Talk:Brassicaceae

Onuris
genus Onuris now links to egyptian mythology. TeunSpaans 19:54, 28 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Nasturtium
genus Nasturtium listed here links to a flower listed as a member of family Tropaeolaceae. TeunSpaans 19:15, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * I've fixed this one now... and I fixed the one above yesterday. But, hey guys, the really smart thing to do in these cases is to write a short page that really is about the genus concerned - even if it's only a taxobox and a few basic facts culled from the web.  seglea 07:20, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Wasabia
Wasabi describes a genus from this family (Brassicacea), which is there called Wasabia and not in the genus list on this page. Should it be added? Jerome K. 08:04, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)

Cole
So where does the German word Kohl come from?--Curtis Clark 23:54, 2 September 2005 (UTC)


 * I looked it up--it also comes from caulis, by way of the Italian cavolo.--Curtis Clark 04:30, 3 September 2005 (UTC)


 * It goes back further than that, to Proto Indo-European, although it may have been mostly recently reborrowed into German from Italian. It's interesting that it shows up in a Germanic lanuage, Romance language, a Celtic language (cf. colcannon), and I had a good Slavic example that I can't remember right now. And it shows up in most of the English words for Brassica oleracea cultivars (through borrowing from other languages): cauliflower, kale, broccoli, kohlrabi and a cabbage dish, coleslaw.Plantdrew (talk) 22:00, 1 February 2013 (UTC)

Capparidaceae and Cleomaceae
Brassicales article says that Capparidaceae is not now treated separately from Brassicaceae. But list of genera here uses narrower definition of Brassicaceae (it is the same as in ). Maybe, lists from  and should be added.


 * The Brassicaceae are monophyletic, hence a good taxon in anyone's book. Some of the Capparaceae (e.g. Isomeris) are more closely related to the Brassicaceae than they are to the "core Capparaceae" (e.g., Capparis), which is itself monophyletic.


 * The issue is, should we lump them all into a single family (which would be called Brassicaceae by the rules of nomenclature), or should we divide them into several families: a monophyletic Capparaceae, a Brassicaceae that includes Isomeris and close relatives, and perhaps a few other small families that don't fit into either of those clades.


 * There are a number of other "family pairs" in which one is paraphyletic to the other. Two that come immediately to mind are Fumariaceae/Papaveraceae and Araliaceae/Apiaceae. Perhaps the best approach for now in Wikipedia is to state in Brassicales that, although Capparaceae are not monophyletic, and are often combined with Brassicaceae, they are still treated separately in Wikipedia.--Curtis Clark 18:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The problem is not if we should treat them separately or not. The problem is that tree of taxons is not consistent. What we have now is:


 * (1) Brassicales says that Capparadiceae is merged to Brassicaceae.


 * (2) Brassicaceae circumscribes family in narrow sense.


 * (3) No one wants to write Capparidaceae because top-level taxon article (i. e., Brassicales) says that it is obsoleted in APG (that is supposed to be the main taxonomy system of Wikipedia articles on angiosperms).


 * (4) Caper article uses Cronquist systematics and says that Capparidaceae is a part of Caryophyllales.


 * The same situation is in pair Lemnaceae and Araceae, and so on.


 * Such situation when top-level taxon article uses wider circumscription of taxon than the taxon article leads to “invisible clades”. For example, most of garden plants have their articles in Wikipedia, but not spiderflower (Cleome). I think that one of causes is that the only way for Wikipedian to find the absence of this article is to type “Cleome” in search field, but not to see somewhere (in Brassicaceae or Capparaceae) something like “Cleome - spiderflower”.


 * I'm not a botanist, so I can't decide what solution here is preferrable, but I think one of them should be choosed and implementated consistently.


 * (1) Treat Brassicaceae=Bra+Cap+Cle, but mention in Bra article that it can be splitted as Cap+(Cle+Bra) (and for example, place the marks in list of genera: Brassica¹, Capparis², Cleome³).


 * (2) Treat Brassicaceae=Bra+Cle (and mention the possibility of splitting), also write the article Capparidaceae.


 * (3) Treat Brassicaceae=Bra, and write two more articles.--213.247.213.207 22:21, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

lead
suggest swaping 2nd and 3rd para's with each other. Gnangarra 12:43, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

edibility
I believe I read somewhere that Cheiranthus cheiri contains cardiotoxic glycosids making it thus possibly poisonous. Does anybody know more about this? J. Lesjak, 12:05, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Revamping this page
I'll follow the scheme now given at the APG website (and thus Brassicaceae s.s.) and make a cladogram of Brassicaceae s.l. in the section about taxonomy to explain the topic. I'll try to write the article in a way that it will not be too difficult to merge with Capparaceae if the situation will change. I hope this will be OK for everybody. Aelwyn 12:36, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I have a small problem: I'm using as a source (amongst many others) a didactic paper from the University of Florence, which is based on the Italian translation of a book by Arthur Cronquist which is simply called Botanica (means 'Botany', there was no need to translate I suppose) and that dates 1979. I can't find the name of the original (it must be a very general introduction into botany), but I suppose it would be better to cite it directly, as translations in this field are extremely straight-foreword, nearly word by word. How should I cite this source? Aelwyn 18:56, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

PubMed cite to study: 2/3 reduction of glucosinolates and sulforaphane in fresh broccoli after steaming.
This was the only study I easily found for the often-repeated claim that cooking reduces the goitrogenic properties of cruciferous vegetables.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11525594

Conaway CC, Getahun SM, Liebes LL, Pusateri DJ, Topham DK, Botero-Omary M, Chung FL.

Disposition of glucosinolates and sulforaphane in humans after ingestion of steamed and fresh broccoli.

Nutr Cancer. 2000;38(2):168-78.

Erratum in Nutr Cancer 2001;41(1-2):196.

Abstract

The cancer-chemopreventive effects of broccoli may be attributed, in part, to isothiocyanates (ITCs), hydrolysis products of glucosinolates. Glucosinolates are hydrolyzed to their respective ITCs by the enzyme myrosinase, which is inactivated by heat. In this study, the metabolic fate of glucosinolates after ingestion of steamed and fresh broccoli was compared in 12 male subjects in a crossover design. During each 48-hour baseline period, no foods containing glucosinolates or ITCs were allowed. The subjects then consumed 200 g of fresh or steamed broccoli; all other dietary sources of ITCs were excluded. Blood and urine samples were collected during the 24-hour period after broccoli consumption. Total ITC equivalents in broccoli and total ITC equivalents in plasma and urine were assayed by high-performance liquid chromatography as the cyclocondensation product of 1,2-benzenedithiol. The content of ITCs in fresh and steamed broccoli after myrosinase treatment was found to be virtually identical (1.1 vs. 1.0 micromol/g wet wt). The average 24-hour urinary excretion of ITC equivalents amounted to 32.3 +/- 12.7% and 10.2 +/- 5.9% of the amounts ingested for fresh and steamed broccoli, respectively. Approximately 40% of total ITC equivalents in urine, 25.8 +/- 13.9 and 6.9 +/- 2.5 micromol for fresh and steamed broccoli, respectively, occurred as the N-acetyl-L-cysteine conjugate of sulforaphane (SFN-NAC). Total ITC metabolites in plasma peaked between 0 and 8 hours, whereas urinary excretion of total ITC equivalents and SFN-NAC occurred primarily between 2 and 12 hours. Results of this study indicate that the bioavailability of ITCs from fresh broccoli is approximately three times greater than that from cooked broccoli, in which myrosinase is inactivated. Considering the cancer-chemopreventive potential of ITCs, cooking broccoli may markedly reduce its beneficial effects on health.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.190.133.143 (talk) 21:07, 28 January 2012 (UTC)

ploidy?
What paleopolyploid events are common to all Brassicacaceae? --Dan Bolser (talk) 20:29, 16 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Not sure, but there are enough species with low chromosome numbers (e.g., n=6) that I'd guess none.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:43, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
 * This might answer the question, if you have access, the abstract mentions an ancient genome duplication: Nadiatalent (talk) 13:24, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Hugueninia
The genus "Hugueninia" listed here links to a fungus. There is indeed a "Hugueninia" in the family B., namely: Hugueninia tanacetifolia = Sisymbrium tanacetifolium = Descurainia tanacetifolia 93.146.11.225 (talk) 15:26, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Cruciferae
"Cruciferae, an older name..." This is a confusing statement, as normally older names take precedence. Why then isn't Brassicaceae a "junior synonym"? Dates, clarification, and above all cites for this would be useful. 84.203.36.249 (talk) 18:36, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * You may find this from Google n-grams interesting. I can't decode the ICBN reliably, but "Crucifera" was once considered a valid genus, but is no longer, with its species dispersed among several genera, apparently all in Brassicaceae.  Thus it could presumably not form "Cruciferaceae".  The name "Cruciferae" is explicitly conserved in ICBN, like "Compositae", "Graminae", etc.
 * Rather than explain the whole who-shot-John of the ICBN status, perhaps it could be reworded as "Cruciferae, until recently the more widely used name for this family, ....". I personally find the business of nomenclature something of a canard in the consideration of living things, with too much virtual ink being devoted to names rather than behavior, ecology, description, or even evolutionary conjecture. DCDuring (talk) 19:48, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Article 11.1 of the current botanical code says "Each family or taxon of lower rank with a particular circumscription, position, and rank can bear only one correct name, special exceptions being made for nine families and one subfamily for which alternative names are permitted". Cruciferae is one of the exceptions. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:09, 27 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Sure, but the question is why isn't the older name "Cruciferae" the primary name. If you could quote chapter and verse on that, it would be better than my semi-informed conjecture. DCDuring (talk) 10:19, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I think there's only the wording of 11.1. For all but the 10 special names, priority applies. For these special cases, they are "alternatives" and no priority applies, so neither "Cruciferae" nor "Brassicaceae" is primary. In practice, the older names not formed from a genus + "aceae" are now used much less. See this Google ngram. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:25, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd noted the relative frequency above. The hypothesis about the regular names displacing the irregular is interesting from my point of view as a Wiktionarian. DCDuring (talk) 17:35, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * I'm sure it's a generational thing. When people like me who learnt the irregular names at school die off, regularity will rule. :-) (Irrelevant to this page, but if you're interested in these things, another generational change is in how genus names are abbreviated. I would naturally abbreviate a genus name derived ultimately from a Greek word beginning φ or χ to Ph. or Ch. rather than P. or C. But this is a practice now almost dead.) Peter coxhead (talk) 18:55, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Ah, I think I see. The old "type genus" is defunct, so the old name no longer conforms to the preferred (required?) naming pattern, but it's "grandfathered in" due to easing in the retcon.  I didn't realize that was cause for renaming (or additional-naming, in this case).  Thanks for the gloss of all that!  84.203.32.136 (talk) 01:50, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * That's my hypothesis, but I can't quote chapter and verse from ICBN to support it. DCDuring (talk) 02:01, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * The ICN doesn't give reasons; you'd have to search a journal like Taxon to see if there was any recorded discussion. But it's not to do with the type genus being defunct, it's a matter of descriptive names like Cruciferae or Coniferae not formed from family and genus names. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * That also suggests there is (now) an expectation/rule of family names being formed from type genera, but is differing rather on the point as to whether Crucifera was previously the type genus, as I was reading the above, or purely descriptive of the family, then. (I tried some cursory googling, but results too polluted by spiders to be immediately informative.)  84.203.32.136 (talk) 17:01, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Ah, no, Compositae, Cruciferae, Labiatae, Coniferae, etc. are all names, not names formed from genera. Had there been a genus "Crucifera" which was the basis of the family name, the family would have been called "Cruciferaceae". "Cruciferae" just means "cross bearers" because the flowers have 4 petals. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Addendum: the type genus of the family being obsolete or otherwise not used isn't relevant. For example, there's no longer a genus called "Cactus" – but the family is called Cactaceae from the former Linnaean genus "Cact-us" + "-aceae". As another example, the genus Lowia gave its name to the family Lowiaceae, but Lowia has been absorbed into Orchidantha. However, this doesn't render the family name invalid; it will still be used regardless of the now non-use of the genus name. There are quite a few families like this, i.e. where the family name is formed from a genus name which is no longer used. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:41, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Gee. I knew some of those facts, ie, about family names formed from now-obsolete genus names, and didn't reason from there.  At Wiktionary, I've even been adding Etymologies for higher taxa that are so so formed. Even Cactaceae. D'oh. DCDuring (talk) 22:03, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Your wiktionary entry is correct, of course, but it could be useful to note that "Cactus" is no longer used as a genus name, although it's the common name. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:21, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Because in principle we are interested in words-in-use (a strictly descriptive stance) rather than words-as-prescribed (eg, by the ICBN), that kind of thing is less important for us, though we usually try to note such things. It is pretty hard to keep track of the changes of meaning, especially as a substantial part of the meaning is position in the taxonomic tree and the species description is really not part of meaning-in-use, just as the number of electrons in an iron atom is not part of the meaning of the word iron to most normal people in normal conversation. DCDuring (talk) 23:10, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Is the "type genus" pattern to always add -ceae? I didn't think it was especially regular.  Though possibly I'm just failing to distinguish the separate "declension" by plants and animals, or whatever level the conventions and patterns are defined at.  (Ignoring as best I can the bacteria,  archaea, protists and fungi...)  84.203.44.176 (talk) 00:10, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Among plants, -aceae is added to the stem of a genus. Among animals, -idae is added.  Virus families end in -viridae, not necessarily added to a genus name.  I don't know much about the other classes of living things.  Finding the stem requires a little knowledge of Latin (and Greek) or a lot of exposure to the patterns. DCDuring (talk) 01:53, 7 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Between a year of having the basics forced into me as a shell-shocked 12-year-old and google, bluffing my way in scientific Latin I can just about manage. Yeah, I was going to cite animal examples as differing from the pattern you mentioned, before it occurred to me, "... wait, those are animals, doubtless they have a different pattern".  Most interesting and educational, thank you.  I'm little clearer on how to make this all clearer in the article without wandering into speculative and unsourced territory, but I'm happier in my own mind, at least!  84.203.44.176 (talk) 03:47, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

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Suspicious (?) subfamily, tribe, subtribe
The article Vilma Kuusk mentions the subtribe Alliariinae from the tribe Sinapeae. Unlike that that this subtribe is worth of its own article--Estopedist1 (talk) 07:05, 11 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Experience shows that at present, there are constant changes in the way subtribes and tribes are circumscribed. They are also poorly supported in reliable secondary sources. So articles are rarely a good idea. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:56, 11 April 2021 (UTC)

Ecology - self-pollination
Not sure about the claim of being almost exclusively insect-pollinated - "notable exceptions" that are self-pollinated should at least include A. thaliana as it's a key factor in its use as a model organism! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2405:B000:706:2:0:0:177:136 (talk) 23:51, 3 August 2023 (UTC)