Talk:Plant

Semi-protected edit request on 29 February 2024
From the evolutionary history section, delete "However, evidence from carbon isotope ratios in Precambrian rocks suggests that complex plants developed over 1000 mya.[36]" This does not match with current scientific consensus of the evolution of plants. The source pointed to is a Nature article on "Earth's earliest non-marine eukaryotes", but there is no evidence in this article which supports the claim that complex plants developed over 1000 mya. The article does not make any claims about which eukaryotic kingdom these specimens come from (be they plant, fungus, or animal). Frunk10 (talk) 11:56, 29 February 2024 (UTC)


 * In a separate article on plant evolutionary history (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_history_of_plants), this article is cited saying "There is evidence that cyanobacteria and multicellular photosynthetic eukaryotes lived in freshwater communities on land as early as 1 billion years ago," which is more appropriate wording. Frunk10 (talk) 11:58, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Done, removed the sentence as they weren't claimed to be plants by the article and mentioning them in this context would be confusing more than anything else. Chaotıċ Enby   (talk · contribs) 23:48, 2 April 2024 (UTC)


 * I think we're swiftly reaching the wrong answer here. We (and the paper) don't need to assert that the fossils are "plants": they'd be parts of the stem group, and nobody is ever comfortable making the equation between the first fossil members of a stem group and the group itself, it just can't be done. However, the entire point of the mention is that they were "multicellular photosynthetic eukaryotes" (clang! ding! ring!! ding-dang-dong!!!) which should, er, ring a bell for anyone who ever did a basic biology class. I'll put the citation, which is plainly relevant, back into the article along with a more cautious wording. Even if those words don't, er, chime with absolutely everyone, they should. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:18, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Condescending tone not necessary thank you! The citation might be relevant so leave it in if you wish, but my gripe was with the claim that complex plants evolved 1000 mya with a citation to a paper which does not prove or even claim to prove this. If you want to leave the citation in, you the wording needs to be more specific. Frunk10 (talk) 09:38, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * The claim has been completely rewritten, and I made no comment on your long-ago opening remarks. My point is that while the text that was removed from the article was very wrong (actually, it seemed to conflate two or more papers), the paper cited is important and certainly relevant. On the kingdom, the paper explicitly states there's no evidence for the sort of filamentous (hyphal) structure that'd indicate a fungal thallus such as a lichen; and nobody has heard of a thalloid animal. The paper is too cautious to say the P-word - they obviously couldn't prove it without actual fossil chloroplasts (now there's a big ask). Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:41, 3 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Yes, fine. I agree the paper is relevant, but we need to be cautious with overinterpretation of brown mulch. The ding dang clang was unnecessary. Frunk10 (talk) 11:58, 3 April 2024 (UTC)