Talk:Bambusa vulgaris

Are B. arundinacea and B. Vulgaris the same?
AshLin had put the following nice material in the description section: A woody bamboo which grows to 40 meters in height. It has numerous thorny stems which grow in dense clumps. The stems are rounded, hollow, jointed and straight, with numerous leaves. The sections of stem between joints are 30 to 45 cms long. The lower parts of the stems have half-whorls of rigid, bare, thick horizontal branches. The stems have sheaths, 30 to 45 cms long which are leathery, shining, hirsute externally, yellow orange in colour when young and ribbed inside. The leaves are thin and grow upto 20 cms in length, and are glabrous above and hirsute below. The blades are triangular, smooth, having brown bristles inside. Flowers grow in "panicle" inflorescence clusters which may cover large parts of the stem, three to a parcel, close to the receptacles and emerging from the joints. But, I removed it on the grounds that it is on B. arundinacea and not B. vulgaris. AshLin has noted that in synonyms section of the taxbox arundinacea is referred to as a synonym for vulgaris (a fact supported by this source already used in the taxbox). I serched and found that this, this, this (one of the sources also used by AshLin), and this are describing the two as separate. In the article on Bambusa bambos, the type species for bambusa acording to Tom Hulse, B. arundinacea is referred to as a synonym of that species (supported by this and this sources). Can someone solve this confusion? Aditya (talk • contribs) 13:33, 29 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Since this plant doesn't do sexual reproduction very well (and, given that it's a plant, even that might not clear things up...), one would guess there may be some disagreement between sources. What do the references used by the NCBI taxonomy say? Allens (talk) 14:40, 29 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I note, BTW, that the source (tropicos) saying that B. vulgaris is a synonym for B. arundinacea also says it's a synonym for B. bambos (L.). Perhaps there is a conflict here between "lumpers" and "splitters"? Allens (talk) 18:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

The current checkist at Kew regards Bambusa arundinacea Willd. as a synonym of Bambusa bambos (L.) Voss, which in turn is distinct from Bambusa vulgaris Schrad. So, they are not taxonomic synonyms. Does that answer your question?

Note: I would not trust The Plant List, since it is still very new and full of many mistakes, but in this instance it happens to be correct. --EncycloPetey (talk) 17:30, 29 January 2012 (UTC)


 * That depends on how authoritative the checklist at Kew is considered to be; plants are not particularly in my area of knowledge of taxonomy, so I don't know. Allens (talk) 18:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * The World Checklist at Kew is considered very authoritative for monocot families. Kew Gardens publishes one of the two definitive references on plant taxonomy (the Kew Index); the other is published through Harvard. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:35, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I would agree with Pete on that. Also, Tropicos is not such a great source for synonyms, since they list any time even a secondary author has confused the two species much later, after the original publication of either name.  That really doesn't satisfy what we would call taxonomic synonyms, which would be appropriate to use in a taxobox or an article's Taxonomy section. It leads to confusion just like this.   --Tom Hulse (talk) 21:55, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

It's great that this has come to light. May we request that a cleanup of Bambusa based on Kew be done so that those of us who are not "into" plants can depend upon the sourced information herein. AshLin (talk) 03:28, 30 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Looking at these sources I understand that Bambusa vulgaris has no botanical synonym. I am removing the synonyms inspired by tropicos. Aditya (talk • contribs) 04:03, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Aditya, I don't think I said that right, I'm sorry. Have a look at [Kew's list] of synonyms for B. vulgaris.  I would go with anything that has 3 stars on that list, unless you find some very reliable sources that disagree.  One thing that helps when discussing synonyms is to always include the author citation, just like Encyclopetey did above.  That author citation is really part of the name.  So, for instance, there can be multiple different versions of Bambusa arundinacea, once you add the author.--Tom Hulse (talk) 19:00, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Should the "invalid"/"illegitimate" names be listed, when they have 3 stars? I don't think I personally would. Allens (talk) 19:19, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I would include illegitimate, but not invalid, as those are not "names" under the Code, and so can't be synonyms (it calls them "invalid designations", not names). If you wanted a very thorough Taxonomy section, you could still include these in the text of the article, perhaps describing why they are invalid, as long as we don't call them names or synonyms.  There is discussion about this issue now here--Tom Hulse (talk) 20:11, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have put in all the three stars, sans the illegitimate and invalid. Aditya (talk • contribs) 03:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Request in peer review to look up more information
In the peer review, there was a request to look up more information that I had been unable to do due to a combination of time constraints and not being a botanist. If a more precise request can be made (if it's still needed), I will try to look it up via the online databases I have some access to (not sure if any of those include botanical ones, though!). Is there any particular article talking about the taxonomy that I should be looking for? I'm more likely to have luck finding & accessing such than I am to have access to particular botanical databases. Allens (talk) 13:37, 15 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I have dug out some stuff (google books, google scholar, google search). A little died down at the moment. Will be getting there. Aditya (talk • contribs) 12:20, 16 February 2012 (UTC)