Talk:Plantae

Moved in relevant discussions concerning Plantae from the Talk:Plant article to accompany text move of Classification subsection

The classification subsection in Plant is about Plantae not necessarily about plants; the two are NOT typically defined as equal by all people, including botanists - Marshman 08:37, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Genetic testing has demonstrated that the ophioglossoids are NOT ferns, but are probably more closely related to flowering plants, but still not at all closely related to them. Their position is still a little uncertain, but it is best, at least for now, to treat them as a wholly distinct group. John Knouse

I am interested in the new scientific naming you introduced. However such changes need to be discussed first since all other taxonomy here is based on that -- the information I included in the original table is 7 years old. --mav

The divisions given on the page are still essentially current, at least as far as extant taxa go, modulo some variation in ranking and naming. If the Ophioglossales are considered an independent group, I think we should treat them as such. They're pretty small and were already a separate order, so the change doesn't impact that much anyways.

But Tracheobionta is being used in the classification - just not by that name. --jaknouse

That's just it. The vascular plants are a standard group, but not everyone treats that group as the subkingdom Tracheobionta. I think there is enough variation in the upper level classification of plants that we would be doing ourselves a disservice by trying to formalize it. To be fair, I am not a botanist, and it's possible that there has been some recent shift towards a particular system that I'm not aware of. I think the Tracheobionta were originally put here simply because they showed up in one of the on-line taxonomic databases. --Josh

Hmmm. The bottom line is that the vascular plants appear to be monophyletic, representing a set of innovations over the other nonvascular plants, and so are a natural grouping. --jaknouse

I agree we should use the vascular plants. My point is that this is not the same thing as using the Tracheobionta, even if the two represent the same group. For instance, just doing some quick searching, people who include the green algae among the plants - and there is good justification for this - sometimes treat the remaining forms as a subkingdom Embryophyta, Embryobionta, or Metaphyta. In many such cases the vascular plants do not seem to be assigned a formal taxon, in others they are a superdivision or division, called the Tracheophyta or even Tracheata. And yes, the last conflicts with what we have on the page, but even so it suggests that the ranks are not as solid as the clades and should be used carefully.

I thought that green algae was only considered to be in Plantae in the 8-kingdom system. --mav

It's probably misleading to think of classification in terms of discrete x-kingdom systems. The eight kingdom system given on Talk:Kingdom (biology) is basically a hybrid between the six-kingdom system that splits Eubacteria and Archaebacteria and a seven-kingdom system by Cavalier-Smith that does not, but removes the Chromista and Archezoa from the Protista. It may be noted that C-S has abandoned the Archezoa in his newer schemes, since they appear to be empty. Meanwhile other people have recognised various groups of Protista as kingdoms.

None of this really has a direct impact on the placement of the green algae, however. Older versions of the 5-kingdom system sometimes keep the green, red, and brown algae among the Plantae, since they include multicellular organisms, but this is not done any more because these forms are not closely related. However, the green algae are definitely close relatives of plants, so are frequently included, in some versions of the 5-kingdom system as well as the newer schemes. It may also be noted that a few recent systems also return the red algae to the kingdom Plantae, based on the supposed monophyletic origin of primary chloroplasts, though I don't know if anyone does so without at least recognising the Chromista.

Given all this, I figure that treating the Plantae as including the embryophytes and green algae, but no other forms, would be a reasonably happy medium between the different approaches. -- Josh


 * That happens to be my POV too but I was asking because I thought it was still a minority view (the version of the 5-kingdom system I was taught as an undergrad did not include green algae in Plantae). But you have convinced me that it is fine to include green algae in this article. --mav

I really think this page should be remerged with plant. As far as I can tell the separation was done in order to refelct varying meanings of the English word, but at the same time the exact circumscription of the kingdom has also varied, and in very much the same way. In any case it would not be too difficult to explain both on the same page. Whereas the separation, I think, will likely cause needless duplication of material and confusion about what should be on which page, ignores that the name of the taxon does vary somewhat (e.g. Metaphyta, Chlorobionta), and is contrary to the approach taken elsewhere throughout wikipedia. What do other people think?


 * I'm the one responsible and I disagree. I put a long discussion under plant that explains the multiple perceptions &mdash; none necessarily more preferable than any other and not exactly "different meanings of an English word." If the approach (you say) of Wikipedia is to simply believe there is some common understanding of a word like plant, then Wikipedia is in trouble because there are dozens of common perceptions of each and every "common" term used in the natural sciences. But I disagree with you in that perception of Wikipedia as well.  Sure, all of the stuff could go on one page, but then what? &mdash; Wikipedians are developing separate pages for every actor in a sit-com, every character that ever appeared on the Simpsons; but you would put everything anyone perceives as having to do with "plant" on one page.  Why?  Separating out Kingdom Plantae from plant is a logical way to expand two concepts that are related but different and likely to be of interest to different types of users. That is why I put the effort into explaining what "plant" means with links to pages that hold information fitting the reader's perception of the term. Plantae is just one of many, one that changes (as you point out), and one diserving of its own article. So where is the problem? There is "needless" duplication everywhere in Wikipedia. It is up to editors with backgrounds in those subjects to edit them down. And duplication generally is more useful than harmfull - 24.94.82.245 01:14, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we pretend there is a single meaning for the word plant, but I think that while we explain the circumscription we should actually bother to say something about plants. It wouldn't be difficult to have both sorts of material in a single article, and I think it would end up far better than two separate articles would. For instance:

Vascular plants are the most familiar, and what most people are referring to when they speak about plants. [Actually, I strongly question how many people would exclude mosses]. ''These are characterized by having a stem, roots, and leaves. Other features of vascular plants include... groups of vascular plants include...''

''Fungi are often considered plants, although they are saprophytic rather than photoautotrophic, and are generally classified in a separate kingdom. See Fungi for further information on them.''

I don't think it would be very difficult to adapt what you've written into this sort of form. The material currently on Plantae would be more difficult, but that's only because it was a quick evolutionary survey written mainly to put the divisions in context (now done partly by the taxobox) rather than a proper introduction to the organisms in question. Would you give me the opportunity to take a stab at writing an article with such a combined approach? -- Josh


 * Response to Josh. I just do not see what problem is being created by having two separate pages. Plantae is a natural for the biologist/botanist POV and can develop with extensive (if desired) discussion/material on how and why plants are classified as they are, clean from popular and older perceptions of what a plant is. Plant can be the place where less esoteric considerations are developed. I really do not understand whose ox is being gored here? Enlighten me why this is a problem. - Marshman 04:53, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * Edit conflict Josh, so my response here written before does not consider your questions above. I see that Josh has been a valuable contributor to the material in Plantae so obviously he is knowledgeable about the problem that arises implying that the taxonomic Plantae is the same as the common perception of "plant". It makes perfect sense to me to have Plantae as the place where the taxonomic questions and details are discussed &mdash; a logical separate page. Just compare the twotalk pages: Talk:Plant and Talk:Plantae. Of course everything could be brought back to the "plant" page, but that would be MORE not less confusing to users and contributors. Much cleaner as it is now. Similar problems occur all over Wikipedia: two examples: grass and Poaceae; conifer and Pinophyta. There are many more that will need to be faced -

Marshman 04:45, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I agree with you that in cases where there are considerable differences between the common meanings of a word and its equivalent taxon, segregation is cleaner, but I don't see how this is such a case. If I wanted to find, or add, material about plant's ecological role, appearance in the fossil record, nourishment, or some such, I imagine I would look at Plantae, since there is little chance it would apply to all fungi, seaweeds, and bacteria. So the only material that would be appropriate for plant is that which is already there, discussion of the different definitions of the term.

But at the same time, the varying circumscription should also be discussed on Plantae, explaining the history of the group, and it would be trivial to note that older definitions are still commonly used outside of taxonomy. So not just some, but all of the material from plant will be duplicated. In that case, I don't see why the pages wouldn't be merged. This is not like cases where the common meaning and scientific meaning don't line up at all, as in bug; the only differences between plant, Plantae, Plantae, and plant are the positions of the fungi and algae. I can't see why this is worth disambiguating.

At the moment, of course, Plantae does not do much of the discussion it should, which is presumably why you separated it. As stated, I would be happy to try rewriting it in a way that adds your information. -- Josh


 * You are right, there is not much more that could go under plant. It is almost like a disambiguation age. It would not be correct to discuss plants' ecological role, appearance in the fossil record, nourishment, or any such there, since nothing of the sort could be true for all plants (the term is just too broad). Plantae is too broad as well for most of those topics. I see where you are coming from &mdash; you are hoping that somehow a common, well known term like "plant" can have significant meaning as a tag for lots of general stuff about.... well plants.  I consider that wishful thinking. In general, I think the concept that this could be so is noble, but is going to just hobble the Wikipedia.  Terms like plant, animal, bug, grass, conifer, worm, fruit, and many many more cannot be the place markers for extended articles on biological, physiological, ecological, anatomical, etc. topics.  They can only be intro that explain why and where the details are located.  It is not that plant and Plantae are pretty close, but that the two are talking on different levels.  There is more about taxonmy, evolution, relationships that could go under Plantae, but that might be it for that article.


 * I see my role as a biologist as helping set up the proper files (articles) where new material should go. Plantae was once in its own article and it is good breakout topic from plant. By your reasoning, a treatment of fungi should not deserve a separate page. Why not bring in a subsection on taxonmomy and ecology of the algae under plant. Then there should be a subsection on autotrophic bacteria and bluegreen bacteria. They are all "plants" by some definitions. I see it only as this: there is obviously a need to restrict the definition of "plant" or just include everything. You want to restrict, but to include what you think is the best definition.  Even if I agree it is the "best" definition, we ultimately mislead others by making that choice ourselves - Marshman 07:51, 14 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Well, I would argue that things like vascular plants and mosses are worth treating here because they are common to all definitions. I don't think it's misleading, or NPOV, to give more common meanings of words prescedence. Also, I would like to caution you that the idea that common names and scientific names need different articles has been discussed many times before, and there has been very little concensus on it.

That said, I can see your point, and would like to propose something else. Since the kingdom Plantae has varied in scope and definition in exactly the same way as plant, I think the two are best discussed together, and so more technical information belongs someplace else. Would you support my moving it to, say, embryophyte, which is a common and precise term for the plants sans fungi and algae? Using such an invariable term might also make it easier to explain the different meanings of plant, without needing to separate the corresponding kingdom. -- Josh


 * I think what you are saying is include just the outline of Plantae (as we have now) and a longer, basic discussion on taxonomy under Plant, then move the bulk of text now in Plantae into Embryophyta to cover all of Plantae except algae. Is that right? That sounds ok to me.  However, bear in mind that it is not the groups that plant and Plantae have in common that are the problem.  Were they even reasonably the same, I'd say leave the systematics in plant.  It is the groups (like red algae, blue-green bacteria, fungi) that are not in Plantae but belong in plant that cause the problems. In other words, you continue to emphasize that there are groups the two articles have in common (I fully agree), and therefore it is not misleading to include all those under plant &mdash; but it is if you include just them and not include all the ones they do not gave in common (i.e., I'm still not convinced you are not in some way missing the point; as I'm afraid many others that argue you can just use common names in this way).  For example, your suggested way to deal with fungi was:


 * Fungi are often considered plants, although they are saprophytic rather than photoautotrophic, and are generally classified in a separate kingdom. See Fungi for further information on them.


 * a NOT satisfactory approach as it really does not say anything other than imply fungi are not plants, which I would argue is not true. To dismiss within plant each group you do not think belongs there because it is no longer in Plantae or Eukaryote is to perpetuate a myth. Fungi are plants, as are seaweed, etc. So they cannot be dismissed by statements in plant and that is where emphasizing "Plantae" or "Embryophyta" is misleading. Fungi are NOT Plantae, but they are plant.  Does that not make sense? - Marshman 01:39, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That's basically what I'm saying, and I'm glad you approve. Note that I wasn't arguing for dismissal of groups like fungi, the quip simply came across that way because I didn't want to explain why they would be included. For the red algae, the most delicate and interesting case, I would point out:


 * they are photoautotrophs, mostly multicellular, and many superficially resemble the embryophytes, so are often considered plants;
 * they show different pigmentation and ultrastructure than green plants, and so are often considered protists;
 * but they do have primary chloroplasts, and from this it has been conjectured they are the sister group of green plants, so should be included among the Plantae.

Not phrased like that, mind you. Also, please note that the kingdom Plantae does vary in whether or not groups like brown and red algae are included, which is why I've argued that the destinction between plant and Plantae is largely fictitious. So, yeah. I will make that move, and we'll see what happens here. -- Josh


 * I like what you have done so far with Plantae and Embryophytes subject to tweaking of course. I'm a little nervouis about your plans for plant I'd prefer the intro part stay basically along the lines presently there - Marshman


 * I think that it is important to be practical in dealing with this sort of question. We could argue all year about the relative merits of one page vs two pages vs 101 pages, and the philosophical justifications for these views. But I think it's better to simply ask ourselves which approach works better in this particular case? Text in an article, especially one that has many authors, tends to develop a life of its own. Sometimes that development leads us in the direction of two articles, sometimes just one. Sometimes we get two articles but then, as the body text matures, it later seems sensible to merge them back together again. My advice, in other words, is to look at the entry(s) as it stands, and go with the flow. Tannin

I fail to see the point why Plantae and plant are separate articles and I agree with Josh that this material should be merged back into plant. The historical development of just what we call a "plant" is a perfectly valid thing to cover in an encyclopedia article on the subject and our NPOV policy prevents us from just concentrating on just one POV (the current botanical dogma on what is a plant). Separate articles will only lead to needless duplication of effort and material and thus mean that we will have two weakened articles instead of one strong one. I'll move this back myself in a day or two. --mav 05:02, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Cool. I write a three paragraph explain why plant and Plantae are NOT the same thing, why plant covers a concept substantially broader (not a POV, a FACT) than the current thinking re taxonomy of the SEVERAL various groups that comprise what fits within the concept of "plant" -- no one reads anything, they just go on thinking they know what a plant is, when they have not given it any thought beyond what they grew up with. I have a frustrating week of discussion with Josh and we seem to be nearing agreement on what the terms really mean. And now you want to just move everything back into "plant" for no reason given. Fine. Do what you will. I assumed that this was a project looking for some kind of excellence in presentations. But instead it is ruled by the "Golden Book" mentality. I'm out of here. - Marshman


 * I've slept on the issue and I can see a way we can all be happy (I think). First be clear it is your POV that is the problem. I'm trying to stick to the facts by having the article plant refer to what most people using the Wikipedia would regard as plants. The information under Plantae and now Embryophyte is the technical coverage. YOU want to restrict plant to "the current botanical dogma" by equating it with Plantae &mdash; I want to see the article plant used for the commonly held concept of what are plants and towards that end I moved out the "Botanical" technicalities. So do not get confused where we all stand on this in relation to Wikipedia concepts. But I can see if you want everything on one page for some reason (stated: "there would be unnecessaruy duplication"), then the technical classification of Plantae could go below the general "plant discussion". I'd go ahead and revert the page back to this layout, except Josh has put in a bit of time into developing Plantae in a somewhat different direction and I do not want to mess up his efforts without his weighing in on it. Personally, I think I like things just they way they are right now, and the article(s) are hardly weak. In fact the whole idea that a single article is strong, but creating several articles from it results in weak articles is a strange one (see Tannin's good point above).  This is a hypertext document and accuracy far exceeds the need to put everything on one page.  By your arguments, since most people associate "plant" with "Botany"  we should combine those two articles (which right now have very redundant text) and develop a single article which covers all topics in Botany under plant. Again, I'm mystified how this would be either strong or acceptable under general principles. Anyway, if Josh will let me know where he thinks Embryophyte and Plantae should now go, I can live with that huge bunch of stuff under "plant". - Marshman 18:59, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I haven't really put that much time into any of this, and I certainly wouldn't oppose Mav in doing what I originally argued for. I think that we should mention the term embryophyte, but the corresponding article could be a stub or a redirect - whatever it is we normally do for very slightly different groups. The list on Plantae could be integrated without difficulty, and I wouldn't worry about it. I'd be happy to let you two work things out by yourselves, if that's what you want. -- Josh


 * Thanks Josh. I'll restore things back with the plant intro on top and we can all live with that for awhile. I don't think it is as practical a solution as mav thinks, but when people are not willing to reason their way through disputes, the whole enterprise suffers. - Marshman


 * The enterprise suffers when there are three articles on essentially the same thing. As I said the term "plant" has evolved to mean different things as time went by and our understanding of the world increased. I don't know how you could interpret that as a POV to make plant restricted to the current botanical consensus view. And covering all of botany in plant is a strawman argument since I never suggested anything of the sort. With that said, the taxonomy should focus on the 6-kingdom/3-domain hybrid system that Wikipedia has standardized on - everything else will be part of the history of the term's use. --mav 07:23, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)


 * I can see exactly where we differ. The meaning or our understanding of the word or grouping Plantae "has evolved to mean different things as time went by and our understanding of the world increased." Our use, understanding, and common felt meaning of plant has not changed. Anyway, I'm ok with the way the page looks now. - Marshman 17:01, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)