Talk:Tumbleweed

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Notice of requested move[edit]

This article is an improvement over a redirect to Salsola, but it conflates the habit and the common name. Also, this article was created in the face of a requested move of Tumbleweed (disambiguation) to Tumbleweed. --Una Smith (talk) 03:36, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The requested move is still hard to understand. However, I asked you to wait until the discuss was over on that requested move to continue linking to the redirect to Salsola. You seemed intent on ignoring that request. It made less work for me to just write the article. The intention is to conflate the habit and the common name for the purposes of this article and use the dab page for the common name redirects.
When there are many things with the same name, but one is used far more commonly than others, on Wikipedia that one can be the name, then there is a dab page for the others. There is no purpose than in making the article about tumbleweeds called something like "Tumbleweed (weed)" or "Tumbleweed (plant)" with so many other competitors, but this name clearly leading in dictionaries as the primary meaning of the name. --KP Botany (talk) 03:42, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Move to neologism[edit]

No, you can't make up a mixed name that means nothing and move the page. Good grief, what is going on? --KP Botany (talk) 04:37, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Una, diaspore makes no mention of tumbleweeds. Do you have a source for why diaspore should be appended to the term? ++Lar: t/c 07:08, 4 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Good grief, indeed. The name "Tumbleweed (diaspore)" creates confusion and ambiguity (it looks remarkably like an instance of WP:POINT). I think thought that I know something about botany and tumbleweeds, and the "Tumbleweed" article that KP Botany wrote yesterday seems to me to be a sensible contribution to Wikipedia. In contrast, when I got to Tumbleweed (diaspore) (where Tumbleweed redirects, thanks to Una Smith's rename) I thought there was something wrong because the article was about some topic other than tumbleweed. IMHO, the primary usage of "Tumbleweed" is for the plants that have been given this name. The article "tumbleweed" ought to be an article about those various plants. Meanwhile, since "Tumbleweed" is used in many other contexts (all of which are derived from the plant, directly or indirectly), it is extremely logical that there continue to be a disambiguation page called "Tumbleweed (disambiguation)". --Orlady (talk) 00:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Orlady, it's a point worth noting. Also, note that User:Una Smith has made tumbleweed a redirect to this page, so she's made it a hundred times less convenient for users in ways most of us never even imagined. It's her battle to change naming guidelines so that London, instead of being on a page titled London, will require you to go to a disambiguation page to find London. This means, that users will eventually stop clicking on Wikipedia, because Una Smith is the only one who knows what her pages are about, and she's not explaining them to anybody. Your opinioin ain't as humble as you think, Orlady, this is a layman's encyclopedia, not a, well, heck, I don't even know what Una Smith is doing. Let's see, this article is about the microscopic spore of the tubmleweed? --KP Botany (talk) 02:00, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The word "diaspore" is unfamiliar? The confusion lies in the incomplete description of "diaspore" on Spore; I have expanded the description into Diaspore (botany). --Una Smith (talk) 17:35, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Una, no one above says that the word "diaspore" is unfamiliar.
The confusion was in your wikilinking it to a description unrelated to this article, instead of referencing and using the term in this article. That is the problem with writing lay articles and trying to create a neologism for a title when the primary title is lying around, handy to be used. --KP Botany (talk) 20:01, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The worthless wikilinking to spores[edit]

Una, now you think a diaspore is the Angiosperm spore?[1] Huh? I'm going to have to tag this as worthless/confusing/whatever for this idiocy. It's clear now you created this redirect without any idea of what a diaspore is. And, wikilinking to something even more confusing is just grossly irresponsible to the Wikipedia readership. --KP Botany (talk) 01:39, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Instead of issuing ad hominem insults, KP Botany, you could have written an article explaining what a diaspore is. But never mind, I did it myself: Diaspore (botany). I also fixed all relevant links that I could find. --Una Smith (talk) 17:45, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguate incoming links[edit]

Tumbleweed is an ambiguous base name and the article currently has a number of incoming links that need disambiguation. Perhaps someone who is opposed to putting Tumbleweed (disambiguation) at this base name will disambiguate the links? See Special:WhatLinksHere/Tumbleweed. At the moment, there are just 43 links. Judging by their pages names, about 20 have nothing to do with either the diaspore itself or plants called "tumbleweed". --Una Smith (talk) 17:45, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I moved it.[edit]

I moved it to where it belongs, here. Also, I've put the silly diaspore, whatever, up for speedy as patent nonsense, which it is. --KP Botany (talk) 02:31, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Which Salsola?[edit]

Salsola tragus is used in this article evidently to represent the common North American introduction, but that species is call Salsola kali in Wikipedia. There is indeed disagreement about which Old World Salsola is the American tumbleweed, and there is some evidence that it is "none of the above" and that Salsola pestifer A. Nelson is the earliest epithet. I haven't kept up with the literature, but at any rate we should be consistent.--Curtis Clark (talk) 21:36, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

FNA uses S. tragus along with PLANTS [2] Never came across this plant around here, so have never paid much attention to which one is the real McCoy - name wise. Hardyplants (talk) 21:46, 5 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Add another source for easy look up GRIN - [3] and ITIS [4] It looks like Salsola pestifer A. Nelson is a Synonym. After some more input from others , I can move and adjust Salsola kali( looks like this species is limited to coastal areas) and make the Salsola tragus page. Hardyplants (talk) 03:44, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I have a similar concern about the lead photo, File:Tumbleweed 038 .jpg. It shows a tumbleweed that could be from a Salsola tragus but that is not evident in the photo and I am not confident of the uploader's ability to identify the species. The photo description on Commons does not even say the location was North America, and more than one species of Salsola makes tumbleweeds. Looking at the photo, I am okay with labeling it in the caption as a Salsola but not as a Salsola tragus. --Una Smith (talk) 03:15, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That photo does not, in my view, have very good provenance, in the description it says it's from the USGS but when I did some searching I find that photo all over, but not on the USGS site. They have a different image at their Salsola Kali page (which is copyrighted by a third party, and not reusable)... so I'd say that unless the provenance can be established, either the image should be not used at all, or better, recaptioned to point out merely that this is "a" tumbleweed, without claiming what species it is, exactly. ++Lar: t/c 04:46, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tumbleweed incoming links[edit]

Here are all 43 mainspace links to Tumbleweed. All need to be read and, if necessary, edited so the link goes to the correct article. That's where the disambiguation page comes in really handy. Consider Cuisine of the United States; not all tumbleweeds are edible, but some Salsola are. Would someone like to volunteer to do this, so there aren't edit conflicts? --Una Smith (talk) 05:10, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This pretty clearly belongs not on AN/I as it's routine content work. If we are now all set with where the articles have ended up, and there aren't going to be any more ill advised move proposals, the work to correct these can continue. I know for a fact that at least Lee Van Cleef and Bon Homme County, South Dakota have been fixed. As an example of ones that should NOT be fixed, I offer Cuisine of the United States (which without a close perusal of the source CAN'T be disambiguated to a specific species) and Tumbling Tumbleweeds... which properly refers to generic tumbleweeds, (the topic of the generic article... et voila, that one's done). Can you move this to the article talk page, please Una, (including this comment) and let this topic end here? ++Lar: t/c 05:16, 6 January 2009 (UTC) The above was copied from WP:ANI.[5] Walter Siegmund (talk) 16:35, 6 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to everyone that helped with this. Looks like it's all sorted now. ++Lar: t/c 07:12, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

For the two articles with ambiguous links to Tumbleweed, I tagged the link {{dn}} and explained why on the article talk page. Now it is all sorted. 43 mainspace links is a small number, but the percentage that did not intend tumbleweed in the sense of a diaspore is high enough that I still think the disambiguation page should be at this title. But hey, if other editors are willing to disambiguate future links to this page, amid the correct links, I am happy to leave the disambiguation page where it is. --Una Smith (talk) 15:15, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Which two were those? It would have been helpful of you (and very little additional effort) to mention them by name. It takes quite a bit more effort for someone else to troll your contribs and try to figure it out than it would for you to say. For someone who focuses on making things easy, you do need to think a bit more about your own actions and how they do not necessarily make things easy for others. But, I'll say that I'm glad to see that you're willing to (however grudgingly and with continued criticism) abide by consensus in at least this case. ++Lar: t/c 16:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The two flagged above as ambiguous, namely Apache and Native American cuisine. --Una Smith (talk) 19:06, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Chiricahua and Mescalero Apache ate the seeds of Amaranthus albus (which is indigenous to the Americas incidentallly). – ishwar  (speak) 22:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Kochia and Cycloloma[edit]

Cycloloma is a monotypic species formerly included in Kochia; do any species remaining in Kochia form tumbleweeds? --Una Smith (talk) 15:59, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Earthstars[edit]

I don't think that mushrooms are a kind of tumbleweed so I'm not sure I support adding the earthstar image and related prose. Perhaps it belongs in Diaspore? ++Lar: t/c 16:51, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Depends on the scope of what is a tumbleweed. How about the two plants called rose of Jericho? Lar, do you accept them as tumbleweeds? How do you decide? Based on documented evidence that one of their common names refers to this habit? Or based on their ability to disperse by wind, in a unit greater than a seed/spore or fruit? --Una Smith (talk) 19:04, 7 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not enough of a botanist to dispute or support the Rose of Jericho plants, but if they have Tumbleweed in their common names that's fairly convincing, I suppose. But I think (and this is just me) that there needs to be some factor of "it has a branching/stemmy/leafy structure which is or becomes rounded, detaches, and is blown about"... mushrooms just don't seem to fit. A lot of things are blown by the wind as a seed dispersal mechanism and yet are not tumbleweeds as commoners think of it. This is not my area of expertise though. Are you a botanist, Una? I know I'm not. ++Lar: t/c 02:09, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On the "rose of Jericho" plants, apart from the fact that they are indeed roundish when dry, I can think of no comprehensible reason to call Selaginella lepidophylla a tumbleweed. A "tumbleweed", in the sense apparently intended by the article (which, as mentioned above, is not the usual use of the word, at least in American English), ought to be a plant for which detaching from the soil & tumbling away to disperse seeds or other propagules is part of the normal life history, and this is not the case for Selaginella lepidophylla. I suppose if you ripped up a sporing plant it might well roll or get blown somewhere & might disperse spores in the process, but these are long-lived perennials that do not detach from the soil and roll away under normal conditions. Paalexan (talk) 10:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article about earthstar mushrooms already linked to tumbleweed, so adding it here merely reciprocates that link. I grant that earthstars are a long way from the conventional image of a tumbleweed. I have also been thinking that the Salsola type tumbleweed, that icon of Western movies, might merit an article devoted to its image in popular culture. Certainly there is room for more about this, and especially about the historical inaccuracy: Salsola kali wasn't even introduced to North America until the late 1880's. For what it's worth, some non-Salsola tumbleweeds are not rounded at all, yet do a terrific job of tumbling in the wind. --Una Smith (talk) 03:17, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that the first requirement for being a tumbleweed is to tumble at some point. In order to fit into tumbleweed, an organism also needs to distribute seeds or spores when it tumbles. Although I've never heard of earthstars tumbling, if they did so, they would likely disperse basidiospores and hence would be tumbleweeds. I think it would be good to have a reference.--Curtis Clark (talk) 14:08, 8 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

As a visual metaphor/symbol[edit]

I think some attention is due to the tumbleweed's symbolic use in comics, cartoons, and live-action film, often for comic effect. An example starting paragraph:

The tumbleweed's association with the Western film has led to a highly symbolic meaning in American visual media. It has come to represent locations that desolate, dry, and often humorless, with little or no occupants. A common usage is when characters encounter a long abandoned or dismal-looking place: A tumbleweed will be seen rolling past, often accompanied by the sound of a hollow, dry wind. This is even used in locations where tumbleweed's is not normally seen for comic effect. It is also sometimes used to represent a joke falling flat [6] or a character otherwise making an absurd declaration, with the plant rolling past in the background, the wind effect emphasizing the awkward silence.

1. And what about the sources?..
2. For what reason is the word 'American' missing in the article? Where is it right, in what countries/cultures etc? Here where I live the symbolic meaning of the tumbleweed is absolutely different, but it's outside the English-speaking world. - 91.122.94.190 (talk) 18:14, 9 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]


Why is the the opening scene of "The Big Lebowksi" given as an example of "This is sometimes used, for comic effect, in locations where tumbleweeds are not expected"? As someone that lives in LA, we get tumbleweeds all over the place in the fall - this is not unusual at all.

Better link to German translation?[edit]

The link to the german translation does not lead to the corresponding article in German but to an article about the method how tumbleweed and similar plants spread. (The link back from that article is therefore also ambigious...)

A better match would be a link to 

 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steppenl%C3%A4ufer_(Pflanze)

195.3.81.25 (talk) 09:03, 19 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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