus doing away with an unnecessary measurement in a very measurement-heavy paragraph would help the flow. (Agree, "small" is close enough for the general populace) Done
"The basidia are attached to either two or four spores" Are basidia shed? It seems the relation should go the other way around (it sounds the same to me as if you were saying that pedicels are attached to flowers...).(For reasons that are still unclear to me, basidia sometimes develop with variable number of spores. Have reworded to change the order of attachment.) Done I don't mind the number of spores thing ^_^;;
The "prominent beak of the immature fruit bodies" mentioned as diagnostic is very troublesome. Previously the "beak" descriptive was (as far as I understood and adjusted the text to) referring to the peristome. This new beak appears to refer to the shape of the fruit body prior to the ray spreading, but the only information given about that stage was dimensions, so this just causes unseemly confusion. All the more so since the peristome is actually mentioned right after: "the fibrillose mouth" (I have added "peristome" here too: once you've defined a term, it's better to actually use it instead of other terms).(yeah, it was confusing, and my other sources don't mention the peristome on the immature fruit bodies, so I removed it.) Done I suspect the beak is the same kind of thing shown here on G. fimbriatum, but my point about this feature not being discussed in the description section stands.
I've left a couple HTML comments regarding copy-edited bits you might want to doublecheck whether I inadvertently made the sentence counterfactual.(checked and tweaked text.) Done
Extra thing: under "Taxonomy and classification", Subsection Laevistomata is characterized by a fibrillose peristome, if so, how can that same fibrillose peristome be considered a diagnostic character? Maybe instead of "The main characteristics" under similar species, something like "the combination of characteristics" would be better?(is better, now changed) Done
At this stage I think I'm almost ready to support, though I'll want to give a last read. What is the currently accepted practice for lengthy resolved comments? Is {{hidden}} still an accepted method?
I think a better method is moving this discussion to the FAC's talk page, but leave a note so the FAC directors know it's there. Sasata (talk) 22:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Done
