Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Archive22

Bot for redirects
Is there a bot for plants or anywhere else on Wikipedia or a script for fixing redirects after moves? I moved Mulberry to Morus (plant), and there are quite a bit of links to Mulberry that should be made to direct wikilinks rather than redirects. A few other pages that I should tend to of this nature, and there are some plants I'm not bothering with because of the redirect issue. I would rather not do tasks like this. --Blechnic (talk) 07:10, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I think what you're looking for is WP:REDIRECT. Hesperian 07:15, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * But the double redirects should be fixed --Melburnian (talk) 07:39, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It is very rare when there is a long list in the 'what links here' lists that I have gone through that all of the links were meant to link to the plant (or in this case tree). Some of the links were plainly and obviously wrong.  Going through these lists manually is a PITA and it doesn't seem to win any points or favor though -- just little games with fruits and vegetable name changing. One day, bots will be able to understand what we meant to do instead of what we did do, maybe.... -- carol (talk) 18:45, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Hesperian. If there's no bot, and it doesn't matter, I won't think any more about it.  --Blechnic (talk) 02:12, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Author abbreviation and disambiguation pages
Hi guys. I think it is terribly misleading that there are pages in the category Category:Disambiguation plant pages without proper author abbreviations (especially as to the species of Hieracium). Colchicum (talk) 10:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Browsing that category, I find that one of the meanings given for Ice Plant is Hylotelephium spectabile, but that the article for this plant is at Sedum spectabile. Does anyone happen to know which way round we should be putting the redirect? Lavateraguy (talk) 10:53, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Two references suggest Hylotelephium spectabile --Melburnian (talk) 11:14, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, I've moved it. Turns out it resolves more redlinks that it turns links into redirects. (Even the Sedum article had it in Hylotelephium.) Lavateraguy (talk) 12:02, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I've removed Candelabra primrose from the class of disambiguation pages. Assuming that Candelabra primrose and Candelabra primula (which I think is usual British usage) are the same, the name is of broader application, and applies to a taxon of the rank of section. Lavateraguy (talk) 12:35, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

When a stub has more templates than content
Please see Talk:Metzgeriaceae and comment. I'm sure others here have been baffled by this same phenomenon. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:19, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

ID request: lupine
I was sure enough that this was Lupinus argenteus that I named it that way, but can anyone confirm or deny that it is? Thanks. &mdash;JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:53, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Lupines are pretty hard to identify as to species, oftentimes it depends on obscure characters like fruit hairs and such. How many species are in the area that you took the picture? Around Las Vegas there are at least five. Stan (talk) 14:34, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * For a minute I thought you meant the real Las Vegas, but I see you live in Nevada. Anyway, I have no idea.  I was hoping someone here had a wonderful flora of New Mexico that they could use to answer such questions.  If it helps, the plant was by the side of a road in a pine forest at, I suppose, about 7000 feet in northeastern Santa Fe County a bit east of Cordova, New Mexico.  And if the ID is going to depend on my going back there, I may have to change it to "unidentified Lupinus". &mdash;JerryFriedman  (Talk) 00:40, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

A search in the USDA plants database for Lupinus in Santa Fe County New Mexico produces  the following list of candidates:


 * Lupinus caudatus ssp. argophyllus
 * Lupinus concinnus
 * Lupinus kingii var. kingii
 *  --Melburnian (talk) 06:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Lupinus concinnus
 * Lupinus kingii var. kingii
 *  --Melburnian (talk) 06:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)
 *  --Melburnian (talk) 06:20, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I didn't know you could do that. It solves the problem.  All of those are in my Peterson wildflower book, and concinnus, kingii, and palmeri are easily eliminated (as I recall from looking at them at home).  Then Stubbendieck et al. say caudatus has strigose stems, which seems to be quite different from the dense whitish ("silvery") hairs on the stem of argenteus and the plant I photographed. &mdash;JerryFriedman  (Talk) 17:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

ID Requests
Just three four to ID, the last second one on from the right is also at Picture peer review/Collection of Flowers. Thanks guys!  Qb | your 2 cents  15:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC) edit: adding one more...  Qb | your 2 cents  15:57, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know the species, but I can get you to genus on three of these. The second one is an Aquilegia, third is a Viola (possibly V. tricolor), the fourth is Pelargonium. --EncycloPetey (talk) 16:50, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I would assume that the Pelargonium is P. ×hortorum. I've been through my image files. I've got photographs of two plants labelled as 'Light Pink Splash', one of which is a pretty good match, and the other has much smaller red spots (environmental variation?). Similar cultivars (varying mostly in the intensity of petal colour) are 'Catford Belle', 'Greta Garbo', 'Casanova', 'Tiffany' and 'Melody' (not to mention the other cultivars which I haven't seen bit which probably exist). Lavateraguy (talk) 18:37, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * For the record the first definitely is a daisy (family Asteraceae), and if I remember the distribution of traits correctly the distinct ray and disc florets makes a member of subfamily Asteroideae; with the signs of finely divided foliage I'd guess at something in tribe Anthemideae. Lavateraguy (talk) 18:45, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Monticello lists many of their garden flowers currently in bloom here. I think we can be pretty sure that the viola is indeed V. tricolor, known to people like me as "Johnny Jump-up". I don't see the other three, but you could try the people at Monticello.  Since they provide that impressive "In Bloom at Monticello" service, they might answer e-mail queries. (If you want a guess, maybe the daisy is Chrysantheumum coccineum.)  &mdash;JerryFriedman  (Talk) 01:00, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Maesaceae
According to sources i've found the Maesa genus has been raised to family status and named Maesaceae. Should i copy its page over and rewrite it in the form of a family rather than genus, or leave it where it is? Ironholds (talk) 20:38, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It doesn't seem to be covered at Wikipedia_talk:Naming conventions (flora), but my understanding is that the usual practice is to redirect the family article for a monotype family to the sole genus, e.g. Acoraceae, Callitrichaceae. Note that has resulted in containing the names of genera. Does anyone object to me going through and moving the category plant families to the redirects, i.e. under the family names? This does work with current Wikipedia mechanics - see for example an italicised entries on the category page. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:46, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * ?? WP:NC(flora) says: "If a family contains only one genus, the article should still be at the genus name, as that is more likely to be commonly recognised."  Note that categories are for articles, not for redirects, despite the unfortunate consequences. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Although it is uncommon, a few categories use redirect categorisation for stuff like . I think moving the categorization would indeed help curtailing misunderstandings, and that this is almost a textbook example where we'd want to use redirect categorisation. Compare Category:State highways in New York. Some of those even links to pages in entirely different categories. Circeus (talk) 01:06, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Categories are for whatever we choose to put in them. I've created categories chock full of redirects, e.g. Category:Banksia taxa by common name. And I think it is a good idea for Lavateraguy to move the categories onto the redirects in this case. Hesperian 01:02, 12 May 2008 (UTC)


 * APG II agrees about recognizing the family, but are you sure it's the only genus in the new family? If not, then a separate article should be created.  If the family is monogeneric, then the article should remain at the genus name Maesa by our normal naming conventions, but a redirect should point from Maesaceae to the genus.  We favor the genus name over higher taxa in cases like this, where the higher taxon is monogeneric (with exceptions in some cases, such as when there are extinct taxa, etc.). --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:49, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * APG II says a new monogeneric family Maesaceae Lavateraguy (talk) 22:35, 11 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, but is it still monogeneric now? APG II was published five years ago. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:00, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

Moss problem
In a perhaps ill-advised moment of enthusiasm I created Bryoerythrophyllum caledonicum aka Scottish Beard-moss and I am now perplexed by the Taxobox. According to the ZipcodeZoo.com source, "Bryoerythrophyllum (Genus): Taxonomy" the Subclass is Bryidae and the order Pottiales. However the Wikipedia Pottiales page insists that this order is part of sub-class Dicranidae. Any advice gratefully received. Ben MacDuiTalk /  Walk  17:42, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Zipcodezoo should never be used as a reference for taxonomy. I believe it parses information from many sources automatically and frankly, most of it is wrong or out of date. I've found plant genera listed under kingdom Animalia! User:EncycloPetey is our resident bryophyte expert and will surely be along to help you on the taxonomy. Cheers, --Rkitko (talk) 18:44, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Moss taxonomy has undergone a major revision in the past two decades. Fifty years ago all mosses were in subclass Bryidae.  Then, the obviously different groups like Sphagnum and Polytrichum were moved to new subclasses.  More recently, these subclasses were elevated to class rank, and a new set of subclasses were created out of the old Bryidae.  So, what Zipcodezoo calls subclass Bryidae is now considered class Bryopsida, and the group has been subdivided into new subclasses.  The most recent comprehensive classification of the mosses was published as: Buck, William R. & Bernard Goffinet. 2000. "Morphology and classification of mosses", pages 71-123 in A. Jonathan Shaw & Bernard Goffinet (Eds.), Bryophyte Biology. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).  All the high-level moss taxon pages have been edited to reflect this particular publication, since it includes recent molecular work and is the result of combined efforts of dozens of bryologists. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:28, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Understood and thanks. If you could take a quick look at Pohlia scotica to check for any similar problems it would be appreciated. I will try to get hold of Buck and Goffinet (it may not be easy), but in the meantime I may have been overbold at Bryaceae where I added the ZipcodeZoo genera list. Ben MacDuiTalk /  Walk  08:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Done. Pohlia is now in the Mniaceae, and I've updated the Bryaceae list of genera. --EncycloPetey (talk) 13:15, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Many thanks again. Ben MacDuiTalk /  Walk  07:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Petey, I would have grabbed you a few weeks ago, when I wrote my first moss article, had I known you were our resident expert. Would you mind casting an eye over Calymperastrum, and also checking whether the arrangement at Mosses of Western Australia is up to date? Hesperian 13:42, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I've made a start, and will have to check the rest later. I've checked everything I can up to Orthrotrichaceae, although there are a few genera I don't recognize (mostly Pottiaceae).  Taxonomy in the Pottiaceae is difficult and under much debate.  I'll need to see whether these are genera that have been recently created, recently subsumed, or what. --EncycloPetey (talk) 14:11, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you very much indeed for your efforts. Hesperian 23:55, 15 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Now finished. There are several old names in the Pottiaceae (I've added reference to the two Zander articles where the changes were made).  Other than that, the only taxonomic name I know is wrong is Bartramidula pusilla.  I've added a reference for the synonymization of Bartramidula with Philonotis, but I don't have a copy of the article to know what the new combination is.   --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:44, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks again. I pulled the article out of JStor; Bartramidula pusilla is now Phylonotis australiensis. Hesperian 00:53, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Project scope?
Additional input is requested at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Assessment in a discussion on the scope of the project with regards to botanic gardens. Thanks! --Rkitko (talk) 00:50, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

A Category for the External link Plant templates
I just found the templates; they are kind of cool :)

One of the category they are located in has a suggestion about the need for subcategories (Category:External link templates) and I probably would have just made one and moved the ones that I recognize into it but I have been stuck on the name for it. Help with the name? Good reasons to not do this? Or even a "Don't let the door hit you in the butt on the way out" would be a considered opinion, if it gets posted here. Thanks.... -- carol (talk) 09:41, 15 May 2008 (UTC)
 * A subcategory along the lines of "Flora external link templates" would appear useful --Melburnian (talk) 14:20, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Fruit article titles
I've been asked what the policy is on the naming of fruit cultivar articles, whether the name should include the fruit, or only include the fruit in parentheses for disambiguation. This has come up for Hass avocado vs Hass (avocado). There are two "schools of thought" at the moment:

Name+fruit:
 * Bananas Category:Banana cultivars e.g. Cavendish banana
 * Potatoes Category:Potato cultivars e.g. Almond potato

Name only (followed by fruit in parentheses where disambiguation is required)
 * Apple cultivars eg Granny Smith and McIntosh (apple)
 * Grape cultivars (Category:Grape varieties) e.g.Grenache, Herbert (grape)

I would like to find out what others think, and whether we should include a specific guideline in WP:NC(flora). Melburnian (talk) 14:25, 16 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I just looked at Category:Banana cultivars and Category:Bananas they both seem to be logical and filled with useful articles about the subject of the category. Missing is the article for the genus Musa which to me should and can be separate from the article Banana.  Having an article about the genus and the species and separate articles about the cultivars that come from the different species and the useful parts of each would have been really nice and helpful when I was a gardener.  One is a plant product and the other is a group of plants.  Banana leaves are included in recipes, so each species has different leafs as well?  In the example of Hass avocado, an article for Persea americana instead of the redirection that exists now would avoid having to work through the problem that was mentioned, I think. -- carol (talk) 20:07, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Hope no one minds...
... a few more IDs. ;) Feel free to just go right ahead into the gallery and add an | to the pic name and name it.  Might keep the clutterness and confusion down.  Thanks so much guys!  Qb  | your 2 cents  00:20, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Added some IDs to gallery --Melburnian (talk) 00:42, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Once the photographs are identified, they should be renamed. -- carol (talk) 04:22, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure 2= Aquilegia cv., 9 = Papaver atlanticum, 14 = Hesteris matronalis, and 15 = Tradescantia. Speaking of IDs, we've got a bit of a backlog at Bloom Clock/Unknown Plants, including a bunch of (mostly weedy) plants from Pennsylvania that I uploaded. -- SB_Johnny  | talk  14:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Also fairly certain that "1" is cv. 'Stargazer' (and a much better photo of it than the ones currently on commons). -- SB_Johnny | talk  16:35, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * If thats the case then feel free to throw these images into any articles you see fit. I've already started with some into galleries, but I dont feel right replacing the infobox pictures.  You guys know much more than I ever will about plants and horticulture.  By leaps and bounds.   Qb  | your 2 cents  17:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Added another one in the hope someone can ID it... —  iride  scent  19:07, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Is there a template?
Is there a template that says "Thanks for taking time from your busy life of voting for new admins to upload a bunch of photographs that will need identification and categorization on another wiki and so far have not found a good place here for"? It should be polite and extremely personal in look and feel if one exists. -- carol (talk) 05:19, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

How about something like this (I borrowed it from a busy user talk page):  Hello, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for your upload of photographs to commons:Category:Nonexistent which were blah blah blah with a final tally of # of no where images. Wiki Users are both shocked and honoured to gain so much support from users whom we admire and trust, and we hope we can avoid breaking that backing by being the blah blah blah we possibly can. We sure hope to improve over the coming months and years. Once again, thank you! Wiki Users Everywhere HH:MM, DD Month YYYY (TZC)

-- carol (talk) 05:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * So what's the actual issue, then? -- SB_Johnny | talk  13:48, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Too many. This is probably spam.  In defense of the spammer, she was sober and somewhat stuck in a giggle about some conflicting translations of Culpepper when compared to here and else where.


 * Which seems seems more genuine, btw "blah blah blah" or "yadda yadda yadda" or perhaps something else? -- carol (talk) 22:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I actually take issue with this, and believe this template to be directed towards myself due to the conversation I've had with this user on my talk page. I do not sit around all day and simply vote for admins.  I actually do article work, and have been taking pictures lately to help with that.  Mostly around the Wikiproject UVA pages.  Please do not assume that I've taken these pictures only to make your life harder.  They were taken to help with the encyclopedia, however now I feel pretty dejected.   Qb  | your 2 cents  22:27, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, what would seem more genuine to you then? 'blah blah blah' or something else? -- carol (talk) 23:02, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Maps
Concerning this, I think we have to discuss such changes. With all due respect to the work of the people who draw such maps, I think they make Wikipedia worse.

1) Such maps are misleading. Unlike the list it replaces, such a map reads as if the plant was spread all over the countries in question, which is normally not the case, especially w.r.t. large countries like the U.S., Canada, Russia or China. For a more illuminating example, see Hieracium canadense, which certainly does occur in Russia, despite that map. Furthermore, unlike maps, lists don't necessarily imply that the plant is absent from other countries. They may well be silent about that. Therefore translation of a list into a map shouldn't be that straightforward.

2) What is even worse, a map is much more difficult to correct or update for a less experienced editor as it requires an account on commons and special graphic software to do so. Any suggestions?

Colchicum (talk) 16:33, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree with those disadvantages, and I'd also add that it is harder to add references (especially if the distribution data is assembled from more than one source).


 * Now for the advantages of maps:


 * It is much easier to absorb information from a map (especially if you are looking for a rough idea; both maps and lists are kind of problematic if you want a really detailed notion).


 * The map takes up less space.


 * The convention of filling in political subdivisions which contain the plant (although it is not found everywhere in that country/province/etc) is a familiar one at sites like PLANTS. As long as the reader is aware of this convention, they can treat the map accordingly.


 * How do I balance these considerations? I guess I come out somewhat pro-map, although I'm not sure I have a lot of good ideas about how to ameliorate the problems with them. I suppose I should mention WikiProject Maps. Kingdon (talk) 17:59, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * In general, I'm a fan of maps, being a visual learner, and I've made my share of range maps, some of which are published in refereed journals. That said, I find them problematic for the reasons given, and more:


 * A range map most often depicts a binary variable, occurs/doesn't occur. In some cases, the boundary can be rather precise: Many plankton species are abundant off Huntington Beach, California, but absent a kilometer inland. But in other cases, even an ideal boundary represents the point along an environmental gradient at which the conditions are no longer adequate to support the species. This implies that the population densities just into the "occurs" side will be extremely low.
 * Related to this, in practice people often extend the range of a species, but, except for species of conservation concern, few people contract it, meaning that an outlier population can extend the colored envelope on a map, but it takes someone going there and confirming that the population has disappeared in order to pull the envelope back.
 * Although it is common for maps of bird species ranges to show permanent and migratory areas, it is much less common for plant maps to show native and introduced ranges, although the mapping technology is the same (it can even be done in black and white). Of course, in many cases there is disagreement whether a species is native or introduced in a specific area.
 * In terms of data source, the best maps are based on museum vouchers, and I imagine a world in which every voucher is georeferenced, and the maps are point clouds. The worst maps have no data sources identified. In the case of Arabidopsis above, an unreferenced list was replaced by an unreferenced map, so I'm not sure a lot was lost. But had the list been referenced, it would have been another matter altogether.
 * --Curtis Clark (talk) 19:48, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I like the idea of point clouds if we have data which is amenable (I can imagine various ways of collecting such data, most of them imperfect). Starting to make me wish there was a Christmas Bird Count for plants (my local native plant society does tend to make species lists on hikes but for a variety of reasons they aren't widely published)... Kingdon (talk) 21:30, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I really enjoyed the PDF from I think Curtis Clark Lavateraguy that I got here a while back TDWG geo2 and the maps that I made from that are a little different. I split some countries in Africa, Asia and Mexico -- United States also is in three different zones now.  Russia is my biggest problem for completing what I was doing with the maps.  The best maps that are available here are divided to some level of political division that makes Russia equal with well, pick any country that has a small land area.  I am not good enough with the software yet to put the good map of Russia (with the smaller political divisions) onto that awesome world map -- round things becoming flat for presentation purposes being the problem.  I found or it was put into my path this great map of africa, a relief map in shades of gray -- to print this thing at 300px per inch it would be 35 inches long poster.  Since then, I have been trying to spend a few minutes every day trying to figure out how to put latitude and longitude on it.  At that size, it will be best to do this efficiently and correctly the first time, it takes about half an hour to duplicate a layer, for instance. -- carol (talk) 22:21, 18 May 2008 (UTC) (correction made -- carol (talk) 12:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC))


 * What I have done is kind of cool, at least to me. At the commons, the Afrotropic and  the Nearctic being the most complete (due to simplicity of the divisions even more than my familiarity with the areas).  The commons already had a relatively uniform category system in place where each country had a Category of "Nature of".  For some weird and not that interesting reasons I had to start to make a "Flora of" and "Fauna of" category for each country, but it was not so difficult to start to collect the different areas and the subjects that are interesting and useful for Botany or Zoology and to put them with the Ecozones that are divided into Biocountries there.  Problems that I faced were well, problematic.  "Brazil" is the name of a biocountry and it is also the name of a country -- so occasionally a new category name appears "Brazil Biocountry".  Two of the maps there have image maps also and I put the code on the talk pages associated with the image page.  Some of those are a little sloppy in my opinion of my own work there.  From a software making point of view, it should be no problem to script this -- this is something that is said (probably) at the beginning of any thing like this and might not be accurate.  Such an easy task though, that I started to remove the country codes from the maps because of how much I do not enjoy the circumstances that I find myself in right now, in life and such.  The removal of those codes makes it so that the maps are for human use and not for script writers.


 * And, on a personal note, "Yeah, what about those birds?" -- carol (talk) 22:40, 18 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, I am going to explain the reason that there is a "Plants of" and "Flora of" for many of the politically divided category that are at the commons, so that there can be some consistency. There is a little war between Category or Gallery there -- I don't know where it came from but I am more interested in ease of maintenance and uploading for contributors (especially unpaid volunteers) and am of the Category frame of mind.  The two can exist within the software easily, the two have problems existing together among the users.  So "Plants of" category are for galleries and are managed by the gallery making people.  Flora of collects both categories and "Plants of".  Some galleries there are really nice, very informative, laid out really well and give a lot of information.  Some galleries are just pasted lists of images so the presentation in the gallery actually gives less information than the presentation in a category where at least the file name and file size are displayed.  I am a 'category' person because I am also one who doesn't want to spend a lot of time making volunteers do a bunch of work that they are not that interested in.  The two different types of presentation can exist together -- I would like to not have galleries made unless the people making them are really 'in to' the idea of making them nice. So, when uploading images, a simple  or  should get the image to a location where they can be found. -- carol (talk) 23:26, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

Euphorbia labatii
Should articles like this be deleted on sight? Hesperian 02:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:21, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * No, a taxobox with a sharp picture trumps a red link anyday. Melburnian (talk) 04:28, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with Curtis and Melburnian. All species meet our notability requirement.  This one not only has a pic and a taxbox, it also had a CR status.  My sense is that if you find an article like that, just drop a note here.  Someone will bring it up to the status of a stub, and the world will be a better place :)  Guettarda (talk) 04:42, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Actually, I added the CR status a moment before posting here. I agree it is notable; the issue for me was whether an article with a taxobox but no text, would not be better off as a red link. I have my answer. Hesperian 04:45, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * This is a temptation, I think. -- carol (talk) 05:01, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * What's far more problematic is the fact that it sat without text for a couple months, then someone changed the stub tag and it sat for a second year without text, after which the BotanyBot updated the stub tag and another Bot edited it in March. And then it sat until Hesperian found it.
 * It makes me wonder how many more articles there are out there with taxoboxes but no text. We should urge anyone who finds one to bring it up at the appropriate WikiProject.  Guettarda (talk) 05:35, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, then pay attention to 's contributions of May 4. Colchicum (talk) 09:36, 21 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the tip. I think all of them now have at least one sentence and one reference, and are added to this WikiProject (they're still all stubs, though, so there's plenty to do if someone wants to expand them). Kind of a fun exercise, in that I learned much more about the genera Ornithogalum (star of Bethlehem, and related) and Pilea (in the nettle family, including one weed/volunteer which I think I might have in my garden) than I otherwise would have known. Kingdon (talk) 06:41, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Image name
Is there a way to change the title on a image, I uploaded the wrong picture under the title poison-ivy (Image:PoisonIvyspring.jpg) when it should have been Aralia nudicaulis- the picture is in the taxbox of that page. or do I need to re-upload the picture under a more correct name - then how does one have the incorrect one deleted? Thanks for any help. Hardyplants (talk) 05:57, 21 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Re-upload it under the correct name and drop me a note once it's done so I can delete the old version. Guettarda (talk) 06:02, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

A list
I think the List of species described by the Lewis and Clark Expedition needs some attention. The list of plants seems completely wrong, to put it mildly. Colchicum (talk) 10:18, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe going back to an early version of the page will help. It seems the page was derived from sources and has accumulated "extras" along the way.  Hardyplants (talk) 18:38, 22 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I would also ad that the expedition described already know plants and animals, as they were found along the coarse of travels. which is valuable because different plants "look" differently in divergent environments including from different latitudes and altitudes.  Hardyplants (talk) 18:44, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Another list

 * Genus members of Senecioneae whose articles are named with the (or even a) common name
 * Lachanodes
 * Petasites

Not too many at this level :) -- carol (talk) 03:42, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I moved one to Petasites, moved the target of Lachanodes to Lachanodes arborea, and deleted the redirect from Lachanodes—we don't want redirects from non-monotypic genera to species. Hesperian 03:47, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Thank you, that was very quickly accomplished! "non-monotypic genera to species" <-- what is that in English? And any version of english from this or the last century will probably work.  I suspect it means that there is only one species in the genus, but the quick translation my mind made -- it didn't translate that way.  If it does mean what I suspect, shouldn't a redirection go from the genus to the species as well? -- carol (talk) 04:36, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, the best I can do is Pirate-Latin: "Yarrr! If a genus contains more than one species, then we ought not redirect the genus title to a species article, matey." Hesperian 04:48, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * That is a nice clean up -- the only fuzzy stuff is from the people who should be knowing what is going on (ie, one flora is not recognizing the genus but the herbarium does). G'day? -- carol (talk) 05:13, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Pladaroxylon this was not on the list at the article for Senecioneae (yet).
 * -- carol (talk) 06:25, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Moved the species to the scientific name, but left the genus redirect because this one seems to be monotypic. Hesperian 06:41, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * All I can find that indicates that the genus is monotypic is that an online search does not provide information about any other species in the genus. And here is another question, how come in nature 'he' is always prettier than 'she' -- even here where another species from another kingdom was doing the naming?


 * I made a genus page for the species, but I have no problem moving that information as well as the nice photograph to the species page if it really is monotypic. -- carol (talk) 07:07, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Need help
Is Xanthosoma sagittifolium or Xanthosoma sagittifolia the correct name? If sources can be found, please move the article if needed. Badagnani (talk) 04:11, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hesperian 04:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Heh, so the answer was yes? -- carol (talk) 04:37, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The base noun of the genus name is "soma", which is a neuter third-declension noun of Greek origin. Neuter nouns take a neuter epithet, so the -um form is correct. --EncycloPetey (talk) 02:59, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

User:Brya
Some of you may remember the antics of User:Brya (now banned from the English Wikipedia) for pushing a very particular and peculiar personal viewpoint. As an alert to the botanical community here, Brya is now actively editing taxoboxes, links, and interwikis for multiple Wikipedias in other languages (e.g. French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, German, etc.). This has the potential to screw with the bot iw link edits here as well, so I thought I'd inform WP:PLANTS. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:10, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

"articles"
I keep coming across the term "articles" in reference to chenopod morphology; e.g. "Spreading or erect shrub to 50 cm high. Articles globular to obovoid, mostly 3–5 mm long; lobes entire. Spikes terminal, the articles circular or compressed...." It isn't the kind of term that one can Google up, as a search on "chenopod articles" turns up chenopod articles, rather than chenopod articles articles! Does anyone know what this term means? Hesperian 06:29, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "articulate: jointed; usually fracturing easily at the nodes or point of articulation into segments or articles" --Melburnian (talk) 07:00, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * It was similar to that in 1913:

8. (Zool.) One of the segments of an articulated appendage. [1913 Webster]
 * -- carol (talk) 09:00, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Hesperian 13:04, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

personal defaults not so good for light blue wiki areas
For more than 20 years now my personal default color choice is primer gray. I won't and perhaps can't change this, but it is being a problem (to me at least) making a not so appealing wiki area (I don't know what the name of the section is that is above the list of subcategories and pages in a category). Perhaps someone could change the color of the table that is recently located at Category:Flora of Northeastern United States or if you prefer Category:Flora of Eastern Canada, I will default to those choices instead and be grateful as well before taking on the rest of the world flora categories. Thank you. -- carol (talk) 09:00, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * The dark grey does look dreadful. I fooled around with some oceanic blue e.g. #9EC7F3, but there wasn't enough contrast with the mid grey. White is an improvement though.... Hesperian 13:12, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, the white is nicer. Thank you. -- carol (talk) 13:34, 24 May 2008 (UTC)