Talk:Lilium michauxii

carolina lily/turks cap lily
I am not a professional botanist but i believe these are two different flowers. the the turks cap lily is the lilium superbum, which has a separate article identifying it as "turks cap lily." Furthermore, a quick search of "turks cap lily" turns up a number of websites identifying it as "lilium superbum": the USDA Jefferson Davis Community College The Connecticut Botanical Society OSU College of Health and Human Sciences The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at UT Austin as well as a whole host of less respectable sounding websites including which provides a distinguishing feature, namely that Turk's Cap can have up to 40 flowers - though it is unusual - while Carolina Lilies have no more than 6. None of the sources revealed through a thorough internet search identify the turks cap lily as the lilium michauxii.

I am going to revert the edit. I recognize that you have provided a citation which is from a book. However, I do not have access to it (this does not diminish its credibility, it is certainly a very creditable source, but I simply cannot confirm it). Furthermore, it is over 30 years old, which does somewhat diminish its credibility in comparison with more recent reputable sources. Finally, 100% of the other evidence, including a number of respectable governmental and educational resources, goes the other way. Not to mention my personal experience--admittedly I'm from NC so "Carolina Lily" would tend to be more widely used even if there were multiple common names. However, i think the sources show that the flowers are similar but distinct and that one is correctly named "turk's cap" while the other is correctly named "carolina."

If some evidence does show that it is the case that both flowers are correctly called "turks cap," I think that this should be noted lower in the article with a disclaimer stating that turk's cap is more usually understood to refer to lilium superbum and not lilium michauxii to avoid confusion. Or, in any event, perhaps a note that the lilium michauxii and the lilium superbum share a close resemblance and are sometimes mistaken for one another. Best, InspectorTiger (talk) 03:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)


 * I do understand that the lily may be better known in the Southeast as Carolina Lily, and this would make sense given the proximity of the Carolinas. Another reason that I see for this is that in Bailey, L.H. 1929. The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture : A discussion, for the amateur, and the professional and commercial grower, of the kinds, characteristics and methods of cultivation of the species of plants grown in the regions of the United States and Canada for ornament, for fancy, for fruit and for vegetables; with keys to the natural families and genera, descriptions of the horticultural capabilities of the states and provinces and dependent islands, and sketches of eminent horticulturists. The MacMillan Company, New York.
 * the species is called Lilium carolinianum, and L. michauxii is listed as a synonym. In other words, one of the common names is a residue from older "lumpish" taxonomy, although we are now in an era of splitting.


 * Hortus Third is still absolutely THE standard reference for American horticulturists, and horticulturists have a considerable interest in this lily too.


 * It would make sense to discuss the other common name lower down the page, and I will do that. This is something that needs some very serious bibliography, and I will suggest that more citations are needed. Nadiatalent (talk) 11:15, 26 August 2010 (UTC)


 * My main concern is not "that the lily may be better known in the Southeast as Carolina Lily." My main concern, the one with which all of my citations were directed, is that "Turk's Cap Lily" is used today to refer only to a completely different flower. It is at best unnecessarily confusing and at worst misleading to have the common name "turk's cap lily" appear in the articles for multiple species, when, in fact, that common name is used only to refer to a single species.  A secondary concern, is that I couldn't find any sources which confirmed the claim that "turk's cap" is used to refer to lilium michauxii. That is not to deny that Hortus does so claim; it is merely to reinforce that the evidence for usage at least commonly, today, tends strongly toward "turks cap" going with superbum.  I also found several indicating that supurbum and michauxii look similar, which would explain any confusion in the past, especially given historically loose nomenclature.
 * Would you accept wording to the effect of "The common name Turk's cap lily has also been associated with (or listed with) lilium michauxii, though that name is more commonly used to refer to lilium superbum, which is very similar in appearance."? You could perhaps also include somehow that their ranges overlap, further contributing to confusion. InspectorTiger (talk) 12:54, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, the trouble with common names is that there is no mechanism in place to control them (except in the special case of birds, where there are so few of them that it has become practical to dictate the common names). Latin nomenclature certainly gets confusing as people make changes, but at least there is a mechanism for deciding which name is correct for each particular scheme of classification. The objection that I would have to stating that the name "is less common", is that you seem to be limiting yourself to online sources, and these may not have assimilated the most authoritative information (yet). We'd need to make an very extensive survey before "is less common" could be justified as a true(ish) statement. I feel that Wikipedia users are likely to include people who read books, and who want to type in the name exactly as they see it in a book, so the disambiguation page should include both species, and the pages about those species should include all "common" names. By "books" I also mean novels, which could well include old-fashioned names for flowers. I know a bit about horticulture, and the people that I know who practice it will pull books off the shelf to answer just about any question. I've put in some of your suggested text. Nadiatalent (talk) 11:54, 27 August 2010 (UTC)


 * Your argument is a bit confusing. First you say there is no authoritative mechanism for common names, then you say websites might not have the most authoritative information.  My intuition is that the internet would reflect the full range of common names that are actually in use (this is not true for all topics but for a flower whose range is entirely within the US it's a fair assumption), ie anyone can make a website, and a quick scan of search results shows that, indeed, they have. Many of the sites one encounters are horticulturalists' forums, or amateur webpages of enthusiasts.  After a more extensive search, i have found one source that refers to lilium michauxii as "turks cap": the dictionary (as well as a number of mirror sites, including mirrors of your earlier version of this page. I'd also like to note that the dicitonary may be a "print mirror" of hortus, since as you say it is THE authority).  If the internet sources were split 60-40 or even 80-20, or if the internet sources included only academic literature or only amateur efforts or only information from a certain subregion of the species' range I would certainly agree with you.  As it is, the sources have a very wide variety geographically and "authoritatively," even temporally (for the internet, some pages are basic html from '99 or 2000).  Furthermore a number of the sites go out of their way to distinguish the two flowers with the two names. The preponderance is so overwhelmingly on one side that I am more than convinced of the phrase "more common".
 * I would also suggest that it is reasonable to believe that this distinction will continue. Earlier, people saw the two flowers, they looked the same, they called them both Turk's Cap.  Over time, the distinction became more widely known and the group of people concerned with naming flowers (botanists and horticulturalists) shrank and became more "scientific" ie they wanted to distinguish between flowers very specifically so the name turks cap began to be used more for the one species than the other.  Thus the people noting the differences between the two on websites (common parlance), while the older, more authoritative print sources still indicate a common name that has fallen out of general use because they must if they are to be authoritative. Obviously that is conjecture, but it does show that the overwhelming uniformity of the online sources and the distinction from older print sources makes sense while the idea that the websites only go one way simply because they "may not have assimilated the most authoritative information (yet)" is a bit more difficult to explain. They went to all the trouble to create a website illustrating these flowers and they all didn't think to consult the authoritative sources and include the other common name, which is just as common? that's a bit far fetched.
 * I also want to note that I understand that this is a fairly minor point on what i'm sure is a very low traffic page. But that said I think Carolina lily is far more common and the page should indicate that for readers, who are likely to be horticulturalists. I agree with you that it should also indicate that turk's cap my also refer to this species, but it is less likely at least in contemporary sources. --InspectorTiger (talk) 14:33, 27 August 2010 (UTC)