Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of extinct plants


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete as an overly broad list per WP:SALAT. RL0919 (talk) 23:46, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

List of extinct plants

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Not to be confused with List of recently extinct plants, which I think is a valid topic, a single-article list of every extinct plant ever described, including both fossil and recently extinct plants is unmaintainable, the article as is, is hopelessly incomplete. I could maybe see specific sublists like "List of extinct ferns" or "List of extinct conifers" being maintainable, but a single list of every extinct plant ever is just not encyclopedic. The list if close to being comprehensive, would be enormous, and difficult to navigate. We already have organised lists of plants described by year, see 2020 in paleobotany for an example. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:23, 2 December 2021 (UTC) Question: Are there any plant species from the Jurassic say that aren't extinct? It would seem rather unlikely that a species could exist unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, I'd have thought. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:57, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Science-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:23, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Biology-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:23, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:23, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Keep A list does not have to be completed to be valid. "Unmaintainable" is not a valid reason to delete.  This is clearly an encyclopedic list.  WP:LISTN, second paragraph, please read it.   This list is clearly informational and navigational.   D r e a m Focus  22:28, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Over 200 new species of fossil plants have been described in 2021 alone, see 2021 in paleobotany, there are many thousands of described fossil plants, they couldn't be comfortably maintained on a single list. I wouldn't be opposed to an article of Lists of extinct plants, however, but nobody would bother to maintain it anyway. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:32, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The current list already divides things by geologic period they went extinct in, as well as other categories. If the list gets too big, those divides could be split off into other articles.   D r e a m Focus  04:32, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete Category:Triassic plants alone has 45 articles, versus 10 for this list. Or if we are not to lose this information, I'd recommend splitting up multiple lists, similar to the lists of animals at Lists of extinct species. –LaundryPizza03 ( d c̄ ) 22:44, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak keep The list needs improvement. What it should be is a list of lists that guides folks to smaller, more specific extinction lists for places and times. Understandably, that is quite an undertaking, given just how many extinct species there are. So while I think the list should be improved, I could also live with it simply being a category. CaptainEek  Edits Ho Cap'n!⚓ 23:09, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete I'm not incredibly familiar with list policy, to be transparent, but WP:SALAT recommends against excessively broad lists; either way, such a list as this seems ridiculous on the face of it. Would we have an article called "list of plants" or "list of extinct animals"? Or a list of words in the English language? I struggle to think so.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 23:26, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Not as far as I am aware. There are extant genera that have been around since the Jurassic, like Ginkgo, Sequoia, and Amentotaxus, but I don't think there are any extant species. There are some extant species that have been around for tens of millions of years, like Ginkgo biloba (see ) but they don't really get any older than the Paleogene. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:07, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Having done some further reading, there are reports of the extant fern species Osmundastrum cinnamomeum extending into the Late Cretaceous, around 70 million years ago, that's some extreme longevity, and certainly exceptional. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:31, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Is this a list of extinct genera, or extinct species? It seems to include both. Not that it really matters, since it seems to broad either way. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:45, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
 * From reading, it's inconsistently both. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:14, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Banksia is another notable example, imo. ~ cygnis insignis 03:12, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * That's a genus, rather than a species; important distinction in this particular case.  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 03:28, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Pardon the indent level, it was an ad for them at the mention of ancient genera, to which I might add Wollemia and Cephalotus. ~ cygnis insignis 06:06, 6 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:SALAT. Being extinct isn't a defining characteristic of a plant species or genera - almost all are. This is a 'list of plants', excluding a small subset, and as such impossibly broad in scope. WP:SALAT gives "list of brand names" as an example of a list "far too long to be of value", and this list is potentially at least capable of being far longer - the only reason it isn't is that Wikipedia isn't capable of compiling it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:45, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree, to an extent, but the total number of extinct plant species that have actually been described is dwarfed by living plant species (which number approximately 320,000), because the vast majority of what once existed is not preserved in the fossil record. The list of extinct plants on their own is still very large, especially if we are counting pollen species. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:57, 3 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:SALAT and AndyTheGrump's point that being extinct isn't a defining characteristic of a plant. Also, I just don't see how a list like this could be workable with 200+ extinct plants per year being discovered. Maybe there could be lists for the specific periods, geographic areas, or something. I don't really know, but I least know this isn't a workable list. --Adamant1 (talk) 06:35, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete I agree that List of recently extinct plants is useful, but a list of all extinct plants lumped together regardless of the taxonomic position of the plant or the geological time in which it occurred is too broad, not based on a defining characteristic, and so not useful. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:42, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per WP:SALAT, Looking at the taxa lists for geologic formations such as the Allenby Formation or Klondike Mountain Formation, or at the Year in Paleobotany lists (eg 2020 in paleobotany) shows just how extensive the paleobotanical record is.  This list is simply a wp:Coatrack of random plants, which is why I stopped contributing to it a number of years ago.-- Kev  min  § 17:10, 3 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete per the salient observation that "almost all species are extinct". This would be an unsupportably broad list. -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 03:28, 4 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Note: This discussion has been included in the Article Rescue Squadron's list of content for rescue consideration.  D r e a m Focus  22:26, 4 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Category:Lists of extinct plants shows List of extinct flora of Australia, List of extinct plants of the British Isles, List of extinct plants of New Zealand, and List of extinct plants of the Nordics. Having this list split off by location, and this list just listing other lists, might work if the length gets too long.   D r e a m Focus  22:26, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * "If" it gets too long? I'm not sure you properly understand the scale at play with "every extinct plant".  LittleLazyLass  (Talk | Contributions) 22:32, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Also it might make sense for recently extinct plants, but not for most extinct plants, many of which were extinct before the present land masses existed, let alone the countries. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:34, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Well Category:Extinct plants divides them by continent, type, and time period.  D r e a m Focus  22:43, 4 December 2021 (UTC)
 * The earliest 'extinct plant' listed is Eorhynia, from the Late Silurian. Our article says that "Fossils were found in Podolia in modern Ukraine". Which continent would that be listed under? From what I can figure out (I'm no geologist, so may very well be wrong) the answer seems to be Baltica. How many of our readers have even heard of Baltica? AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:59, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I think by this time Baltica had collided with Laurentia to form Laurussia, but your point still stands. It makes very little sense to group the pre-Cenozoic plants of the Indian subcontinent as those of Asia for instance, when it wasn't part of Asia during this time. Hemiauchenia (talk) 02:10, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * We know where the fossils were found in the modern era, so that's how they should be sorted. We can't accurately sort things by time period since you can't tell when a plant went extinct, only when the ones that left fossils died, others still living for countless years perhaps.   D r e a m Focus  04:20, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Where fossils were found in the modern era is not any kind of defining feature of the fossil, and grouping in this way just tends to encourage pointless nationalism. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:00, 5 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete As per WP:SALAT. MrsSnoozyTurtle 10:50, 5 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Comment Could WP:SALAT concerns be fixed by repurposing the article as "List of Fossil Plants", and removing any overlap with the "Recently extinct" list? There's already a redirect from List of fossil plants. ApLundell (talk) 01:25, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Delete in principle, this is unmaintainable as-is. But it looks like there's some material from the "modern extinctions" section that isn't yet in List of recently extinct plants. With listy material there's not really a need to retain the edit history, but it'd still be easier to cross-check if it were redirected, so that would work too. Opabinia regalis (talk) 03:50, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
 * I've archived the relevant material to User:Hemiauchenia/sandboxExtinctPlants if anybody is interested in using it. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)


 * Delete too broad for WP. As per WP:SALATDeathlibrarian (talk) 23:40, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Weak Keep: Changes to structure, header layout, usage of paragraphs, and increased summarisation can help make this page manageable. DTM (talk) 06:50, 9 December 2021 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.