Talk:List of botanists

Paris?
Does anyone know the forename of the botanist with the surname Paris, as in Hylocomium splendens var. obtusifolium (Geh.) Paris? I've tried to Google it, but it drowns in the large amount of other meanings of Paris. Vivo (talk) 10:30, 10 October 2008 (UTC)


 * www.ipni.org doesn't list mosses, of course, but under authors it says that Paris, Jean Édouard Gabriel Narcisse (1827-1911), whose abbreviation is Paris, worked on Bryophytes. Circumstantial evidence, but perhaps that gives you enought to work with. Nadiatalent (talk) 18:51, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

really do you need this information —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.89.214 (talk) 01:00, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Does Wikipedia really need this article ?
Does Wikipedia really need this list of botanists or the alphabetical list? Surely other databases will eventually be much more complete, even if they aren't yet. Nadiatalent (talk) 03:24, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes. 212.253.222.79 (talk) 05:31, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Basis of inclusion?
I am unclear why a particular set of botanists has been included in this list, and on what basis. Can someone explain? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.104.113.175 (talk) 19:43, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
 * evidently not! Plant surfer  17:23, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Related AfD for Plant Scientists
Just in case any editors with an interest in this list are unaware, there is another list of Plant Scientists, which is currently up for deletion at AfD here: Articles_for_deletion/List_of_plant_scientists

I'd invite anyone to comment, regardless of viewpoint.

To admit my personal bias: I have slight concerns that if the result of that AfD is to merge, there is a risk that the nature of this list (Botanists) will change quite dramatically. At the moment, it has a bias towards rather old-fashioned, traditional botany: it has a bias towards bewhiskered explorers who discovered species in wild corners of the world, and those who peered down brass microscopes in mahogany-lined institutions to describe plants and their diseases. To be honest, I'm not sure this is a bad thing. It makes it a useful list of those who founded the subject, and worked in it while it had a stable, routine existence. But the subject, like many sciences, has blossomed, and gone through a 'paradigm shift'. There are now huge numbers of notable plant scientists now, whose interests have little on common with the botanists in this list. They will have nowhere else to go, and this could rapidly become a rather indiscriminate list of people who do wildly, wildly different things related in some way to plants.

We may need to contemplate what is the reason for/aim of this list, and who it ought to contain. I don't think it's going to be very useful if it becomes a sort of all-inclusive category-list of plant scientists. But if we don't keep a plant scientist list, then we really will have to update this botanist list quite dramatically as it's missing vast swathes of modern plant scientists with articles in Wikipedia. Elemimele (talk) 09:05, 6 April 2023 (UTC)