Talk:Tupelo (tree)

wrong Tupelo
Several of the pop culture references were to Tupelo, Mississippi, not the Tupelo tree. I have removed them.165.91.64.215 (talk) 12:13, 15 August 2008 (UTC)RKH

Bad reference
The National Honey Board web site has been reorganized, and no longer has a page for tupelo honey. Lou Sander 16:13, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Name change proposal by WikiProject:Plants
There has been much discussion regarding the name and opening line of this article and the uncited common names (black gum and pepperidge tree) which were added in 2008 & 2011. Tupelo is the only accepted common name for the genus as a whole. As we work to improve this article, it is likely to be moved to the name Nyssa. See the WP:Plants discussion--MCEllis (talk) 02:44, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * This is hardly a proposal "by" WikiProject:Plants. It seems to be a proposal from a participant in that project. Also, at least one of the common names in question was properly cited for at least five years until the citations were recently removed. We need to slow down here. Lou Sander (talk) 02:55, 21 February 2016 (UTC)
 * As I described on the discussion you brought to my talk page, if you search through the book cited "properly" in 2011, you will see that the book makes no description of the genus Nyssa and is only describing the species Nyssa sylvatica. It apples the name pepperidge only to the single species. This book would not be a credible source for describing Nyssa or any other Nyssa species other than Nyssa sylvatica alone. See links to excepts from various editions of the book below:
 * https://books.google.com/books?id=iidIAAAAYAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=pepperidge
 * https://books.google.com/books?id=UsozAQAAIAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=pepperidge
 * https://books.google.com/books?id=wL9joXgc6n8C&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=pepperidge
 * It's very important to follow Naming conventions (flora) here and use reliable sources which are actually referring to the specific plant, or group of plants in question.
 * --MCEllis (talk) 03:49, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

Dealing with common names, uses, traits, etc. of various species
This article is about the genus Nyssa, which contains many species, each with its own article. This article is also about the word "tupelo", which is not only a common name for the genus, but is also a common name for many of the species and of their products. There are two ways to think about the article: the botanical way, which cares about genus, species, etc., and the "common" way, which cares instead about things such as uses for tupelo wood, where tupelo honey comes from, how the city was named, etc., regardless of which species might be involved.

Maybe the article should have a "common" section (I don't know what it would be called) that discusses the latter things, probably also referring to the articles on the specific species involved. But don't make people go to the species articles in order to get basic information about the "common" stuff. For example, lots of people know about tupelo honey; there's even a pretty good song about it. Not too many of them would look for it under Nyssa ogeche. Tell them a bit about it in the Tupelo/Genus article; if there are details, explain them in the Nyssa ogeche article (or whatever species they use for honey). Many people are aware that tupelo wood is used by bird carvers. That should be mentioned in the Tupelo/Genus article. Fine points about tupelo carving wood could be covered in the article about whichever species supplies it (I imagine that is Nyssa aquatica.) Same deal for Bee gums, veneers, Ogechee limes, etc.

The same idea could be applied to common names. The Nyssa aquatica article lists seven common names. Since they are also names for a certain kind of tupelo, readers shouldn't have to go to a non-Tupelo-named article to find them. Nyssa biflora has two such names, Swamp tupelo and swamp black gum, and the same idea applies. The number of common names is large, but it isn't infinite. There's a better way of handling them than listing them only with the species to which they apply. Lou Sander (talk) 03:14, 24 February 2016 (UTC)


 * There is a slightly similar situation with Datura, a genus of flowering plants. There's the main article about the genus, and there are seven or eight about the various species. All of the species are dangerously toxic, but in spite of this are used as hallucinogens in some cultures. These matters are covered in detail in the genus article, and referred to in the species articles. This system of organization is helpful when somebody writes something in one of the articles about the plants' hallucinatory drug effects; they usually don't say much about the toxicity, but it needs to be brought into the discussion. That is easily done by referring to the genus article. Lou Sander (talk) 03:36, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Tupelo (disambiguation) which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 19:35, 17 February 2024 (UTC)