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Rustyback Fern

Could someone swap round Asplenium ceterach and Ceterach officinarum please; Ceterach has been sunk into Asplenium (and redirects there). Lavateraguy (talk) 10:51, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. --Melburnian (talk) 10:11, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Genapear Tree

Should this article be redirected to ginger? There are no relevant Google hits for "Genapear Tree". mgiganteus1 (talk) 14:43, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Hoax. "A partidge gena pear tree." Merry Christmas. --Kleopatra (talk) 15:26, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Yep (I am not good with english puns, though, and missed the explanation for the "gena" XD). Nuked it. Circéus (talk) 15:28, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Hah, how did I manage to miss that? mgiganteus1 (talk) 16:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)
Not an English speaker :p. I made the connection, but I did not read "partrige genapear tree" out loud. Circéus (talk) 17:19, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Andrew Sinclair

I've written an article about Andrew Sinclair (botanist). Whilst there was a lot about his botanical work in the sources that I've been using, I've written it because he had a political office. I may know something about New Zealand's political history, but I'm certainly no expert on botany. So if somebody wants to flesh out that latter aspect, that would be most welcome. Schwede66 08:43, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Discussions needing input

There are a few discussions out there that could use a bit more input. Feel free to leave your comments.

Cheers, Rkitko (talk) 14:07, 5 December 2010 (UTC)

Muskmelon / Cantaloupe

Anyone have any idea if the taxonomic info presented in the lead of Cantaloupe is correct? Is the common name Cantaloupe used to refer to two subspecific taxa of Cucumis melo? If yes, should the Cantaloupe article have a taxobox at all (right now it's all messed up as it seems to have been a hasty copy & paste job)? Muskmelon appears to be the article for the species. If the taxonomy is uncertain, may I suggest we nix the taxobox on the Cantaloupe article? Thoughts? Rkitko (talk) 23:16, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I don't know why the variety info on the cantaloupe page isn't showing up. That's the only problem that I see in reflecting GRIN's taxonomy. Nadiatalent (talk) 19:32, 8 December 2010 (UTC)
I've fixed up the taxobox based on the GRIN reference. I note that some other references place cantaloupes in two different cultivar groups. Melburnian (talk) 04:23, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
That's nice now. The "trinomial name" heading is a bit confusing though, since it is clearly quadrinomial. The taxobox template isn't very well adapted for botany, the limitation to three components of the name being more of a zoological phenomenon. How about replacing that heading with "variety" as a quick fix for cantaloupe? As for putting cultivars and cultivar groups in the taxobox, I don't think we are doing that, are we? Nadiatalent (talk) 13:30, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Technically, a quadrinomial is not a name, it's a classification. The name is Cucumis melo var. cantalupensis. I got this wrong for literally decades, and was set straight by some of the luminaries of botanical nomenclature.--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:09, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Ah, yes, I think I've heard that somewhere. It isn't an ideal solution, but I've trimmed the trinomial name to just that. It would be good if the taxobox template could list variety under subspecies, but even then it would probably cause some confusion and cause some people to think that there were too many ranks. Nadiatalent (talk) 21:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks, everyone! I thought we had a variety = parameter in the taxobox. I'm pretty sure one existed, but perhaps it was lost in the recent taxobox template shuffling. I'll check the template history and add the parameter back in. I know there were a lot of Banksia articles that used that parameter, for example. Rkitko (talk) 21:56, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, the taxobox at Banksia armata var. armata is broken. I wonder who took it out! Hesperian 23:20, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
I've fixed it. It was still in the core, but hadn't been included in the core's calling parameters when the core was split out. Hesperian 23:38, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks! I found a few more that are missing and mentioned them at Template talk:Taxobox#Missing ranks. I don't like mucking about with those complex templates. Think you could give it a go? Rkitko (talk) 23:51, 9 December 2010 (UTC)
Well spotted. Done. Hesperian 00:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)
Thanks for the template fixes. On the subject of cultivar groups, we do have a cultivar infobox and this has been used on the Honeydew article. Melburnian (talk) 01:45, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

PhytoKeys

FYI, this might be interesting for your project? It is an Open access journal about plant taxonomy. Text AND images can be used freely, just like with its counterpart for animals, Zookeys. See: http://www.pensoft.net/journal_home_page.php?journal_id=3&page=home&SESID=69016f684068a6ba924613978d96146c Ruigeroeland (talk) 16:17, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Oryza

Oryza and its species (including rice) appear to be in subfamily Bambusoideae, while Oryzeae says it's in Ehrhartoideae. As far as I can make out, Bambusoideae is the older placing (Clayton & Renvoize 1986), while Ehrhartoideae is newer (see e.g. [1], [2]). APG III, as I understand it, only goes down to family level. Do we have a standard grass taxonomy to genera, or a formal way of choosing between placements? Or is it down to judgement? If so, does anyone have a strong feeling about which way it should go? Thomas Kluyver (talk) 14:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Hybrid problem

If you look at Crataegus mexicana you'll find that Crataegus pubescens is an invalid name (because it is a later homonym of a name applied to another species) of Crataegus mexicana. That probably resolves half the contradiction. (Someone might like to deal with the problem that there's more about Crataegus mexicana at Crataegus pubescens than the proper name - looks like a case for a merge, followed by a stub or dab for Crataegus pubescens.) Lavateraguy (talk) 16:12, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Merger and dab, done. Nadiatalent (talk) 22:11, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
The look inside facility at Amazon provides access to the basis of the statement that the male parent was probably Crataegus calpodendron - "... the pollen parent was suspected of being C. crus-galli, later repeated as fact. An unpublished M.Sc. thesis by a former student of mine, Tom Wells, provides a strong argument that C. calpondendron was the male parent. In this context it is interesting to note that C. calpodendron was in 19th century France disguised as Mespilus fontanesiana in a number of botanic gardens and that, when it was transferred to Crataegus as C. fontanesiana, it was thought by some botanists to be a synonym of C. crus-galli." Lavateraguy (talk) 16:56, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Hi, I'm glad to see these two problems with the Crataegus articles being discussed, it is a bit of a mess partly because I made the changes in the English wiki, but have a bit of a conflict of interest (JBPhipps is my academic grandfather, i.e. my supervisor's supervisor) that ought to prevent me going overboard with the "family" opinions on these matters. However, if there's a consensus, then I'd be happy to help with the work. The name C. pubescens is still far more frequently used than C. mexicana, though perhaps that will change soon (particularly after the Flora of North America treatment appears). The real C. pubescens is almost totally unknown. Nadiatalent (talk) 19:26, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
That's easy to deal with. Wikipedia doesn't allow for your opinions in any articles. Use the available literature, reference everything you write, and go for it. I edit my grandfather's and my uncles' wikipedia articles on various international and English wikipedias. They're all well-written articles, and they are balanced, NPOV, and inclusive of all relevant and citable information. There are no disagreements on what to include or not, because everything included is references and encyclopedic. Other editors monitor the articles, also, and it's just not an issue. I'll be glad to follow your edits around, though, in case you write something like, "My grandpa's da bomb."
I have no experience writing about hybrids, and the articles could be seriously straightened out. --Kleopatra (talk) 20:05, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
Okay, thanks. Time's a bit of a problem just now, but I'll see what I can do over the next couple of weeks. Nadiatalent (talk) 22:00, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Names of hybrids

On another matter arising in the Crataegus pages mentioned above, we have a few page moves and presumably many edits within pages to make to bring wikipedia in line with recommendation H.3A.1. of the code of nomenclature, the multiplication sign should be adjacent to the epithet (ugh!): "The multiplication sign in the name of a nothotaxon should be placed against the initial letter of the name or epithet. However, if the mathematical symbol is not available and the letter "x" is used instead, a single letter space may be left between it and the epithet if this helps to avoid ambiguity. The letter "x" should be in lower case." Nadiatalent (talk) 19:26, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

The Vienna Code allows for more flexibility with the placement of the ×:
  • H.3A.1. St Louis Code (2000): "The multiplication sign in the name of a nothotaxon should be placed against the initial letter of the name or epithet."
  • H.3A.1. Vienna Code (2006) : "The multiplication sign ×, indicating the hybrid nature of a taxon, should be placed so as to express that it belongs with the name or epithet but is not actually part of it. The exact amount of space, if any, between the multiplication sign and the initial letter of the name or epithet should depend on what best serves readability."
There was some discussion on this topic in 2007 here. Melburnian (talk) 23:15, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Yikes! Thanks, somehow I managed to pick up the St Louis code instead of the Vienna code. It is obviously much clearer to leave space between the multiplication sign and the epithet, so no changes are needed for Crataegus hybrids. Thanks for correcting my blunder! Nadiatalent (talk) 19:10, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Allophylos cobbe

Could someone dispose of this, please. (There are no hits for that name in Google except for this redirect page.) Lavateraguy (talk) 15:59, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. (Article is at correct name of Allophylus cobbe) --Melburnian (talk) 11:09, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Wording of plant articles

I assume there has been discussion and decision about this already, however, I think that articles with wording similar to:

"Dardanales is the botanical name of an order of flowering plants"

are a disservice to the reader. The article is about the clade or group, it is not about the naming of it, although that might be a useful part of the article, or, in some cases, it might even be a separate article.

To me,

"Asterales is an order of dicotyledonous flowering plants that includes the composite family (Asteraceae) and its related families."

is a more proper introduction to what the article is about, namely the order, not the name of the order. A reader should be able to read the first sentence and gain information, that the word itself is a name of something is not particularly useful. --Kleopatra (talk) 19:04, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

This is merely the preferred wording of a prolific but controversial former editor named Brya, who created a great many of the class and order articles. Feel free to change it to something more sensible. Hesperian 23:22, 13 November 2010 (UTC)
Yes, she contributed a lot, but there are some problems in the writing. If no one objects, I will rewrite the words more for the reader. --Kleopatra (talk) 00:23, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
I agee that the rewording would be an improvement, for the reasons given. Melburnian (talk) 01:03, 14 November 2010 (UTC)
Hold on! Brya is quite right, although the point is rather subtle for the general reader. The truth is that "Liliaceae" is a name for a family of plants (because of the "-aceae") which must include the genus Lilium (because of the "Lili-"). That's all it is, when used without further qualification. Liliaceae in the Cronquist system is utterly different from Liliaceae in the APG systems, for example. The problem is that the general reader is likely to assume that a word like "Liliaceae" has a definite meaning, i.e. that there is a 'thing' or 'set of things' which is Liliaceae. But of course this isn't so. In a purist's world, there would be a number of articles, such as:
  • Liliaceae (Cronquist)
  • Liliaceae (Dahlgren)
  • Liliaceae (Kubitzki)
  • Liliaceae (APG)
  • ...
The Liliaceae article itself would explain the use of the name and then link to these. However, even if this could be agreed on, the workload would be huge. Brya's wording isn't the complete answer, but actually it is technically correct and does at least hint at the issues.
On the same theme, there are serious problems, in my view, with current practice in linking to families, orders, etc. If you go to an article on an order, there will usually be sections or subsections explaining the use of the name of the order in different systems. These often list the families included in the order in that system. These families are then wiki-linked. But this link does NOT take you to an article on the use of that family name in that system, but to an article on the family in general, where the prominence of one system or another depends on (a) the whim of the editor (b) when it was written. It may not even discuss the system from which the wiki-link originated.
Is there a standard set of words which could be used on every order/family/etc. page? For an order, it would be something like "The meaning of the name of a botanical order, in terms of the families which it includes, depends on the classification system in which it is used." Peter coxhead (talk) 20:27, 24 December 2010 (UTC)
Most people who search on the term "Liliaceae" are looking for an article not on the name but on the current circumscription. We have an article on the current circumscription, and that is the primary topic for the term, and therefore the article resides at Liliaceae. An article specifically about the name would belong at Liliaceae (name) (if indeed there was consensus to have it here not over at Wiktionary).
I do take your point and have used this wording myself at times, e.g. Banksia ser. Banksia; but only for names for which no circumscription is a primary topic. Hesperian 03:28, 25 December 2010 (UTC)
In many ways I agree with this point (i.e. that people are looking for the current circumscription, which is APG III), but in this case lists of families included in orders in other systems should not have the families wiki-linked, since this is misleading when it leads to a quite different circumscription. I'd still like to see some standard warning sentence as per my comment above. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:02, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I agreed that "the name of" should rarely, if ever appear in the lead of an article (except maybe where usage is so divided that just giving the name is not very useful). there used to be something about it in a manual of style guideline, but it was apparently wiped away in some revision. In general, we give a basic approach, with historical/alternative definitions given in a separate fashion. However, I disagree about the "systems" argument. the vast majority of systems are still based on the mostly Linnean "put most similar stuff together" and "have clear criteria for inclusion", whereas in practice modern taxonomist stick to phylogenetic criteria, and work on figuring out the "inclusion criteria" (aka synapomorphies) separately. IIRC, we work with the APG system as our basic system, hence all the articles are to the groups mostly as defined in that system. This is a eventualism/immediatism issue, not one of bad content organisation, not to mention systems aren't necessarily HUGELY dissimilar, and only a few of them see truly widespread use. Circéus (talk) 15:01, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

I guess it all comes down to whether Liliaceae, uncircumscribed, is actually a topic. Peter seems to be saying that it isn't, it is merely the shared name of many disparate topics. But I think that it is a topic, albeit a nebulous one, and that the circumscriptions merely precise definition to an imprecise topic. Even when we don't name a circumscription, we know what we mean, vaguely, when we talk about the Liliaceae. By Peter's argument, we would have to split manslaughter into manslaughter (United States), manslaughter (United Kingdom), etc, since each legal jurisdiction defines it slightly differently. Hesperian 23:58, 25 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I don't think that there's really a disagreement here, merely an issue of how best to serve readers.
  • "Liliaceae" is definitely a topic; I wasn't seriously suggesting having different topics for families in different systems (I said that this was a "purist" approach: being "purist" is a bad thing to me!)
  • Contrary to Circéus and Hesperian, actually I chose "Liliaceae" deliberately, since the Liliaceae are defined HUGELY differently in older systems, such as Cronquist, than in newer systems, such as APG. In Cronquist, most of the lilioid monocots are in Liliaceae; in APG they're not even in the same order. It's not a "slight difference" as with different definitions of "manslaughter". So actually, we DON'T know what we mean by the Liliaceae, unless we qualify the term. (Those of us who maintain checklists of species (see [3]) can assure you of the difference between the Cronquist and APG systems. I need to change this entire checklist from the current Cronquist-based system, taken from 2nd edition of the 'standard' flora of the British Isles, to the new 3rd edition, which is based on APG. A colleague who is doing this for a considerably larger checklist has been at it for a month and has still not finished.) Perhaps I'm biassed because the Asparagales (an article I've been working on recently) has many new/changed families compared to older systems.
  • My main concern is not to mislead non-specialists. Most books currently in use don't use APG: it's too soon. (So, yes, this is an "eventualism/immediatism issue", because, like it or not, APG III and onwards does seem to be likely to become the standard system, and then Cronquist, Dahlgren, etc. will become history. But when will this be? 10 years? Note that even with Wikipedia's pace of change, there are a lot of pages using APG II that need some updating.) So if someone reads an existing book and looks up a family, they ought to be told, prominently, that the circumscription of a family is very dependent on the system in use.
So, two specific question:
  • Should there be a standard sentence, somewhere in the lead paragraph, warning about different usages?
  • Should wikilinks be avoided when listing families in non-APG systems?
Peter coxhead (talk) 10:46, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

Automatic taxoboxes

Taxoboxes are being automated on wikipedia without much input from wikipedia editors who are writing taxonomy articles. This creates problems such as the article Acacia having an automatic taxobox that removes its subfamily and replaces it with its tribe. Only in the Faboideae of the Fabaceae are tribes used to a high degree, but subfamilies are used extensively when discussing the Fabaceae, and they should not be removed from wikipedia by a bot. Some Fabaceae articles on wikipedia have good taxonomies already in the taxoboxes, and these should not replaced with randomly selected bot taxonomies.

I would like to see the taxoboxes automated with the input of editors with expertise in their areas, in this case, plant editors. Subfamilies should not be removed from Fabaceae articles, for example, and plant editors would know this. --Kleopatra (talk) 19:58, 26 December 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed this, and would love to help except that I've not been able to find anyplace where the editor-end mechanics are explained such that I can contribute. All the dialogue I've seen pertain to esoteric details of coding, rather than to the taxonomy or the places I would need to edit. I can forsee a lot of problems, but can't really assist if I don't know how to do so. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:14, 26 December 2010 (UTC)
It does take a while to learn the new system. You're right that the discussions have focused on coding, but earlier discussions on usage have not really been altered by updated coding. I can try to write up a how-to guide with WP:PLANTS in mind if you think that would be helpful. With regard to Fabaceae and subfamilies, I had been removing subfamilies and tribes from species articles while updating to APG III given the guidance at WP:TX, which has sensible things to say about minor taxa. There's an argument to be made that subfamilies, at least, are not minor in Fabaceae, but given that most of these species articles have that information on the genus article, I'm inclined to remove it. Automatic taxoboxes are able to set certain taxa to "always display" on subordinate taxa, or I believe you can set individual taxoboxes to display more than one rank above. I fixed the Acacia example. {{Taxonomy/Acacia}} set its immediate parent as the subfamily, so I set it to {{Taxonomy/Acacieae}} (diff) and then in the article Acacia, I set the automatic taxobox to display two immediate parents by using display parents = 2 (diff). Hope that helps. Rkitko (talk) 02:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps a list of linked model pages would be better at this point. Pages in which various problems and their solutions are immediately illustrated. Such as: a group that displays subfamilies / tribes; groups that combine more than one rank on a single page; a group with a fossil range; groups with unranked parent taxa; groups with incertae sedis; a fossil taxon; and a group that is still used as a taxon even though its monophyly is no longer considered realistic. Other possibilities probably exist, but I think a collection of model pages would be faster to assemble, and could highlght any problems before going to the effort to write a how-to guide. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:45, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
This seems even more complicated than the current system. Is there some advantage to it? Guettarda (talk) 16:47, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
It forces subtaxa to share the same higher classification. That way (for example) we won't have taxoboxes that imply the brown algae are placed in three different phyla in two different kingdoms. (We really had that problem a year ago.) Wikispecies uses a somewhat similar principle to force consistent higher-level taxonomy. It also means that, when you create a new taxobox, you need only connect it to the parent rather than duplicate all the taxonomic information from the parent taxon. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:52, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Ok, I'll work on such a list here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Automatic taxobox. The justification for such a system was precisely what EncycloPetey described. It's an improvement over all other online databases, even EOL. See this publication for further info: Page, R. D. M. (2010). "Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia of life". Organisms Diversity & Evolution. 10 (4): 343–349. doi:10.1007/s13127-010-0028-9.. Rkitko (talk) 18:00, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
I gave the list a start. I'll keep working on it. I've addressed two of Petey's comments above; fossil range isn't any different from the existing taxobox. Could you give me an example of a taxon with dubious monophyly and how it's currently handled so I can think about how to automate such a taxon? Rkitko (talk) 20:23, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Re: paraphyletic taxa, Charophyta is an example, but our article's current taxobox isn't handled well, as can be seen by a look at Charophyceae (which may or may not be the same taxon, depending on circumscription). We also have pages like Algae that have a pseudo-taxobox (different template). I know also that I've seen a bona fide taxobox recently that marked paraphyly of the group with an asterisked footnote, but I don't recall which taxon that was. It was probably a mammal, bird, or insect, but that's not really much help in narrowing it down. ;) --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:49, 27 December 2010 (UTC)
Going back to Kleopatra's post which started this discussion, I remain concerned about the current status of taxoboxes and other automated templates for higher level groupings. For example, contrary to some of these, the phylogeny of the eukaryotes is still in a serious state of flux (see Eukaryote#Phylogeny which I've tried to keep more or less up-to-date as papers appear). Over-firm statements about the deep phylogeny of plant-related eukaryote groups appear in many articles, sometimes inconsistently with template-generated content (e.g. Template:Plant_classification which doesn't present any indication that the classification it shows is still highly contentious and far from a consensus view). There doesn't seem to be a widely accessed forum in which to discuss this issue and through which some kind of consensus could be reached, and in which WP editors who actually write taxonomy/phylogeny stuff could be consulted (as per Kleopatra's original point). Peter coxhead (talk) 21:21, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of plants of Collin County, Texas

FYI. postdlf (talk) 05:23, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

The Plant List

Seen this? The Plant List:

The Plant List is a working list of all known plant species. Version 1 aims to be comprehensive for species of Vascular plant (flowering plants, conifers, ferns and their allies) and of Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts). Collaboration between the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden enabled the creation of The Plant List by combining multiple checklist data sets held by these institutions and other collaborators.

Looks useful. Guettarda (talk) 18:31, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

But see Roderic Page's blog post, the CC license says "You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work." Nadiatalent (talk) 19:39, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Granted, we can't reuse their data structures or their formatting, but we can use them as a reference, as a source of information (which cannot, of course, be copyrighted). Guettarda (talk) 19:57, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
That is rather a shame though, that they used CC-NC-ND. Guettarda (talk) 19:59, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
Awesome and authoritative resource, thanks. Too bad about the license, but it's certainly a reliable source that can be used as a reference in many ways. It does raise the question of how extensively it can be used to populate "List of X species" articles. If used along with other sources it would seem fine, but I wonder just where one would cross the line into copyright violation. First Light (talk) 20:39, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
You can't copyright simple lists of facts. That said, not everything is given the same level of confidence - the Kew lists, for example, consist of a mixture of expert reviewed and non-reviewed families. So I would hesitate to populate lists automatically. Guettarda (talk) 21:56, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
I've glanced at the Malvaceae listings, since that's the bit I know about. (I've been building a list from various regional sources - but I'm still short of data from South East Asia and Malesia.) For Malvaceae The Plant List is neither complete (154 species of Hibiscus - I have over 400 and I doubt that I've double counted by that much), nor accurate (there's a tree fern included in Malvaceae, and there are several genera and species which aren't currently recognised). It will be better for some families (e.g. Poaceae, Asteraceae, Fabaceae), but it can't be used uncritically. Lavateraguy (talk) 23:14, 29 December 2010 (UTC)
It's even worse for bryophytes. They're missing some moss species found in the Flora of North America, and are even missing whole families of liverworts (like Monocleaceae). It might make a good starting point, but I wouldn't trust them for completeness to any degree. Nor would I trust their synonymy. They list both Calobryum and Haplomitrium as separate (published quite some years ago) genera in the Haplomitriaceae, even though those two genera are synonyms. They list Eopleurozia as a legitimate genus, even though the last thorough monograph of the group subsumed it into Pleurozia (and they're missing several species of Pleurozia as well). They also list Marchantia irrigua as a synonym of Hygrophila irrigua, even though Hygrophila has not been used as a legitimate genus in decades. They list the illegitimate hornwort genus Aspiromitus and put Notothylas into the family Anthocerotaceae (which no one does). In short, everything I've checked is incomplete or contains errors. I would describe this source as unreliable and not very useful. --EncycloPetey (talk) 06:03, 31 December 2010 (UTC)
I took a quick glance though some of the records for Eupatorium and as far as I can tell there wasn't much rhyme or reason about what was labelled "accepted" and what was labelled "synonym". For example, Eupatorium agrigaudium Cabrera is a Brazilian species which is in three different genera according to what is given at [4]. The source that has it in Eupatorium does seem to be a 2008 taxonomic monograph, so I wouldn't discount it completely, but unless I had a copy I would be very reluctant to follow it rather than the sources (cited at Eupatorium) which say that Eupatorium should be circumscribed to not include any South American species. At [5] they say "The data set [The Global Compositae Checklist] has not yet been fully peer-reviewed and may contain some errors." (not that any data set is perfect, but this should quell any thoughts of automated import of this data). Moving from compositae to legumes, at [6] they say they follow ILDIS for legumes, but has ILDIS been updated since November 2005 (that appears to be the latest at www.ildis.org)? Theplantlist might be a useful source, but it hardly seems to be gospel and even a quick glance seems to confirm the notion that building a global checklist is a lot harder than it may look. Kingdon (talk) 02:55, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
That would be because the data outside the selected checklists are poorly authorittative and still require a hell of a lot of checking. In general, the list if not that much more useful than any other taxonomical database already available, except maybe for its extensiveness. Circéus (talk) 04:33, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
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