Talk:Marchantiophyta

Number of species
This page should say how many species are found in the division.
 * That information is on the page (at least it is now). --EncycloPetey 20:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

we need to know the classification! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.117.145.66 (talk) 21:40, 17 May 2013 (UTC)

References and Rating
I have added a number of in-line references to this article. I expect its quality scale rating could be reconsidered as a result. --EncycloPetey 20:06, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Sure. Good at least. Aelwyn 15:19, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

I could pass it, but let's wait for a non-expert to evaluate it! Aelwyn 15:27, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

GA review
Well done! I have passed this article as a Good Article. Overall, the article was well written, the images were great, and the sources especially well chosen. However, a few things should be addressed before heading onto the road to FA status:


 * 1) The statement in the lead "Some species can be a nuisance in shady green-houses" seems out of place. Maybe it could be moved to Ecology or Economic importance? Also, can you be more specific on the "some species" part?
 * 2) The section "Economic importance" deals very little with actual economic importance. I suggest something like "Human importance" be used instead. If you continue to expand this section, I suggest using subsections to separate the history paragraph from the human impact and uses paragraph.
 * 3) Additionally, the part about liverworts reducing erosion and such should at least have some sort of source.
 * 4) The Ecology section is a little scarce. Perhaps you could explain the importance of Marchantiophyta in an ecosystem.
 * 5) The last few statements in the "Life cycle" subsection are uncited. If you could cite them, that would be great.

Other than those specific points mentioned, if you'd like to FA this, you're going to have to expand a lot. Again, good job, and I hope to see this article sometime in FA nominations.  bibliomaniac 1  5  20:53, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Cladogram
Uploading pictures of cladograms is commonplace (I've done it myself several times). Did you know we have a template? It's not that powerful, but it works and has some obvious advantages over images, like it can contain wiki markup, is easily modified and can be used more consistently. What do you think? Aelwyn 10:12, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Two hypotheses on the phylogeny of land plants (Embryophyta)


 * Yes, I know about the cladogram template (see the one I added to the Plant page). I haven't yet redone the cladogram here for two reasons:
 * I needed copies of all the recent research on liverwort phylogeny that came out in 2006 and 2007. There were several such articles that did for liverworts what APG did for angiosperms.  There was no sense in doing the cladogram before digesting those articles.
 * The clade template does not display properly on all platforms. On some systems, the cladograms generated by that template look terrible.  Specifically, the bifurcations don't show up as equal bifurcations on a Mac using Safari.  All the "upper" branches are rendered as a straight line with all the "lower" branches descending from that straight line to varying depths.  The result makes it look as though there is a straight line of evolution towards one hapless clade while all the other groups are side-branches.  The result is misleading about views on evolution, and promotes serious misconceptions that evolutionists have been trying to stamp out for decades.  So, for the particular cladograms you're referring to (which are small) it doesn't seem worthwhile to use the defective template.
 * --EncycloPetey 12:57, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't know about the formatting problems under Safari. I wonder why they don't say a word about it in the clade template page. It's a pity it is so defective, it would be of great usefulness (I'm using it very extensively). Regards Aelwyn 15:36, 2 November 2007 (UTC) PS: I have the same problem under Konqueror (but not Firefox, which I normally use). Is there anything to do in these cases?


 * You can complain on the template's talk page, and sometimes that gets people to rethink before the template gets really widespread. The was a similar problem with the fossil range template not displaying properly on some platforms. --EncycloPetey 17:42, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Liverwort on the title
This is a bit of a conumdrum. There seem to be two identifications for the division of the Liverworts, and the option of Liverwort on the title is blocked by the page 'Liverwort', really a bit of a disambiguation. I suggest this page is removed, and the fact of the use of liverwort to name a flower type, could be in the introduction. No disambiguation should be necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by WikieWikieWikie (talk • contribs) 22:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No, the disambiguation is necessary because there is more than one meaning for the word 'liverwort'. That is what disambiguation pages are for. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Liverworts formerly of bryrophyta
On the Moss Wikipedia page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moss it discusses how the liverworts and hornworts were formerly classified under Bryophyta. Should there be some discussion on why they were reclassified?Elleacampbell (talk) 15:29, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That information is already in the article. Under the Classification header are two paragraphs discussing this. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:35, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Reasons to keep "Hepaticae" at the top of the page, with "in the past" and beside the common names
(1) Hepaticae redirects here. (2) the lead image on the page is entitled "Hepaticae". (3) to indicate that "hepatics" nowadays has the status of a common name and does not require correction to "Hepaticae". (4) to clarify the confusion, that Wikipedia appears to have created, that is described on the Hepatica talk page here. Nadiatalent (talk) 12:57, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * To reply to item (4), Wikipedia created no such confusion. See Webster's (3rd ed.) or the Oxford English Dictionary.  This is not the result of any typographical error here, but is the result of the problems of common names and history.  The term "liverwort" does indeed refer either to the flowering genus Hepatica or to the division Marchantiophyta.  You simply needed to check more sources. Also, the fact that a page redircts here is not in itself a reason to bold it at the top of the page.  If we did that, the tops of many articles would be very, very confusing, which runs contrary to the purpose of an introductory section.  Consider, for example, that Sexual reproduction of plants redirects to Plant reproduction, even though the latter does not have this phrase in bold at the top of the article (nor should it).  Further, "hepatics" has always been a common name and never required "correction" to anything. --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:50, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

Linnaeus would not have a clue what "hepatics" means, except by guesswork. Of course it never required correction, that's why the point needs to be made, for the people who think it does. Nadiatalent (talk) 18:40, 30 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Linnaeus is dead and did not speak English when he was alive, so we need not worry about explaining English words to him. Very few 18th-century botanists read Wikipedia. --EncycloPetey (talk) 01:16, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

At the risk of throwing fuel on a flamer, the recent exchange does raise an interesting question, that of what might be called "technical common names". The role of dictionaries is descriptive, not prescriptive, and therefore they record any utterance that is common, no matter how ill-formed or confusing (e.g. "liverwort" for "Hepatica"). The role of specialists and their writings is to devise a useful system of naming for very complex phenomena that is internally consistent (hence the general distaste for common names among biologists). I am not aware that anyone has, in Wikipedia or elsewhere, discussed the "technical common names" phenomenon. Specialists use some of the older names for their communication value, particularly the Latin names that specialists in other areas, and workers in other languages, were probably taught during their general education. Another example would be subfamily Maloideae within Rosaceae, which is well established with a particular meaning, but the latest molecular phylogenies have shown that calling this group a subfamily is not well founded. However, the alternatives, Pyrinae and Spiraeoideae, have well-established meanings for quite different groups (one inside, and one outside Maloideae). "A new type of embryology in Rosaceae:Spiraeodeae" might not catch the attention of someone who knows that their favorite group of Ranunculaceae shares some embryological features with the Maloideae. Authors who announce that a new genus has been described in a little-known family do a great service to readers (and to their own citation index) by including "Hepaticae" in the title. If anyone has seen a good discussion of what might be called "technical common names", perhaps Wikipedia could be used to explore the issue. Nadiatalent (talk) 14:41, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * That's all very interesting, but does not address the issue of what belongs in the article summary versus what belongs in the article body. The older name Hepaticae is discussed in the article body.  Since that name is applied at a different rank than division, it requires substantial explanation to avoid confusing the reader.  It therefore does not belong in the summary of the subject, but in the body where explanation can be given. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:11, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * No, Henderson's is not wrong (as claimed on your most recent page edit summary), Hepaticae has been used at many levels from family (Adanson) up through Phylum, all referring to the same group of organisms. No lengthy explanation of why the name is used is required, it is quite sufficiently explained as it is, in a very brief phrase. The summary should introduce the organisms being discussed on the page and their various frequently used names. This one is frequently used. There is plenty of explanation of why this belongs in the introduction higher up this page. If you continue to destroy useful information I will continue to consider it to be vandalism. Nadiatalent (talk) 23:41, 2 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Your edit that "The Marchantiophyta are a division of bryophyte plants ... still known to botanists as Hepaticae" is in error. The division is not called that, and you have provided no support for that claim.  Henderson's is in error because "Hepaticae means Hepatophyta" is in error.  "Hepatophyta" is itself an error as pointed out by Crandall-Stotler & Stotler, who had made the original error in 1977 from which the error spread into the literature.


 * You have provided reason for giving former, lesser, and obsolete names in the article. However, you have not shown why such taxonomic discussion beongs in the article summary.  Since the issue is only briefly summarized in the article, and is not relevant greatly to the subject of the liverworts as a whole, it is a minor point of taxonomic nomenclature that there are and have been many additional names used in the literature over the centuries.  See Linnaeus, for example.  The long list of taxonomic synonyms can be discussed in the article or added to the taxobox, but there is no cause for wedging such names into the article summary.


 * I did not destroy useful information. As I have pointed out before, the name Hepaticae is already in the article, and in more detail, so no information is lost in its removal from the article summary.  You are incorrect in your cry of "vandalism". --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:45, 3 April 2010 (UTC)


 * When you remove citations you are removing useful information. Enough already. Nadiatalent (talk) 12:09, 3 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The "citations" you added do not make the statements you claim they do. I have now had a chance to look at them, and they nowhere state that Hepaticae is in use by botanists.  The word appears in the article titles, true.  But you do not seem to understand that this violates WP:NOR.  Wikipedia citations must exlicitly state any claim that is being cited.  When you gather citations that contain evidence, and then infer a conclusion from them, Wikipedia considers that to be original research.


 * Since you do not seem to understand Wikipedia policies on original research or style in writing article summaries, and believe that removal or erroneous material can be vandalism, and have indicated an explicit unwillingness to consider the possibility you are wrong, I have protected the article from editing until the issue can be discussed to a satisfactory consensus. I am also going to ask members of WP:PLANTS to comment. --EncycloPetey (talk) 15:19, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

My sense is to leave it out of the lead, discuss it in the body. If "Hepaticae" is mentioned in the lead, it should not be with "still known to botanists as..." because that's misleading, since it would leave the reader thinking someone other than "botanists" use the term Marchantiophyta. More importantly, yes, do discuss it in the body of the article. More words are better than fewer words, more nuanced discussions are better than simple statements of fact. And, of course, nothing should be in the lead that isn't already discussed, in more depth, in the body of the article. Guettarda (talk) 21:12, 3 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree with Guettarda; there's no need for it in the lead. I'm concerned about the statement that "Hepatophyta" is mispelled; iiuc it cannot be a correctable orthographic error, since the ICBN does not regulate names above the family level. I'm also concerned about an admin protecting an article in which he is engaged in an edit war. If I were in that situation, I would have asked another admin, to avoid even the appearance of misuse of admin tools.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:08, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * The statement about the misspelling of "Hepatophyta" is citable from the authors who originally published that name. Since priority does not apply at the rank of division, there is no need to correct the error, but many textbooks have still tried over the past three decades to "correct" the error to (unpublished) Hepaticophyta, and the authors themselves "corrected" the name in passing to that spelling as well in their 2000 article in which Marchantiophyta was published with emendation (vide p63 annotations). --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:16, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * Whether Hepaticae belongs in the lead depends on how widely used it is, in documents which are reasonably likely to be read today. Such a thing tends to be notoriously hard to pin down, and I have not seen anything conclusive so far one way or the other.  With respect to the process, I don't think the question of whether it is mentioned in the lead is as important (one way or the other) as either EncycloPetey or Nadiatalent seem to believe. I agree that a participant in an edit war shouldn't protect the page, but for the present it is probably best to wait for the protection to expire in a few weeks.  Trying to come up with the right wording in the midst of, or immediate aftermath of, an edit war is often hard. Kingdon (talk) 13:27, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Economic Importance
I wonder whether some examples of use by humans could be given to the following: "However, a few species are used by humans directly. A few species, such as Riccia fluitans, are aquatic thallose liverworts sold for use in aquariums." Does this mean that the only economic use by humans is in aquariums? Dawright12 (talk) 11:39, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
 * It depends on how broadly you want to stretch the term "economic". Liverworts are occasinoally used as bioindicators in ecological studies, and have been cultured for scientific investigation of their genomes, but these are highly technical scientific uses with no direct impact on the economy.  There is some potential in liverworts as sources of pesticide, but I've not seen any use made of that potential, so again no actual economic impact.  I've also seen some anecdotal mentions of liverwort use in traditional Chinese medicine, but do not have sources to properly support this. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:55, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Life cycle
I had a little issue with some contradictory information within this section. It states here that liverworts produce a protonema, however when you enter the link to protonema it clearly stares that liverworts DO NOT have a pronto email stage. I am no expert and would appreciate if someone could set the record straight here. Thanks

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gillyjilly (talk • contribs) 11:44, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050323090944/http://www2.una.edu/pdavis/hepatic_orders.htm to http://www2.una.edu/pdavis/hepatic_orders.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050413214451/http://www.bio.ilstu.edu/armstrong/syllabi/222book/chapt6.htm to http://www.bio.ilstu.edu/armstrong/syllabi/222book/chapt6.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20051025142835/http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/liverwts.html to http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/liverwts.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050303043539/http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/hcs300/liver1.htm to http://www.hcs.ohio-state.edu/hcs300/liver1.htm

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Cambrian period popup
When I hover over the Cambrian period symbol (2nd from the left) at the top of the side-image, I see a popup that says "The Cambrian period ( or )...". The "( or )" doesn't look right, probably a bug makes it not be able to show correctly the Cambrian wiki entry's content in the parentheses — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:8806:E400:30EC:7872:16CD:26B1 (talk) 12:39, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

==How do they handle the arctic tundra? Undersans123 (talk) 14:53, 24 February 2021 (UTC)made by undersans123Undersans123 (talk) 14:53, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

Link to gallery not working
The link to the gallery in top section doesn’t work - it seems to go somewhere else. I don’t know how to fix it 174.93.163.189 (talk) 21:55, 18 November 2022 (UTC)