Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Archive75

Solanum verrogeneum
Solanum verrogeneum isn't a published scientific name as far as I can tell (nothing in IPNI or Tropicos; and I've looked for potential misspelling starting with "ve" and "be"). Most internet sources that mention it are scraping Wikipedia (although Discoverlife does have a photo of a plant with this name). It resembles Solanum quitoense. "verrogeneum" strikes me as probably being based on the vernacular name "berenjena". Julia Morton mentions a wild form of S. quitoense from Costa Rica known as "berenjena de olor".

I'm inclined to take the article to AfD. I think it likely represents an unpublished name that would (if published) be a synonym of S. quitoense. But that is speculation on my part. Can anybody else dig up anything that verifies the identity of this supposed species? Plantdrew (talk) 23:00, 17 January 2023 (UTC)


 * It does indeed appear to resemble Solanum quitoense. Other websites also note both the resemblance and the uncertainty between species/varieties (example). Loopy30 (talk) 02:40, 18 January 2023 (UTC)


 * It's worth noting that the Cloudbridge Nature Reserve (the main sourced website) does not list S. verrogeneum on their checklist of species identified in the reserve. I sent them an email about the original page referenced in the article out of curiosity. Maybe they'll reply. Mbdfar (talk) 18:58, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * So, the answer from the scientific coordinator at Cloudbridge is that the plant from the referenced page is certainly Solanum quitoense. They are not sure where the name S. verrogeneum came from. I also reached out to the photographer from Discover Life. They took that photo as an undergrad, are not a botanist, and don't know where the name came from. Seems like the article could safely be deleted or perhaps merged into Solanum quitoense. Mbdfar (talk) 19:42, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Another renaming question
I'm about to rename List of Saxifragales families, I think, to List of early-diverging superrosid families, but I just want to make sure there are no objections. I don't currently have any better place to put the Vitales and Zygophyllales families. (See rosids for the taxo-tree ... I can't put them in the malvids, or the COM clade, or the nitrogen-fixing clade. Also, this Saxifragales list currently has 15 families, much shorter than most of the family lists.) I considered List of basal superrosid families, except that Zygophyllales isn't basal to, say, Geraniales. According to Plants of the World (why is that a red link? sheesh), Vitales and Zygophyllales did start to diverge earliest from the other orders. (Also, in my limited experience, "basal" tends to mean something more substantive than "just a random collection of orders that are more basal than other orders".) So: anyone see a problem with the list name or with this approach? - Dank (push to talk) 17:37, 18 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Why do we need to shoe-horn the Vitales and Zygophyllales into that list in the first place?-- Kev min  § 19:17, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * You're raising a bunch of questions at once (including on the list talk page); I'll do my best. "Why are you listing X as monotypic ...": because I did a lot of asking around about which were the best possible sources to use, and I got consistent answers, including FGVP, PotW, and Plants of the World Online ... and I'm following those sources (when I have the FGVP books ... they're expensive). Also, one of the goals is to turn these into Featured Lists so that they can get on the Main Page, and Main Page people have certain expectations; the intended readers for these lists will be a broader audience than you usually get for taxon articles. For instance, they might be more interested in extant plants than extinct ones. (And: I couldn't agree more that these lists are lacking all kinds of things that you'd normally expect in plant lists, but that's a normal trade-off when you're trying to design a survey course to pull in a broad readership. The next list series will include a lot more detail.) "Why include etymology, that's crufty" ... You're thinking like a biologist and not like an educator. It's off-putting and counterproductive to carry on conversations in foreign languages without giving your readers at least a clue what the words mean. Biology curricula tend to include courses on "Latin and Greek for biologists" (or they did when I was in school), and they have students take those courses sooner rather than later. "Why ... shoe-horn the Vitales and Zygophyllales" ... The question, I think, is whether there's value in having a set of lists that give very brief descriptions of flowering plant families. If so, then Vitales and Zygophyllales have to go somewhere, and I don't know where else they'd go. But I don't feel strongly about this; they should be mentioned somewhere, but I guess they don't have to appear as rows in a table. - Dank (push to talk) 20:11, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I feel that inclusion of etymologies in the tables is very much something that is covered by WP:cruft, its not something that will at all help the lay-reader to understand what is being presented in the tables, and if it IS included, then it very much should not be shoe-horned into the type genus column, but given separate standing. Cost of resources is a straw-man issue. Featured lists do have specific expectations, and if you are going to insist that half the relevant taxa be excluded then the lists need to be renamed to reflect that they are living taxa and that a redundant second list will (at some point...maybe....) be generated that actually covers all the included taxa. (FYI "might be more interested in the extant taxa is not a valid reason for an incomplete list) You seem to be trying to say that by including a single sound bite (re: "Tag" means day in German) it will make der gesamte verbleibende Artikel wird für sie auf magische Weise vollständig verständlich und erträglich sein. Again that seems to be a red herring.-- Kev  min  § 22:05, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * An analogy: if you've got two musicians interested in collaborating, and one's trying to create a baroque piece for organ and the other is trying to make it a bluegrass banjo piece, then there's no point in doing a back-and-forth to try to "improve" the end-product ... it's not going to work. I've had a lot of supports for the previous list series and this one ... so, at least some people are on board with the general direction. I don't want to discourage you from creating lists that meet your goals ... I'll help, if I can. - Dank (push to talk) 22:26, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I just did some poking around to try to find out where I could send readers who want to know about extinct taxa ... and in general, I can't find that information (at least, not in a way that makes me hopeful that we'll be able to solve the problem in a consistent way with consistent sourcing). If the relevant pages exist, we could direct readers to them with an appropriate hatnote. If they don't exist, I wouldn't mind adding the word "extant" to the first or second sentence in these lists, if people think that would help avoid ambiguity. - Dank (push to talk) 22:55, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Talk:Fraxinus dipetala
Hello, can I get some eyes at the above merge discussion? I sort of forgot to post it here when I tagged it uhhhh 7 months ago (is that the bells of shame ringing sonorously in the distance?) &spades;PMC&spades; (talk) 22:42, 19 January 2023 (UTC)

WP:PLANTS/TAXONNUMBER clarification please
Could I get a clarification on a hopefully minor thing in WP:PLANTS/TAXONNUMBER?

Quote: The botanical name of a taxon higher than genus (i.e. from family upwards) is plural in Latin. Can (or should) the example in parentheses instead read "(i.e. from subfamily upwards)"? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Or, actually, does the "plural" rule apply to subtribe and tribe as well? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 18:14, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * This concerns a question that's more subtle and difficult than most, and I don't want to make light of it, but here's a thought experiment. Almost every species epithet that ends in "orum" (for instance, psittacorum, "of the parrots") represents a Latin plural. So, are species epithets that are plural in Latin suddenly going to become plural in English? Is there a new rule now that Latin grammar overrules what English dictionaries, other reference works, and various botanical authorities tell us? I hope not. (Merriam Webster, AmEng, for instance, lists Rosales as singular, and every botanist that I pull material from seems comfortable using an order as a singular, collective or plural noun, depending on context.) - Dank (push to talk) 22:33, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * , this may already be answered in this long and detailed discussion, which I have not read fully; WP:PLANTS/TAXONNUMBER refers to it. I just want to know if everything above genus, even secondary ranks, is considered plural, and if so, should our example be changed from "i.e. from family upwards", because that does kind of contradict "taxon higher than genus". – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 23:08, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * The best I can tell, what I just said doesn't contradict what's recommended at the link. Agreed that "from family upwards" and "above genus" aren't synonymous; good catch. - Dank (push to talk) 23:21, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * It helps that I’m easily confused. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 23:48, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Alstroemeria psittacorum would translate to parrots' Alstromeria - the genus is the (singular) noun, and the epithet is in this instance an adjective, which I think would make the combination singular; if you want to be more certain ask a Latinist. (Epithets can also be nouns in apposition.) Lavateraguy (talk) 16:37, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Article 19.1 of the ICN says that subfamily names are "plural adjective(s) used as a noun(s)". Article 19.3 doesn't state this explicitly for tribes and subtribes, but I would interpret it as implied by the reference therein to article 19.1. Article 21 says that names for ranks between genus and species (i.e. subgenera, sections, subsections, series, subseries) can be either singular nouns or plural adjectives, but with recommendations to avoid mixing them willy-nilly; historically subgenera have mostly been formed on the same pattern as genera, but sections have often been plural adjectives. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:33, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

FAs last reviewed from 2004 to 2007 of interest to this WikiProject
If you review an article on this list, please add commentary at the article talk page, with a section heading == URFA/2020 review== and also add either Notes or Noticed to WP:URFA/2020A, per the instructions at WP:URFA/2020. Comments added here may be swept up in archives and lost, and more editors will see comments on article talk. Sandy Georgia (Talk)  19:17, 22 January 2023 (UTC)


 * 1) Ailanthus altissima
 * 2) Pinguicula moranensis
 * 3) Verbascum thapsus

Requested move at Talk:Pinot noir
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Pinot noir that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. UtherSRG (talk) 11:41, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Radish
Radish has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 00:33, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Western Australian plant image identity
File:Native wisteria (1415056966).jpg was uploaded from Flickr (original) where it was identified just as "native wisteria". Later an editor on Commons put it in the category for Austrocallerya megasperma (synonyms including Callerya megasperma, Wisteria megasperma), which is known as "native wisteria". However, according to PoWO, this species only occurs in Queensland and New South Wales, but the Flickr original is in an album for Western Australian plants. Also the flower doesn't fit the description nor does it look like other photos on the web labelled Callerya megasperma or one of its synonyms. I've changed the category on Commons to "Unidentified Fabaceae". Can anyone identify it? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:39, 20 January 2023 (UTC)


 * worth having a look at the last word location so to speak
 * https://florabase.dpaw.wa.gov.au/browse/photo/3961 JarrahTree 11:56, 20 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Yes! If you look at the taxobox image at Hardenbergia comptoniana, that seems a pretty certain identification to me. It's described as a "twining vine" so an English language name like "native wisteria" is plausible. I'll move it to this category on Commons. Thanks! Peter coxhead (talk) 12:08, 20 January 2023 (UTC)


 * And what's more, this correctly identified image is titled "native wisteria". Yet another illustration (which we here don't need) of the folly of relying on vernacular names. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:12, 20 January 2023 (UTC)


 * As a file mover at Commons, I renamed the file to File:Hardenbergia comptoniana (1415056966).jpg. In the process, I realized it is also called native wisteria (according to our article) just like A. megasperma, but some extra precision won't hurt. No such user (talk) 10:26, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Help adding a synonym to a taxobox?
Hi all. I'm working through a project adding images under appropriate licenses to articles about Australian plants. While looking for an image to add to Gompholobium aspalathoides I found one under the species name Gompholobium virgatum var aspalathoides. Doing a bit of research I found it listed at the Australian Plant Name Index (here) as a synonym. I'm not fully comfortable with how to cite authorities and formatting in the scientific nomenclature and was hoping that someone in here might be able to A. Spit me out a properly formatted bit of wikitext to add to the taxobox to accomplish this and B. Tell me the why/how/where of how to evaluate the source and produce that so that in the future I don't need to ask someone else to do it. Appreciate any help. --(loopback) ping/whereis 13:51, 3 February 2023 (UTC)


 * Hi loopback, thanks for your work in adding images to plant articles. When you find a synonym, you can add it to the taxobox along with a reference. I have done so to the Gompholobium aspalathoides article taxobox so that you can see an example. For sources used by the project, you can use the list here. When adding a new synonym, it is also useful to check if any other article already exists at that name, and to then either make a redirect to the main article or evaluate it further as necessary (merge, swap, etc). Loopy30 (talk) 16:35, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I appreciate it! Thank you for the help. --(loopback) ping/whereis 17:06, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments
See Village pump (proposals). This proposes support for quality assessment at the article level, recorded in WikiProject banner shell, and inherited by the wikiproject banners. However, wikiprojects that prefer to use custom approaches to quality assessment can continue to do so. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:49, 6 February 2023 (UTC)

Two lists of families
I could use some help with (at least) two family lists: the one including the magnoliids, and (per APG IV) the nitrogen-fixing subclade of the rosids. I can probably drum up some help eventually if I nudge people but I wanted to make the offer here first. - Dank (push to talk) 20:09, 9 February 2023 (UTC)

Migrating dead references to WCSP
So it's been a while since WCSP was merged with POWO by Kew, but redirects still aren't in place (i.e. WCSP links just go to the home page for POWO). I would say we should have a bot migrate all the references to Template:Cite POWO but it looks like the IDs don't match in 100% of cases.

Does anyone have a contact at Kew who works on this? We could easily have a bot migrate all the dead links for us if we could get data matching of IDs. Steven Walling &bull; talk  16:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * has regular communication with POWO on taxonomic issues, which seem to be resolved nicely. Perhaps he can ask about Kew setting up redirects.
 * However, I'm not sure about a bot solution. Would they be replacing a dead source with a valid new one? —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 20:28, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah, it should be pretty trivial technically to replace citation templates that link to WCSP with an updated template. Steven Walling &bull; talk  20:48, 14 February 2023 (UTC)
 * the data is freely available. If you download the underlying WCVP dataset from here, the first two fields in each line are  and  . So far as I can tell from checking now dead citations to WCSP in our articles,   is the WCSP identifier and of course   is the PoWO identifier. So, for Lithocarpus elegans, for example, the relevant line in   (which you get by unpacking the zip file) starts
 * so the dead link http://wcsp.science.kew.org/namedetail.do?name_id=114453 should be replaced by https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:358741-1. So, yes, it should in principle be possible to get a bot to do a run – at least for well formed citations to WCSP.
 * The alternative is to extract the taxon name from the WCSP citation and generate a URL like https://powo.science.kew.org/results?q=Lithocarpus%20elegans. However this doesn't go directly to the entry for the taxon, and if the match isn't quite right can generate quite a list of possible taxa. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:51, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Brilliant, thank you! Steven Walling &bull; talk  17:56, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Brilliant, thank you! Steven Walling &bull; talk  17:56, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

Completeness of coverage; en.Wikipedia vs. PoWO
At present there are 116,047 – 24,649 = 91,398 articles listed in the Assessment Table as being in this WikiProject. I downloaded the list and went through all of them, removing everything that wasn't a species. It took quite a while, because there were entries that merely look like a botanical name. There are also many articles on cultivars, varieties, botanists, botanical gardens, plant diseases, plant products, plant physiology, and individual trees, plus a smattering of other topics that may be outside the scope of the project. Once all these are removed, there are only 67,404 articles on species on Wikipedia, plus 3,001 on monotypic genera (according to PetScan), for 70,405 total. I also scraped all the accepted species from PoWO; presently it looks like there are 354,654 of them.

By comparing these two lists, I found 6,240 articles on species on Wikipedia that are not on PoWO. Presumably these are mostly synonyms, but there are also quite a few ferns, mosses, and liverworts that PoWO doesn't cover. So, as best I can determine, the English Wikipedia has articles on about 20% of all plant species. I'm thinking that that there may need to be some requests made (at WP:Request a query?) to generate lists of articles and their corresponding entry (or lack thereof) on PoWO, to maybe clean some things up. Anyway, I plan to mine these datasets and report on the results here from time to time; for example, the most common specific epithet is gracilis, with 572 species. Abductive (reasoning) 12:46, 31 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Huh. Petscan tells me there are 61,845 articles with the WikiProject banner and Speciesbox (this includes monotypic genera), and 1,902 with Taxobox. Articles with manual taxoboxes include genera as well as species, but even if we assume all of them are species, that's still well short of 70,405. There are certainly some redirects that have a non-redirect assessment, but I don't think there are several thousand of them (I don't know of any way to search for these).


 * It would be good to have a list of articles on taxa that aren't accepted by POWO (bearing in mind that POWO doesn't cover bryophytes or fossils, and we're not following it for ferns). Plantdrew (talk) 16:36, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I got 63941 results for a Petscan search for speciesbox and the following categories: Angiosperms, Bryophytes, Ferns, Gymnosperms, Lycophytes. And I got 62,966 results for a search for . All seem in the same ballpark. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 17:03, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Still well short of 70k. I forget about the subprojects (Banksia, Hypericaceae and Carnivorous plants). Adding those in, I get 63,015 articles with speciesboxes. There are a few non-plant articles with a speciesbox and a plant WikiProject banner; e.g. pathogens of plants and pitcher plant inquilines; that probably accounts for most of the difference between 63,015 and 62,966. Drilling down through the categories is going to pick up many more pests and pathogens that have speciesboxes but DO NOT have a plant banner; another (almost) 1000 articles on pathogens is more than I'd expect, but there may be some other anomalies in the category tree that are picking up non-plant organisms. Plantdrew (talk) 17:46, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Using the PetScan query above, and comparing to my list I get about 1000 that use the taxobox template. Plus some fungi. Abductive  (reasoning) 21:36, 31 January 2023 (UTC)
 * A search for  gets 1127 articles (including popcorn) with manual taxoboxes and a species parameter. That makes it a bit over 64k taxoboxes for species. For the POWO comparison we should substract about 5-600 bryophytes (557 according Petscan). I think 65k is about the limit for species articles and can't think of what else could get up to 70k. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:09, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The 3,001 monotypic genera should use "automatic taxobox", correct? Let's drop those from consideration. Also, my method eliminated all subtaxa; subspecies, varieties, cultivars, etc., and any article like Dill and Douglas fir that aren't a bionomial name, so if anything, the above searches should find more than my list. What about redirects and disambigs that are assessed as anything other than "N/A"? Or redirects and disambigs that are in the category tree?  Abductive  (reasoning) 11:21, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I think most monotypic genera will use speciesbox to display the species taxobox, although the article will be at the genus name. There are about 300 pages using automatic taxoboxes with a multi-word name in the taxon parameter. These are nearly all taxon names with infraspecies connecting terms (subg, sect, ser etc), plus a few pages with a taxon parameter in another template. The search above using speciesbox won't pick up infraspecies as it targets the template. Redirects and disambiguation shouldn't have taxoboxes. The Petscan method might pick up more of such pages, but the overall numbers are similar. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 12:24, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I guess that means that I was correct in the beginning to say that the extras are mostly synonyms. I will look for some. But I was hoping that there was a way to automate checking against PoWO, and maybe get a list of what they should redirect to. Abductive  (reasoning) 13:32, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, I picked a genus at random. These 18 articles: Olearia arckaringensis, Olearia elliptica, Olearia eremaea, Olearia ferresii, Olearia flocktoniae, Olearia glandulosa, Olearia gordonii, Olearia humilis, Olearia laciniifolia, Olearia macdonnellensis, Olearia mucronata, Olearia newbeyi, Olearia orientalis, Olearia picridifolia, Olearia rudis, Olearia stuartii, Olearia trifurcata, and Olearia xerophila are on Wikipedia but not on PoWO, and Olearia stilwelliae is in my list as not being in PoWO, but it now is (I scraped PoWO a few months ago). The 17 above need to be moved to Ephedrides, Landerolaria, Linealia, Muellerolaria, Neolaria, Phaseolaster, and Spongotrichum, according to PoWO. Only about 6000 to go....  Abductive  (reasoning) 13:56, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Such is the life history of a taxonomic wikignome... Loopy30 (talk) 14:24, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Abductive, I think your initial method would have picked up "redirects and disambigs that are assessed as anything other than "N/A"". There are certainly cases where somebody turns an article on a synonym into a redirect without changing the talk page assessment. But I don't think there are thousands of those. I don't know of a way to search for those; Petscan doesn't work because the assessment categorizes a talk page, but the redirect is on the article. Maybe I should ask at VPT. Plantdrew (talk) 15:15, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
 * To sample the types of errors, I just looked at all articles starting with "Z" in my list of 6,240 not found on PoWO and obtained the following results:
 * 33 total articles starting with "Z"
 * 2 are mosses
 * 8 are synonyms which I was able to redirect to existing articles
 * 12 are synonyms to redlinks, those I did not move
 * 1 was a synonym of a subspecies, and I moved it
 * Zamia katzeriana was a hybrid that I moved to Zamia × katzeriana
 * 7 were alternate orthography or misspellings, I was able to move all but Zephyranthes atamasca which should be Zephyranthes atamasco
 * 1 was my bad somehow, on my list but correctly on PoWO
 * Zea italica is a non-existent species, the article was spam for a homeopathic scam medicine.
 * So, extrapolating from this sample and my Olearia sample above, my list of 6,240 species not on PoWO is 92% correct (less 2 mosses and 2 errors of mine), and that means that there are 5,700 wrong species articles on Wikipedia, or 8.5% of all species articles. Abductive  (reasoning) 08:11, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Should the taxobox be removed from Zea italica? (Or should the article go to RFD, as not notable?) Lavateraguy (talk) 13:17, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The term has an existence on Google Scholar, and as near as I can tell no actual plant has been called that, so removal of the taxobox is better than deletion of the article. Abductive  (reasoning) 16:46, 3 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Re: "I was hoping that there was a way to automate checking against PoWO". Have you looked at Pykew? This provides a means of listing genera in families and species in genera (with a flag for accepted). Unfortunately its in Python, which makes it more difficult to use this information to check against English Wikipedia titles and POWO identifiers using Wikidata. I suspect that Wikidata's failure distinguish names and taxa will be a problem, as Olearia flocktoniae will forever be Olearia flocktoniae and a new combination will be an independent entry rather than an update on the taxon. It might also be possible to query Wikidata with Sparql to link POWO identifiers and Wikipedia articles (there is a place where you can make requests). —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 16:02, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I wonder if the first step would be to have Wikidata updated to reflect what is on PoWO right now. Ideally the run would add 'retrieved' dates to the 'reference' subfield. Even more useful would be if some sort of qualifier could be added to mark the item as, "this species is accepted", "this name is unplaced", "this is an artificial hybrid", "this is a synonym", or "this is a synonym of Foogenus foospecies" from PoWO. Abductive  (reasoning) 16:16, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
 * It turns out POWO do have an API, but it's undocumented. They want, or at least wanted, people to use Pykew, although that is not being actively maintained (according to an e-mail in reply to a pykew question). Some examples of the API:
 * 562 total families: https://powo.science.kew.org/api/1/search?f=family_f&page.size=1000
 * 453 accepted families: https://powo.science.kew.org/api/1/search?f=family_f%2Caccepted_names&page.size=1000
 * 13975 accepted genera: https://powo.science.kew.org/api/1/search?f=genus_f%2Caccepted_names&page.size=20000
 * 354649 accepted species: https://powo.science.kew.org/api/1/search?f=species_f%2Caccepted_names&page.size=1000
 * 8 accepted genera in family Fagaceae:: https://powo.science.kew.org/api/1/search?q=Fagaceae&f=genus_f%2Caccepted_names&page.size=20000
 * 4127 species in family Fagaceae: https://powo.science.kew.org/api/1/search?q=Fagaceae&f=species_f&page.size=20000
 * 1156 accepted species in family Fagaceae: https://powo.science.kew.org/api/1/search?q=Fagaceae&f=species_f%2Caccepted_names&page.size=20000
 * The API returns JSON so that can retrieved with Jquery Ajax queries and can be integrated with Wikipedia and/or Wikidata requests. For instance for each species name check if there is a Wikipedia page and if it has a speciesbox.
 * Not sure if you managed what you wanted to get or if this will help, but it might be useful to know about. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 07:53, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I've put together a test program, which has an interactive treeview of POWO families, genera and species, with links to appropriate Wikipedia pages (under page title used). The genera or common names for the Wikipedia articles rely on existence of redirects, so some articles may be missed. It should also be possible to check Wikidata and see if an English Wikipedia article is associated with the Wikidata item. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:04, 28 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Nifty, I'll be experimenting with this. Thanks. Abductive  (reasoning) 16:42, 28 February 2023 (UTC)

Taking Plant to Good Article status
The project's top-level article, Plant, is currently, despite its 20-year history and obvious importance (~2 million readers/year), a grade C (detailed but poorly-cited). I would hope that project members would prefer to see it as at least a Good Article, which as Dr. Blofeld used to say simply means "decent", decently-written, organised, and cited. If anyone would like to collaborate on this task, they'll be very welcome whether just passing by or as co-nominators. Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:40, 3 March 2023 (UTC)


 * @Chiswick Chap Thanks for sharing, agreed, it should definitely be improved and will be glad to help. Eucalyptusmint (talk) 14:36, 4 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Many thanks. Go to it! Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:39, 4 March 2023 (UTC)

Ulva
It has transpired that the type specimens of Ulva species and the general applications of names have not been in alignment. It seems that the correct name for the taxon described at Ulva lactuca is Ulva fenestrata, with Ulva lactuca being a tropical species.

see abstract here (article paywalled) and discussion elsewhere

Proposal


 * Move the article and rewrite with the new name, and links to the taxonomic paper.
 * Overwrite the redirect left behind with a stub.
 * Add a hatnote to a stub "for the temperate species long known as Ulva lactuca see Ulva fenestrata".

Is that enough, or would we want to make the problems of Ulva taxonomy more explicit?

Lavateraguy (talk) 10:32, 20 February 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that a move is warranted. The content of the article (and it's edit history) is pretty mixed in terms of which of the two species is discussed. The Description section is perhaps general enough to apply to both species. The Distribution section needs to be refined no matter what course of action is taken. The Ecology section has a lot of worthless details, but none of it is about the tropical species. The Life history section is general enough to apply to both species (or perhaps the entire family). The Uses section mentions Scotland and Hawaii.


 * Hughey et al.'s abstract mentions the "holotype" of U. lactuca and the lectotypes of two other species. The type of U. lactuca is a lectotype, designated in 1960 (I got that from Spencer, which is mentioned in the ispotnature thread). That makes me wonder whether LINN 1275.24 was actually sampled by Hughey (or whether there is a typo in Spencer). The only result in the Linnaean Herbarium for Ulva lactuca is 1275.23, and 1275.24 is just Ulva sp.


 * Incoming links to U. lactuca include articles with a temperate context (and if there are sources supporting those links, I'm sure they mention U. lactuca and not U. fenestrata). Quite a mess. I'd really like to see the full paper by Hughey. Plantdrew (talk) 20:12, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
 * I went looking for a proposal to conserve the name Ulva lactuca for the temperate species, but there was nothing in Taxon. Lavateraguy (talk) 12:18, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The Hughey paper can be accessed at https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/doi/10.1111/jpy.12860. All this talk of lectotypes, holotypes, epitypes, and generitypes leaves me none the wiser. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 13:22, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Should it help, Wikipedia has a summary at Type (botany) Lavateraguy (talk) 15:30, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link to the Hughey paper; I have good institutional access to botany (s.s.) journals, and haven't previously tried to use the Wikipedia Library for journals I don't have access to. OK, so Hughey did sample the type specimen. I still think a move isn't really warranted. Either way (moving and starting a new article for U. lactuca vs. starting a new article for U. fenestrata) the page history will represent a mix of statements/sources with different species concepts. Once an article for U. fenestrata exists, it should be linked via a hatnote at U. lactuca. Plantdrew (talk) 17:28, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Sugar-apple
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Sugar-apple that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ASUKITE 15:54, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Endemic plants of Slovakia
Hello! I found this article, Endemic Plant Species in Slovakia, in bad shape and am unsure of the best way to go about improving it. On one hand, I'm tempted to put it up for AfD because the flora of Slovakia category seemed more appropriate; on the other, it could be massively expanded. Do the participants of WP Plants think that this kind of list article is helpful and if so, where to start with improvements? I'm happy to work on this collaboratively, but it's definitely not my wheelhouse - please advise! Best, Kazamzam (talk) 00:46, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
 * According to POWO, of those four taxa, only Daphne arbuscula is endemic to Slovakia. Gentiana frigida has a wider distribution, extending to Austria, and the other two straddle the Polish/Slovak border. (I'd be cautious of taking POWO distributions at face value. Generally we need sourcing for endemicity.)
 * POWO has Pulsatilla slavica as a subspecies of Pulsatilla halleri
 * I'd expect that Slovakia has endemic Sorbus (whitebeam) species.
 * Descriptions of species can be delegated to species articles. There are already such for Gentiana frigida and Daphne arbuscula; Pulsatilla halleri has an article under Anemone halleri. (POWO recognises Pulsatilla; WikiPedia is inconsistent in its treatment of the taxon.)
 * For precedent there is List of endemic species of the British Isles and Endemic Maltese wildlife. There are also articles on Hawaiian and Taiwanese endemics, but the list of plants for Hawaii in incomplete, and for Taiwan nearly absent. A list of List of endemic flora of Indonesia is probably very incomplete - I'd expect hundreds or thousands of endemic plant species there. And there are few other pages. Most of the articles are for areas that are less biogeographically arbitrary than Slovakia, but there articles for endemic plants of Israel and endemic biota of Belize.
 * My opinion is that the article as it stands isn't worth keeping, and there's no strong case that there should be an article; as a moderate inclusionist I wouldn't argue against the existence of such an article, but there's lots of stuff which would have higher priority. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lavateraguy (talk • contribs) 10:17, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
 * It needs to be deleted, I'm afraid. What few apomictic "species" that are said to be endemic to Slovakia probably aren't anyway. Abductive  (reasoning) 19:39, 12 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I presume the category also needs to be deleted then. Eucalyptusmint (talk) 23:48, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that answer there is not necessarily. Lists have some sort of pretension to completeness (and this particular article has additional problems, as described); categories collect related article together. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:40, 22 March 2023 (UTC)

Abelmoschus hostilis
Hello! I have recently created the article Abelmoschus hostilis which, I think, does not follow the MOS properly. Can anyone please help me to clean up the article? — Meghmollar2017 (UTC) — 19:05, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * looks fine to me! Lots of detail and references, synonyms from various sources, and an illustration. Keep making those! :) I have applied some small copyedits. Note, if a taxon does not feature at all on the IUCN website and there is no other status system assigned, just leave that out of the box rather than using "not evaluated". Cheers -- Elmidae (talk · contribs) 20:19, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you all and specially to @Elmidae for your kind suggestions. :D — Meghmollar2017 (UTC) — 11:51, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I think that Hibiscus hostilis is the only synonym. (POWO agrees.) If Abelmoschus hostilis is separated from Abelmoschus tetraphyllus, then all the names based on Roxburgh's Hibiscus tetraphyllus belong to the latter species. If it isn't separated Hibiscus tetraphyllus has priority over Hibiscus hostilis. I'd have to look into the literature to work out the identity of Bamia magnifica (off the top of my head I'd guess that the assignment to Abelmoschus tetraphyllus sensu lato (i.e. including Hibiscus hostilis) comes from Hooker's Flora of British India.) Wallich's "Numer. List" doesn't give a geographical location. But, IPNI says that Bamia magnifica is an invalid name (nom. inval.), so pedantically it's can't by a synonym becauses it's not technically a nym - it's a nom. nudum (published without a diagnosis or citation for one), and I'd guess that it's also a nom. superfl., as Bamia is an unneccessary replacement generic name for Abelmoschus.
 * Your reference to the Flora to Bangladesh isn't working - I'm being told that the domain name is invalid. A web search didn't help - I found the Sterculiaceae treatment, but nothing else.
 * The online issues for Bang. J. Plant Taxon. don't go back far enough for me to evaluate Khan and Hussain's resurrection of Hibiscus hostilis. POWO accepts it, but don't provide any sourcing beyond WVCP. I suspect it might be taken from Flora of Bangladesh, but as I say above I haven't been able to access this. Lavateraguy (talk) 15:50, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I see that you've added redirects for Bamia tetraphyllus and Bamia magnifica. These should redirect to Abelmoschus tetraphyllus, but there's a problem - the WikiPedia article on the genus takes a broad concept of Abelmochus manihot implicitly (by not mentioning Abelmoschus tetraphyllus) treating Abelmoschus tetraphyllus as part of the former. My conclusion when I reviewed the genus for Malvaceae Info was that the karyological data made a prima facie case for recognising Abelmoschus tetraphyllus at species rank. In the absence of access to source material recognising Abelmoschus hostilis but not Abelmoschus tetraphyllus seems inconsistent. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:28, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I see that you're working on an article on Gossypium arboreum var. nelgecta. The minor point would be that the correct spelling is neglectum. The major point is that the impression I have garnered from reading the literature on Gossypium is that the mainstream consensus does not recognise infraspecific taxa under Gossypium arboreum, instead treating local variations as land races. You may be able to provide sourcing to the contrary, but I suspect in this case it might be better to place the article under a vernacular name. Note that historically the cultivated cottons were grossly oversplit taxonomically. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:35, 22 March 2023 (UTC)
 * @Lavateraguy, The Flora of Bangladesh link can be found here: . I already have updated the archive link in the article. Also thank you for the suggestion about synonyms and others. But the thing's way too technical for me as a student of Bengali medium and moreover botany is not my discipline. What I did was to combine all the information I could find online. I would request you to implement the necessary changes in the article wherever it needs. To tell about Gossypium arboreum var. nelgectum, I think I will name the article as "Phuti Karpas" while moving to the main namespace. Thanks again. — Meghmollar2017 (UTC) — 15:04, 23 March 2023 (UTC)

Question about new - List of plant scientists
While viewing "Recent changes" I saw List of plant scientists was created (by User:Nolanna). Because of working on article de-orphaning I'm familiar with the many "List of xxxx". Wondering if this list should be a to List of botanists?

I did use the Petscan tool to locate certain research/investigative botanists and added a few to plant scientists list. But the more I think about it, are not botanists also scientists because of the work they do and their accomplishments? JoeNMLC (talk) 14:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)

Discussion
Please add comments and opinions here. JoeNMLC (talk) 14:33, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The first line of the botany article says: "Botany, also called plant science(s)", and soon after "A botanist, plant scientist or phytologist" ... so I think this is an obvious merge/redirect candidate. Esculenta (talk) 14:55, 27 March 2023 (UTC)


 * It seems like too large of a topic for a single list. The existing List of botanists is very incomplete; presumably it should include everybody in List of botanists by author abbreviation (which is basically taxonomists, and is split across 16 sublists) as well as botanists who were not taxonomists. We probably should have lists of botanists, with separate lists by subdisciplines (Nolanna also created list of plant pathologists). "Plant scientist" implies (to me, in contemporary contexts) a molecular biologist who works with plants. Plant scientists don't necessarily have skills to identify plants, while botanists are skilled in identification (and neither botanist nor plant scientists are necessarily skilled at growing plants; horticultural science is a whole other thing). The bulk of the people in list of plant scientists aren't taxonomists or renowned for identifying plants (but it does include plant physiologists who were active before molecular biology existed). Plantdrew (talk) 15:32, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree. Personally I can call myself an agronomist or plant scientist, but you normally wouldn't see those of us in agriculture fields calling ourselves botanists, so there do seem to be distinctions that vary depending on field. The problem seems to be that some sources use the terms interchangeably or very loosely, especially when it comes to botanist, while others don't, so there's a lot of room for confusion both wiki-wise and IRL. KoA (talk) 21:57, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Historically, botanists included what would now be called mycologists, phycologists and even bacteriologists. That adds another ambiguity over the scope of botanist relative to plant scientist. Lavateraguy (talk) 23:21, 27 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Updates: for List of plant scientists there is a Deletion Discussion started. Also created List of plant pathologists not tagged for deletion. JoeNMLC (talk) 13:02, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Accuracy of the IUCN Red List for plants
Having spent too much time recently converting Polbot articles autogenerated from (old) IUCN Red Lists to automated taxoboxes, I had formed a somewhat negative opinion of the accuracy of the lists, particularly their taxonomy. So I was interested when I found the article at, which says that the list misses about 3/4 of extinct species (they found 491 more) and that fewer than 50% of reported extinctions are still presumed accurate.

This should probably be written up somewhere – any suggestions? Peter coxhead (talk) 13:03, 31 March 2023 (UTC)


 * IUCN Red List would seem the obvious place. Lavateraguy (talk) 14:12, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Progress report on missing genera from PoWO, March 2023
It's been awhile since I last updated my list of missing genera from PoWO. Article creation had gotten the list down to about 390 redinked genera. But PoWO are listing new or newly accepted genera faster than we are clearing redlinks; there are now 517 redinked genera. I think I've seen more ferns on PoWO lately, so that may be part of it. Abductive (reasoning) 13:12, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I only see 4 fern genera in that list. Choess (talk) 13:28, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I wonder if they are resurrecting a lot of genera then. Abductive  (reasoning) 18:40, 30 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Note that we don't use PoWO for ferns as they don't accept the PPG classification. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:17, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Is it possible to include the family in the list (without a lot of work)? It would also be nice if it was in a table sortable by authority (and family); as being able to spot multiple instances of the same authority would help in discovering publications (I know there are some tools that make it easy to produce the wiki-markup to turn a list into a table, but I've never used them). Plantdrew (talk) 00:16, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll see what I can do. I should have mentioned that PoWO lists 14,006 accepted genera, so 96.3% of genera have articles. Abductive  (reasoning) 06:05, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * Okay, the most common authorities are G.L.Nesom with 15, Morillo with 10, G.D.Rowley, and J.M.H.Shaw both with 8, Morin with 7, H.Ohashi & K.Ohashi, H.Rob., P.Fourn., and Raf. all with 6, and M.H.J.van der Meer, and Rushforth with 4. I don't think any but G.L.Nesom, J.M.H.Shaw, and the last two are all that active. Abductive  (reasoning) 06:23, 31 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Converting the list to a sortable Wikitable is easy enough in notepad++. Adding families is another matter. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:20, 31 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Quite a few of those genera are nothogenera - Acropogon, Anacamptiplanthera, Anacamptorchis, Anthrichaerophyllum, ... Tripleurocota, Tripleurothemis, Triseptotrichon, ... Do we have a stated policy on the notability of hybrids?
 * PS: if I try to use the reply link I'm told I can't edit this because of a markup error on the page; I had to use the edit link on the section. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:51, 31 March 2023 (UTC)
 * My policy is that they should be widespread either in the wild or in commerce, and I need a good source on the parents to even consider creating the article. And hybrids get Assessed one rung lower in the Importance scale. Abductive  (reasoning) 19:17, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

Project-independent quality assessments
Quality assessments by Wikipedia editors rate articles in terms of completeness, organization, prose quality, sourcing, etc. Most wikiprojects follow the general guidelines at Content assessment, but some have specialized assessment guidelines. A recent Village pump proposal was approved and has been implemented to add a class parameter to WikiProject banner shell, which can display a general quality assessment for an article, and to let project banner templates "inherit" this assessment.

No action is required if your wikiproject follows the standard assessment approach. Over time, quality assessments will be migrated up to WikiProject banner shell, and your project banner will automatically "inherit" any changes to the general assessments for the purpose of assigning categories.

However, if your project has decided to "opt out" and follow a non-standard quality assessment approach, all you have to do is modify your wikiproject banner template to pass WPBannerMeta a new custom parameter. If this is done, changes to the general quality assessment will be ignored, and your project-level assessment will be displayed and used to create categories, as at present. Aymatth2 (talk) 20:46, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

Following PoWO
I'm making sure that I understand how Wikipedia does or does not follow Plants of the World Online. I noticed in PoWO that they synonomize Nothocalais with Microseris. https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:30204707-2 I am planning on updating Microseris with the list of accepted species from PoWO, but rather than changing Nothocalais into a redirect, I was going to add information explaining which authorities still use it, since it is still used by FNA as Nothocalaïs. http://floranorthamerica.org/Nothocala%C3%AFs Would this conform with what would be best for Wikipedia? MtBotany (talk) 16:50, 14 April 2023 (UTC)


 * I think your proposal is a reasonable approach. We do sometimes retain articles for synonyms where there is something that can be said about the synonym (taxonomic history, authorities that still use it, etc.); these should be in appropriate subcategory of Category:Historically recognized plant taxa (and there are likely some articles in the category that would be better merged).


 * Keep in mind that in many cases where Wikipedia diverges from it's not intentional, but is simply due to Wikipedia articles not being (substantially) updated since before POWO existed. However, Wikipedia may intentionally diverge from POWO if there is a good reason to do so. One such reason might be the regional authorities where a plant actually grows continue to recognize a genus that POWO synonymizes. POWO may synonymize genera without worrying about whether combinations for all recognized species have been published in the new genus, which leaves species "unplaced"; if regional authorities aren't enthusiastic about lumping, required combinations may not be published anytime soon (but this is not an issue with Nothocalais).


 * Regarding Nothocalais in particular, I wouldn't put a lot of weight on FNA; their treatment was published in 2006, and perhaps a different view might be taken if the treatment was published in 2023. Are there more recent sources that continue to recognize the genus? Yes; I have Flora of Oregon published in 2020 that recognizes Nothocalais. The Global Compositae Database recognizes Nothocalais, with their record last updated in 2019 (GCD uses the same software as WoRMS, and GCD can be viewed via WoRMS links in taxonbars). I've been working on implementing infrafamily classification for Asteraceae following GCD. POWO doesn't do infrafamily classification, so in any case where Wikipedia has an infrafamily classification, there is the possibility that the source used for the classification differs from POWO in which genera are recognized. (iNaturalist purportedly follows POWO, but currently recognizes Nothocalais, which I presume is due to them actually following GCD in order to present an infrafamily classification). Plantdrew (talk) 19:35, 14 April 2023 (UTC)
 * You make a good point about checking to see what more recent authorities are using. My goto source, Flora of Colorado by Ackerfield still uses Nothocalais in the first edition, 2015. Going to check in the second edition of FoC which is 2022 at a library to see if it is still in there. USDA is updated very infrequently, but a lot of people use it and they're still using Nothocalais. I'll going with my idea of adding the information and making notes in the Nothocalais article about which authorities are no longer using it for now. It may end up being turned into a redirect later if more authorities stop using it. Thanks for the advice @Plantdrew. MtBotany (talk) 20:23, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Where can we list non:English common names for a plant taxon?
India being a country with a dynamic demographic mix of more than 20 major language communities and hundreds more other languages, there is often information sought on common names in different languages of a particular plant taxon. This query was raised during a workshop on Wikipedia by biodiversity students in Modern College, Ganeshkhind, Pune. It is also, more importantly, a need for information of the citizens of my country, and I am sure a similar need is felt globally. From the point of view of WP being an encyclopedia and from the public need felt, how and where can this information be provided, keeping in mind that the en:WP taxon articles do not permit the addition of non-English taxon names in them?

Would a list of common names for be a practical solution, with the policy for such articles being that common names in all languages are permitted, suitably referenced?

Ashwin Baindur (User:AshLin) (talk) 05:42, 15 April 2023 (UTC)


 * You can add one vernacular name per language in Wikispecies, e.g. see Mangifera indica. This collaborating Wiki project is a multilingual taxonomic reference and species directory without language variants. Its content can be linked from Wikipedias of all languages. Kind regards, --Thiotrix (talk) 09:06, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you Thiotrix, Ashwin Baindur (User:AshLin) (talk) 13:01, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Excellent. So I presume that Wikispecies is a different project and will have a separate page from the article on say, Mangifera indica in Wikipedia. It may also be appropriate to include these names in the Wiktionary under mango. Is that right? Krushnarjun (talk) 12:11, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * See how its done for "Apple" on en:Wikt. Ashwin Baindur (User:AshLin) (talk) 13:01, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I have an account under username Krushnarjun on English Wikipedia. It seems I need to create a seperate account for Wikispecies. Is that correct? Krushnarjun (talk) 12:15, 15 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Just use your en:WP login and password to login onto any Wikimedia Foundation project. Ashwin Baindur (User:AshLin) (talk) 13:01, 15 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Isn't there a global login option? I can go to other Wikipedias and other Wikimedia projects and am logged in. I can't see anything in preferences, though. Perhaps it's automatic with the "Keep me logged" in option. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 13:32, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Tree That Owns Itself
Tree That Owns Itself has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Onegreatjoke (talk) 18:13, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Dracaena americana/Dracaena ghiesbreghtii
POWO has apparently discovered an obscure earlier published name for Dracaena americana, Dracaena ghiesbreghtii. A copy of my comments from the talk page:


 * Apparently this is a recent change in POWO. Wikispecies cites POWO (as of 2019) for D. americana, and iNaturalist has a record for D. americana (they also follow POWO). WFO accepts D. americana, and their record is based on WCSP (another Kew resource). POWO's record for Dracaena ghiesbreghtii is messed up; it cites Tropicos as a publication, and Tropicos doesn't have any record for D. ghiesbreghtii (!!!); POWO also cites Flora Mesoamericana, but according to Tropicos the name in Flora Mesoamericana is D. americana. D. ghiesbreghtii was described from material from Mexico, and that publication predates the publication of D. americana. So if there is a single Dracaena species from Central Americana (which doesn't seem to be disputed), D. ghiesbreghtii has priority. But it does seem like a situation where a proposal to conserve D. americana against D. ghiesbreghtii would probably be successful.

Digging a little further, I found that German Wikipedia de:Drachenbäume cites POWO as of 2 February 2022 in treating D. americana as a synonym. So I guess it's not a super recent change. Google Scholar doesn't have any results for Dracaena ghiesbreghtii; I do have a hard time seeing using that name as a title as being at all helpful to anybody searching for information on the Central American Dracaeana. Plantdrew (talk) 00:35, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Best to just move it and mention the more used name as (syn. Dracaena americana). It was created on 21 April 2023 (probably off WP:PAR), and User:Hadal is an admin who started editing in 2003, so they won't be too shocked.  Abductive  (reasoning) 05:11, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * For the record (and if it matters!) I don't have any objections to moving the article, should this WikiProject deem it appropriate. For my own part, as an outsider as it were, I was not aware that POWO took supremacy over other databases. (For the sake of future contributors, perhaps this should be made more explicit?) As Plantdrew noted, the taxon record on POWO seemed a little strange; and all recent scholarship used D. americana. In the end, this was mostly a gnome's attempt at getting back into article creation after many years, starting with what I thought would be an uncontroversial subject! Thanks to everyone who has improved on it already. --Hadal (talk) 13:30, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I am not sure why we use POWO, but what I have run into with every source of authoritative plant names is they all have areas where I go “well that’s weird”. Or they have incomplete coverage. I came to this conclusion when I started working on Penstemon (which still is a bit of a mess, but is at least better). The differences in usage between PLANTS, FNA, WFO, and POWO, are interesting. Also mildly frustrating.
 * I also missed the fact that we follow POWO here on Wikipedia when I first started editing plant articles. I just assumed that all sources were more or less co-equal and so cited USDA PLANTS on the assumption they were fairly authoritative. It was digging into other good articles to see what I’ve been used on them that finally clued me in that I should use POWO. MtBotany (talk) 15:08, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Other points of view need to be covered in the article, but we need one source to determine what gets articles, what they are called, and what goes in the taxoboxes. If this got decided on an article basis, it would be a mess. POWO seems to be the one with the most up-to-date curation and respond to questions and fix errors. There is no reason other specialist sources could not be used for some plant groups if there was consensus. POWO isn't used for ferns and World Plants/Ferns is used as they follow the PPG classification.
 * In this particular case, POWO is a bit of an outlier. It might be a case where we delay the page move to see if any other sources follow their lead or if they change back to ''americana.. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:50, 22 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Nah, just move it and move it back if it ever gets resolved. It's clear that Dracaena ghiesbreghtii is older (Google Books search), and why suspect POWO of an error of commission? I also note that Dracaena americana has only 134 Google scholar hits and only 35 observations on iNat; it is not a particularly important plant, and nobody will be upset if they get redirected. Abductive  (reasoning) 23:58, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Thlaspi caerulescens and Noccaea caerulescens
The two datasets https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15550093 and https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q163035 look to me like they refer to the same plant. I cannot be certain that this is true and don't know how to merge them anyway. Can anyone help me? 2001:4BB8:2A7:A427:790B:F9E:F2AC:C790 (talk) 11:17, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * They should not be merged. Regardless of the fact that such Wikidata items say they are instances of "taxon", they are not. They are instances of taxon names. If you look at the taxonbar at the bottom of Pseudognaphalium gaudichaudianum, you'll see how Wikidata has entries for multiple synonyms of the same taxon. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:00, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * I see, thanks for the explanation. I brought this up because the wiki articles for this plant seem to be connected to the datasets. If you check the wikipedia links for both, it is clear that they refer to the plant, not the taxon name. But there are two datasets and an article can only be linked to one of these. This has led to roughly half the articles linking to Thlaspi, the other half linking to Noccaea. For example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thlaspi_caerulescens and https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gebirgs-Hellerkraut should be the same plant, but they are not interwiki-linked. I cannot get these two language groups to link to each other, wikidata won't let me: "The link dewiki:Gebirgs-Hellerkraut is already used by Item Q163035. You may remove it from Q163035 if it does not belong there or merge the Items if they are about the exact same topic. If the situation is more complex, please see Help:Sitelinks." --2001:4BB8:2A7:A427:790B:F9E:F2AC:C790 (talk) 23:48, 24 April 2023 (UTC)
 * See User:Peter coxhead/Wikidata issues for an explanation of Wikidata issues with taxon items. You have to choose one of the two taxon items and move all the language links to that one. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:33, 27 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Although I cannot help resolve the Wikidata issue and add the inter-language link to the German article, I have merged the two English Wikipedia articles as they are synonyms. Noccaea caerulescens is the senior synonym as per PoWo. Loopy30 (talk) 15:35, 25 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks! Peter coxhead (talk) 09:33, 27 April 2023 (UTC)

Citations to the Global Compositae Checklist
Asteraceae articles quite often have citations to the Global Compositae Checklist (or Database) with URLs beginning with something like. Such URLs no longer work. I've created as a replacement; it does not embed the URL in wikitext, so can be updated if the URLs change again. The template is new, so let me know if there are any problems with it. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:46, 17 May 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for the work and the information. It happens that I am working on Microseris so I'll make use of it this week. MtBotany (talk) 16:09, 17 May 2023 (UTC)


 * The GCD is now hosted on the WoRMS infrastructure. Strangely accessing it using the WoRMS interface seems to get a more up to date version. For instance, Xerochrysum gudang, described in 2022 and added to the database by Maartin Christenhusz on 23 December 2022, is not available via the Global Compositae Checklist interface (see Xerochrysum). The addition does suggest this database is going to be actively curated. —  Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:17, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
 * interesting. If you look at the WoRMS entry for Xerochrysum alpinum, it cites the GCD, implying that this entry was taken from there on 15 Aug 2021. Whereas the entry for Xerochrysum gudang doesn't mention the GCD, suggesting to me that Christenhusz entered it directly into WoRMS. So does WoRMS automatically update from the GCD? Curious. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:04, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Investigating a bit more, all the entries in GCD that I looked at are in WoRMS, but as showed, the reverse isn't true. It appears that although the common entries look very similar, they are using separate underlying data sets. So should we use WoRMS instead of GCD, given that WoRMS seems to be more up-to-date? It seems strange to use the World Register of Marine Species for composites! Peter coxhead (talk) 13:04, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
 * I was wondering if the WoRMS site has the primary database that is dynamically updated and the compositae.org site a mirror that is updated periodically. It could allow them to have a versioned releases.
 * The Aphia system was developed for WoRMS and the Flanders Marine Institute seems happy to host other databases using it (e.g. IRMNG). There are six marine species of Compositae, but I assume the GSD are just taking advantage of a stable platform to host their database and allow their editors to update it.
 * It would seem strange to have citations to linking WoRMS, so it would be best to use the compositae.org site, if possible. Unfortunately there is no indication of when it was last updated or how often this will occur. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 13:50, 18 May 2023 (UTC)

Plant articles by quality log
Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Plant articles by quality log stopped adding new updates a few days ago. It's a useful reference. Anybody know what's going on? Tom Radulovich (talk) 02:00, 29 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Did you mean the table: User:WP 1.0 bot/Tables/Project/Plant? The log's page history shows daily updates, but the table hasn't updated in several days. It's probably due to the issue discussed at Village_pump_(technical). PetScan has been giving me outdated results over the same time frame. Plantdrew (talk) 16:29, 29 May 2023 (UTC)

Festuca pseud(o)eskia
Festuca pseudeskia is spelled Festuca pseudoeskia in all the Taxonbar sources except for POWO (but including IPNI, with the same database ID as POWO). iNaturalist does have records for both spellings. The original spelling includes an "o". Is there any grammatical or code-based reason to eliminate the "o"? Plantdrew (talk) 20:28, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, if there is a code-based reason then it would be in Art. 60.10. If the -o- is meant to be a connecting vowel between pseud- and , then it's wrong because it should only be added if the second element begins with a vowel. Compare the genus name Pseuderanthemum or the epithets in IPNI found in this search. On the other hand, this search shows that IPNI has many more epithets with the o before an e.
 * Stearn's Botanical Latin gives both pseud- and pseudo- as combining forms and has examples with and without the o before a vowel. So my guess is that PoWO is wrong to change the original spelling. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:01, 31 May 2023 (UTC)
 * A bit more from Stearn: "Before a vowel the final vowel .. is normally elided. Special cases are provided by neo- .. and pseudo- .. which in classical usage sometimes occasionally retained their terminal o even when followed by a vowel". Peter coxhead (talk) 06:21, 1 June 2023 (UTC)

Addition of many poor quality or duplicate images
A new user has been adding many new images to plant pages as here. All are taken on a mobile phone (not necessarily a problem) and all in Tashkent Botanical Garden. Many are of poor quality and many are also duplicates of existing images. I have reverted several as have at least one other editor but I have left some which seemed acceptable. I have not reviewed all their contributions. I have left two messages on the users talk page but without any acknowledgement or response. The views of others would be appreciated. Assuming that this editing pattern continues at the same rate, should this just be accepted and managed by multiple dogged reversions, or is more general action to slow this down or stop it required?  Velella  Velella Talk 19:55, 11 June 2023 (UTC)


 * My thought is to not borrow trouble that we don't yet own. Most people who do a burst of mistaken editing get bored of it regardless of if their edits get reverted or not. If the editor keeps doing it we'll collectively deal with the problem at that point.
 * I am an obsessive about plants and I did comb through all the edits. Most of them were not improvements and were reverted with commentary. There were a few I left alone because they were fine. Not great, but fine and possible to be improved by moving the picture to a better spot in the article or perhaps editing the file for a better crop of the subject. And even before I started looking other editors, like yourself, had reverted like half of them.
 * We'll see what tomorrow actually brings. The editor may have moved on to something else already or might be silently considering the critiques of his edits. And at least one of his edits made me pay attention to an important article in serious need of help, Salvia officinalis, and that's probably a good thing.
 * 22:22, 11 June 2023 (UTC) MtBotany (talk) 22:22, 11 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Hello. First of all, thank you. I have read all your comments you left before. I won't be uploading pictures till I make sure they are of great quality and have an encyclopedic value. Humoyun Mehridinov (talk) 02:27, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

Casuarina range map question
Could people familiar with what is wanted for range maps please check this talk page? For invasive species, should a range map show only the native range? Nadiatalent (talk) 08:11, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Range maps for plant species are always problematic, although they can be of value in giving a sense of where a species occurs. We can only be confident that a plant occurs in a particular location, if it has been recorded at that place by an expert botanist. Sometimes a map showing where a species has been recorded is useful (as for example here), but even then, may include records in botanic gardens, or misidentifications. Plants of the World Online dodges the problem by including the whole of a country or state, when the species has only been observed in a small part of it (as for example here). The distribution map on the Casuarina page incorrectly includes East Africa and Madagascar in the distribution, but not the Top End of the Northern Territory. On the other hand, it does not include all countries where it (actually Casuarina equisetifolia) has been introduced. It appears to have been drawn "by hand" using information from a book that I can't access. On balance, a better map is needed, and I will delete the present Casuarina distribution map unless I read a read a contrary opinion here. Gderrin (talk) 10:37, 26 May 2023 (UTC)
 * Map removed. Gderrin (talk) 04:48, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Merger proposal (correction: split proposal)
I propose merging (correction: splitting) the Delairea article into Delairea odorata, because that genus article covers only that species. Also because the genus Delairea has a new species (described in 2021), Delairea aparadensis (other than D. odorata). As such, the Delairea article can remain a genus-only one, where it will list the two species in its genus: Delairea odorata and Delairea aparadensis. This should be done speedily, because it is a bit inappropriate and confusing to have both a genus and species article, when another species now exists in Delairea genus. Apologies if I'm not in the right section. Yucalyptus (talk) 03:33, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I assume you mean split proposal? There is no separate article for Delairea odorata. Hemiauchenia (talk) 03:41, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Aha thanks. You're correct. I am new to Wikipedia, so I am not fully knowledgeable of its mechanics. Yucalyptus (talk) 05:51, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * It seems like a redirect page for Delairea odorata existed. I did the splitting myself, where I turned the original Delairea page into a genus/genera page for Delairea (which listed its species), where I moved all the contents of D. odorata into the D. odorata article (which was formerly a redirect page for Delairea). I hope I did it right. Yucalyptus (talk) 06:26, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * If most of the information on a page about a formerly monotypic genus is about the species, it's usually better to move the genus article to the species title, and then create a new genus article. If you can't make the move (which will happen for new editors if the target of the move exists), then ask here for the move to be made. But it's ok as it is, except that the talk pages should note that text has been copied (see Copying within Wikipedia), which I've done. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:50, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * As said, I just did the split manually. Please check it out. The Delairea odorata page existed as an "empty" redirect page. So I moved the contents from Delairea (which is a genus and had information about the species D. odorata) into the redirect page that was D. odorata. Now, the Delairea page is stripped to a genus page. The only problem here is the Wiki languages redirect on Delairea will take you to their own D. odorata page (because they don't have a Delairea genus page) and their pages take you to the English Delairea genus page (which was previously a genus-species page). So I hope someone could fix the language linking part, because I couldn't. I know, this seems confusing. But I hope I am understood. Yucalyptus (talk) 06:56, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Aha, nevermind. The language link with other Wikis was fixed on the D. odorata page. I then added the languages on the Delairea genus page though (interestingly, Delairea was already a sole genus article on three other language wikis - Turkish, Italian and Azeri wikis). So everything is done here. Thanks! Yucalyptus (talk) 08:15, 12 June 2023 (UTC)
 * if you're going to work on Wikidata links, I suggest you read User:Peter coxhead/Wikidata issues. There are some serious issues about linking articles in language wikis. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:38, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * That's a much clearer summary of Wikidata's taxonomical problems than I usually find. Thanks. - Dank (push to talk) 15:54, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * As Wikidata now allows links to redirects, (homotypic) synonyms can now be linked between different language editions of Wikipedia (although it may be necessary to create redirects in other languages). I just linked the French redirect fr:Streptocarpus ionanthus, and now Streptocarpus ionanthus has an interwiki link to the French Wikipedia (this is an example in the synonym section of Peter's essay). Plantdrew (talk) 16:52, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * good move, although I do need to update my essay! Peter coxhead (talk) 17:13, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

List of Hieracium species
I'm not sure what to do with List of Hieracium species. The list that is there now is based on a strange source, it seems. It includes synonyms, particularly species now placed in Pilosella. Normally I would just upload a list from Plants of the World Online, but it accepts over 4,500 species – do we really need such a list? Peter coxhead (talk) 15:34, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * The existing list is garbage. It says it includes "cited synonyms" (???), has 36 sources (multiple sources are not a good thing for lists of subtaxa), and then has 4 species randomly in a "Further species" section (although I am responsible for putting two there; I don't remember what I was thinking). 4500 species is a lot, but if there's no list some species articles may be orphaned. Although I guess we could go with a "Selected species" section in the Hieracium article. There are 95 binomials (6 of which are disambiguation pages) in Category:Hieracium, and Hieracium already has links to 35 species. Plantdrew (talk) 17:06, 13 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok, I've uploaded the list from PoWO. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:38, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

Question about species distribution maps labelling
Hi all

I've been doing some more work on creating species distribution maps for different plant species. I've just created Arachis rigonii, and IUCN describes the species as extinct in the wild and Plants of the World online describes the species as native and extinct to Bolivia. My question is on the map should the label 'extinct' be used for species which are either fully extinct and extinct in the wild? Or should a separate label be used for extinct in the wild? I don't really know why there would need to be separate labels for EX and EW on a map since they're both extinct in that area but please let me know if there is a good reason.

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 15:39, 19 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree that for a distribution map, there's no difference between EX and EW. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:50, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Can someone remind me how to make the article title italic?
Hi all

I've just written my first plant article for a while and I can't remember how to make the title italic for Gilbertiodendron tonkolili. I've looked at my previous articles and I don't see any specific code for it. Am I missing something obvious?

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 18:48, 15 June 2023 (UTC)


 * The template handles italicisation automatically as long the the genus and species epithet are set correctly. The problem is you had Gilbertiodendron tonkolili, which wasn't handled by the code. The species parameter should only hold the species epithet, not the binomial. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 20:11, 15 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Ahhhh, thanks very much, John Cummings (talk) 21:08, 15 June 2023 (UTC)


 * A common mistake made by new editors using Speciesbox is not correctly setting the parameters specifying the taxon. If the species is called X y, you can either use X y or X+y. I prefer to use taxon, which is simpler, and avoids the issue that for botanical names it's technically wrong to use the specific epithet by itself, so very tempting to use the incorrect X y. If you omit all the parameters specifying the taxon, the system will use the page title. In all the cases where the parameters aren't correctly set, the page title won't be italicized, which is a clue that something is wrong.
 * Incorrect taxoboxes will usually get fixed fairly quickly, because they show up in Category:Taxobox cleanup, which a number of us monitor regularly. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:04, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Portal:Plants in Template:WikiProject Plants
Are there any objections to removing Portal:Plants from Template:WikiProject Plants?

As I understand it, portals on English Wikipedia are intended to be reader-facing. In some other language editions of Wikipedia, portals have an editor-facing function, and may supplement or supplant WikiProjects as a place to discuss issues within a particular subject area. Portal talk:Plants has a bunch of threads with minimal responses that would have been better brought up here. Template:WikiProject Plants, and the link to Portal:Plants that it contains only show up on talk pages, which is getting out of the reader-facing area of Wikipedia. People who are looking for an editor-facing areas of Wikipedia are getting misled by the portal link on the WikiProject banner, as evidenced by the threads on the portal talk page. Plantdrew (talk) 02:42, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Removal is definitely a good idea. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:06, 20 June 2023 (UTC)

Essay on Wikidata issues
It was recently brought to my attention that my essay at User:Peter coxhead/Wikidata issues was out of date because Wikidata now allows its items to be linked to redirects in the different language wikipedias. I've revised: Redirects can help with linking articles under different synonyms in different language wikis, but not, I think, with different numbers of articles on monotypic taxa, which would require Wikidata to allow more than 1:1 links between its items and articles. But it's a complex and confusing topic, so if anyone has sufficient motivation, I'd be grateful for any comments on correctness and comprehensibility. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:13, 20 June 2023 (UTC)
 * § Monotypic taxa
 * § Synonyms


 * Here is another awkward case.
 * Gecko corresponds to two wikidata items: and . The former is linked to the article on English Wikipeda (at Gecko) while the latter links to the redirect (Gekkota). This seems the logical arrangement.
 * However, the list of links to other wikipedias is sparce, as most have the article at the taxon name. Of the major European languages, only Spanish is shown because it has a redirect (Geco) linked to.
 * It would be better if English Wikipedia had the article at the taxon name and had the common name as the redirect. This goes against Wikipedia naming convention, but would make the linking with Wikidata and other language Wikipedias better.
 * It's unusual that Wikidata has two items. Normally it would have one with the label set to either the taxon name or common name (another inconsistency). However, in this case isn't an instance of  but instead an instance of, an item I haven't seen often.
 * None of this contradicts anything in your essay, which seems correct and as comprehensible as it can be given the topic. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:33, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
 * interesting example. It seems to me as logical (or illogical) to have separate Wikidata items for the names "Gekkota" and "gecko" as it is to have separate Wikidata items for scientific synonyms of the same taxon. It causes exactly the same problem over deciding which Wikidata item to link to and hence which other language wikis will show up in the sidebar. Both Wikidata issues apply: not modelling taxa, and insisting on 1:1 relationships between wiki articles and Wikidata items.
 * Thanks for looking at the essay. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:13, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

Flora Article Advice
I'm working on Flora list for Colorado. I currently have it the draftspace at Draft:Flora of Colorado so that if anyone else has the same idea they might see the work in progress.

I would like some feedback on organization of the article.

First, is putting a citation on each scientific name excessive? Should I be instead citing a range of pages in a book like Ackerfield's Flora of Colorado and just use World Flora where there is an updated name?

Second, I'm planning on putting the ferns and fern allies in one table, gymnosperms in another, and then maybe ranges of family names from Angiosperms like Acoraceae-Asteraceae or Balsaminaceae-Cyperaceae. Is this a useful layout or would a big table of all Angiosperms be more useful? MtBotany (talk) 20:14, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * A citation for each name is excessive in my opinion. I'd go with something like "Names follow Ackerfield[1] except as noted". However, there are not very many large comprehensive lists of plants by geography that I'm aware of on Wikipedia, and two of the three I am aware of do have citations for each name (I'm not actually 100% certain that there ANY comprehensive lists of plants on Wikipedia, but there are some that seem long enough to be potentially comprehensive, amid many lists that are way too short to be comprehensive (List of flora of North Carolina has just two species of Lamiaceae)).


 * The potentially comprehensive lists are Flora of Malta (I know the editor who created that list was trying to create articles for every Maltese plant species), the lists for Soldiers Delight broken down by habit/growth form in Category:Lists of flora of Maryland, and the sublists from List of flora and fauna of Montana (although there's nothing for ferns). Technically, list of flora of Nihoa is probably comprehensive for a tiny island, and Antarctic flora does list all the native vascular plant species for a place with low plant diversity.


 * A comprehensive list for Colorado is going to be very big, and could perhaps be split across multiple pages. However, I'm not sure what would be a good way to split it, although doing multiple families alphabetically might be an option. I don't see any advantage to splitting tables with each table covering multiple families if the list is going to be on a single page. Either one table per family, or one table for angiosperms. Plantdrew (talk) 21:37, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The closest thing I'm aware to what I'm doing is the Flora of Great Britain and Ireland. The Flora of Colorado is of a similar size with Ackerfield saying there are about 2677 species and 2590 in the British Isles. Mildly interesting that we apparently have more species, though not surprising since there is a more varied climate in Colorado and many outliers and disjunct distributions.
 * It is a big project and I expect it to take me two years to get finished working off and on.
 * I think I'm going to go with one big table for all the angiosperms. I think in combination with making the table sortable and including a field for native status it should make it fairly useful to people interested in the vascular plants of this state.
 * Thanks for your perspective. MtBotany (talk) 23:16, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Delphinium geyeri
I'm getting close to moving Draft:Delphinium geyeri to the main space. If anyone wants to look it over before I move it, I'll appreciate the additional eyes looking for mistakes and gaps. MtBotany (talk) 17:01, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Question about which categories to use for endemic, introduced to and exinct species
Hi all

I've tried to find this in the documentation, sorry if I've missed it, I just want to check that I'm categorising species properly, have I got this correct? (getting the info from POWO)


 * Category:Flora of COUNTRY is used when a species has been introduced to a country (I couldn't find a category that specified introduced to).


 * Category: Endemic flora of COUNTRY if a species is native to a country even if its extinct in the wild/extinct in that country.Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 15:11, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * from WikiProject Plants/World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions: "Each category should describe its geographical circumscription (boundaries) and also note that it is limited to flora that are native (not naturalized, introduced, or invasive) in that region." There is no category that is used for introduced species per se. I would agree that "Flora of ..." and "Endemic flora of ..." are acceptable for plants that are recently extinct/extinct in the wild. Quite when "recently" is I'm not sure. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:30, 26 June 2023 (UTC)


 * , endemic means that an organism is native to a single place. The "single place" can be defined in various ways, but since we're using WGSRPD for categories, the places follow boundaries of political units (however it is perfectly reasonable to describe a species as endemic to e.g., a mountain range that crosses multiple political units). So no article should have more than one "endemic" category. Also, endemic is not usually used to describe species when the area of endemicity is a very large place such as a continent (higher taxa such as families may be described as endemic to larger places).


 * I almost never make edits to geographic categorization, and hadn't realized that WGSRPD categories were only intended for native ranges. That means there is no way to categorize organisms by introduced ranges (although there are certainly articles that are miscategorized; e.g. onion currently has 6 categories for areas where it has been introduced). Categories specifically for non-native ranges have been deleted (Invasive species category has links to some deletion discussions). Plantdrew (talk) 16:48, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

Hi and, thanks very much for your answers, this is more complicated than I assumed (although I'm not suprised). So is it correct to say that:


 * 1) Plants are endemic to World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distribution should be added to one area in that list using Category: Endemic flora of COUNTRY
 * 2) Plants which are native to more than one country or area should be put in Category:Flora of COUNTRY and use as many as needed
 * 3) Not to record where a plant is invasive/introduced in the categories because those categories have been deleted (seems pretty strange to me)

Also are the same rules true for genus or family? Or is location not recorded?

Thanks again

John Cummings (talk) 13:44, 27 June 2023 (UTC)


 * . that's about right. However, you shouldn't always use country level categories. Some larger countries have WGSRPD categories for subnational areas (the United States is divided into 6 regional categories, which are further divided into categories for each state). And categories above the country level should be used when a species occurs in all of the countries for the higher level (I would say that a higher level category should also be used when a species is absent from a single country in the higher level category e.g., if a plant is in all the countries of Category:Flora of Central America except Belize, I would put it in the Central America category; at some point there's a judgement call about whether to use the higher level category if it's absent from 2 or more of the subdivisions (that depends to some extent on how many subdivisions there are)).


 * WikiProject Plants/World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions mostly mentions species, but does say "Higher taxa are included only if endemic (for example, a genus endemic to Western Australia could have the genus article itself included in that category)." I'm not sure I quite agree with restricting it to endemics; there are likely some genera that occur in Australia and New Guinea (and thus aren't endemic to a single WGSRPD category), that might be reasonable to categorize by geography. But families and genera with very broad distribution shouldn't have geography categories.


 * It also seems strange to me that we can't categorize invasive/introduced range (and I hadn't realized that was the case until just now), but I guess non-native ranges will continuously change. Plantdrew (talk) 15:12, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks very much, just to make sure I completely understand before I create some articles (and also propose some guidance for the taxon template on categories), I should:


 * Use the WGSRPD names in Category:Flora of WGSRPD area, some of which are countries some of which are parts of countries (unless they are endemic to one area of the WGSRPD then use Category: Endemic flora of WGSRPD area), use the Category:Flora of WGSRPD area as many times as needed, unless if the plants are in all or almost all subcategories in that category, then generalise to higher level categories in WGSRPD.
 * Not include any categories for where a species is not in its native habitat (I guess this would be covered as introduced in POWO).

(I'm sure there is a simpler way to describe this for the instructions, I'll try making a table or something).

Thanks again

John Cummings (talk) 21:00, 27 June 2023 (UTC)


 * I think you've given a very clear description, consistent with the guidance at WikiProject Plants/World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:08, 27 June 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes, you've got it. Plantdrew (talk) 21:36, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks very much indeed, John Cummings (talk) 11:16, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Has any work been done to match the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions to Wikidata?
Hi all

Just wondering if any work has been done to match WGSRPD to WIkidata? It would be super useful for me when creating the nice interactive maps eg Asparagus horridus which use the Wikidata item to call the shape from openstreetmap or a shape from Wikidata itself.

There are 4 levels of areas and only level 4 seems complicated although it includes all the country codes so shouldn't be difficult and it seems like most of the places will already have items. My question is how should it be done in a way that makes it most useful to everyone else?


 * Should a specific property be created on Wikidata?
 * Is there anything else I should know to make matching better? Even the level 4 areas seem quite simple and straightforward eg Cyprus, although I know there are some that don't match countries, eg Argentina Northwest.
 * For areas like Argentina Northwest, is there some way to get an open license shape area to make a map with?
 * Anything else?

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 11:26, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
 * There doesn't seem to be an identifier set up at Wikidata. Item  doesn't have a property for the identifier in the statements list. For comparison  has a statement for wikidata property.
 * There is a place for proposing new identifiers on Wikidata, which people have used for taxon identifiers. If accepted it is usually possible to get a bot to populate the appropriate items. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 12:50, 29 June 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks, yes I've done a few property proposals before, I'm guess I'm looking for advice on the best way to structure the data since it's going to be used by several people and probably in at least a couple of languages so want to do it well. John Cummings (talk) 14:02, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Update: I've created the property proposal here, all feedback greatly appreciated. John Cummings (talk) 11:40, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Wikidata Question
I noticed today that POWO says that Atriplex subspicata is Atriplex dioica. I understand how to move pages here on Wikipedia, but I've not yet tried to change species names on Wikidata. Does anyone know much about that? MtBotany (talk) 17:40, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Do not change species names on Wikidata. Wikidata items for "taxa" are actually items for names, and the IDs on Wikidata for various taxonomic databases correspond to names in those databases. You can change what Wikidata item is linked to an English Wikipedia page; d:Q19849712 is the item for Atriplex dioica. Plantdrew (talk) 18:14, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've added to the taxonbar. The entries on Wikidata look correct, with  given as  of Atriplex dioica the on  item and the  item stating it is an instance of  of Atriplex dioica.
 * If the page is moved to Atriplex dioica (which I think it should based on FNA and POWO) the page connections to Wikidata should take care of themselves, with connecting to the redirect and   to the new page (I think this would be made automatically in time, although it could be done manually). — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 08:06, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the information @Jts1882 and @Plantdrew. Glad I asked before I started editing. I have moved a number of plant pages here on Wikipedia, but when I looked at that one I was struck with doubt on if I was correctly completing the job correctly. Usually I update names on the page, move the page, and then look for redirects to fix. MtBotany (talk) 16:45, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * , page connections to Wikidata do not really take care of themselves. MtBotany has now moved A. subspicata to A. dioica on English Wikipedia, and now holds the link to A. dioica on en.wiki. Wikidata records MtBotany as having changed the sitelink, but it's something that happened in the process of moving the en.wiki article; MtBotany didn't directly edit Wikidata. For many moves, that is desirable behavior; e.g., changing the spelling of the title of an en.wiki article should result in Wikidata linking to the new spelling. I'm going to change the sitelinks now, but do look at the history of Q4817610 to the edit credited to MtBotany. Plantdrew (talk) 18:01, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Ah, so Wikidata makes sitelinks changes to follow the page move. I suppose that makes sense most of the time, but not for taxonomy. I note the basionym is no longer in the taxonbar. I'll fix that tomorrow (if no one else does). — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 19:30, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Huh. I do recall that there was a third taxon appearing there before the move, @Jts1882. The only thing I did to the taxonbar was to switch the numbers to make Atriplex dioica appear first. Could that have done it? Complete speculation on my part, but Chenopodium subspicatum is a basionym for Atriplex subspicata, but the new classification is (as I understand it) a revival of a publication with priority by Rafinesque. Could that be the reason why it disappeared? MtBotany (talk) 21:39, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It was nothing you did (apart from the move). The wikidata item  has a basionym of, which was picked up automatically by the taxonbar when the page was at Atriplex subspicata. I've added Q38412999 to the taxonbar.  — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 06:28, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Binomial vs common names in the article text
I occasionally copy edit plant articles and am wondering about cases like the current version of Azadirachta indica where the binomial and the two most common names are all used at various points in the text of the article. (These names do not have clear functional divisions like flax/linseed/linen.) There are more straightforward cases like the current Stachys byzantina, which is consistently referred to as "lamb's ear" throughout the text.

In general, I proceed on the premise that the name in the article title should match the name in the text, but that isn't always the case with plant articles where the title is a binomial, but the name in the text is the most common common name. Any relevant guidelines or reasons why articles should not be edited for consistent naming throughout? Thanks. — <span style="border:1px solid #93010b;background:#ef0000;padding:2px;color:#efe6e6;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em; font-family: Georgia;"> AjaxSmack 03:35, 10 July 2023 (UTC)


 * @AjaxSmack. I don't know if there is a guideline. I proceed on the assumption that I will use the scientific binomial everywhere except where the text needs to describe more cultural things. So I put a section about all the common names I am able to find under taxonomy and use one of the common names when talking about cultivation or culinary use of a plant.
 * However, almost all the plant articles that I edit are not well enough known to be under a common name. If it were something like the dandelion or blue grass I think I might use the common name more often in the text and only use the binomial in taxonomy, maybe.
 * As usual my motto is doubt or ”Ich weiß es nicht.„
 * Thanks for asking this question, I am interested to know if there is a guideline or consensus I have missed.
 * MtBotany (talk) 04:13, 10 July 2023 (UTC)


 * @AjaxSmack I don't think there's a guideline written down. When there isn't, and I'm in doubt, I tend to look at the featured plant articles. Choosing a couple at random, Acacia pycnantha starts off by using the scientific name and then switches to the English name, whereas Grevillea juniperina uses the scientific name throughout. Personally, I prefer to keep to the name used as the article title. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:22, 12 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the input. I looked at some FAs but missed Acacia pycnantha (which is an interesting case because the title was Golden Wattle before a move nearly 2 decades ago).  I'll assume that can I edit for consistent use of the scientific name throughout except in special cases like A. pycnantha with strong symbolic or cultural meaning. — <span style="border:1px solid #93010b;background:#ef0000;padding:2px;color:#efe6e6;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em; font-family: Georgia;"> AjaxSmack  14:20, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Using POWO for plant distribution maps on English Wikipedia
Hi all

I wanted ask if there are any existing decisions or rules about what sources should be used for plant distribution in articles, including providing a map in the infobox? I've worked out how to mirror the maps on POWO on WIkipedia in a nice interactive way e.g Asparagus horridus and can do multiple colours for different distributions like native, introduced extinct like how it looks on POWO.

Is it acceptable that the plant distribution information comes from Plants of the World Online? My understanding is that the distribution shown is classified using the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. I know that this isn't always the most granular eg a plant which is endemic to one island in the UK would be shown by POWO as in the UK (the most granular area available). Maybe someone wrote something already to put under maps to say 'may not cover whole area' or something?

I basically want to understand what the agreed standards are so I can comply with them and then help have a discussion about anything that isn't agreed yet.

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 12:36, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I noticed a couple of glitches in the map at Asparagus horridus - for Morocco only the Polisario-controlled areas of Western Sahara are coloured in green, and for Cyprus the name is displayed with a white background overriding the green. Lavateraguy (talk) 17:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I subsequently took a look at the Euro+Med entry, which has it additionally present in Israel and Jordan. Checking POWO, it has the same, under the name Palestine, which is in the text of Asparagus horridus, but hasn't shown up on the map. Lavateraguy (talk) 17:17, 10 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi thanks very much, this is super useful to know, Wikidata pulls the shapes from either shape files stored on Commons or OpenStreetMap, I'll investigate what the issue is. If I was going to make a lot more maps I'd double check all the areas work working. The good thing is if fix the issue for one map it fixes it for all the maps which use the same areas. John Cummings (talk) 17:37, 10 July 2023 (UTC)


 * PoWO is generally used because it's a reliable secondary source and it uses a consistent system (i.e. the WGSRPD). However, if there's a reliable secondary source that shows that a plant only occurs in a subarea of a larger unit given by PoWO, then I would certainly use that for a map. You do need to bear in mind the extent to which different parts of the world have been surveyed in detail. In western Europe and the more densely populated parts of North America, distributions are known to a high level of detail; in other areas this is not the case. Be wary of highly regional sources, in my experience. For example, the IUCN Red List was (and to some degree still is) full of species assessed by national bodies based on the assumption that the species is endemic to that country, when actually it's more widespread (possibly under a synonym). The online Flora of China gives detailed distributions within mainland China, but its notes on distributions elsewhere can sometimes be problematic. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:34, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks very much for the detailed explanation. Is it accurate to say that POWO is considered a reliable source for species distribution but other sources may offer more specific/granular distribution information? If this is correct is this written anywhere in the guidance? Thanks again, John Cummings (talk) 09:15, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I think there are two issues. (1) The WGSRPD should be used for categorization and hence the relevant units should be included in the text (with sources) so that the categories are supported. This is in our guidance. (2) This does not mean that other sources should not be used for more detailed distribution information. Look at Acacia pycnantha for example. The categories use the WGSRPD units which are states, but the map in the taxobox is more detailed. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:41, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks again, very helpful, Wikipedia:WikiProject_Plants/Template#Categories spells this out nice and clearly. Just to confirm, it is acceptable to replicate the maps on POWO to show plant distribution in the article like I've done with Asparagus horridus which could then be updated with more granular information later on if other sources are available? I guess this is basically just showing the category information on a map. I can't find any guidance at all on maps in any of the help pages, except a mention that there is a map field available in the infobox. If this is ok, I can write a draft for the guidance page. John Cummings (talk) 10:21, 12 July 2023 (UTC)
 * yes, please do write draft guidance and advertise it here for comment. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:53, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

, thanks very much, I've started a new discussion just below John Cummings (talk) 17:13, 13 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Another potential issue with the map at Asparagus horridus - if you switch it to full screen it shows 1st level subnational region boundaries, implying a false precision in the range mapping.  It also shows the location of a few cities. If you zoom in further more geographic data appears, such as roads and forests? protected areas? This is OK for a map of records, where one is looking to locate individual records, but not sensible for a coarse distribution map (a fine distribution map recording to hectad, tetrad or monad is an edge case).
 * I also now realise that there is another source of potential error (and have to correct my earlier reports). I don't have any suggestions as to what has gone wrong for Morocco, but the island of Cyprus has 3 political juridictions - the Republic of Cyprus, the de facto Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, and the British sovereign base areas. You have only the second mapped. You used Q229, which is the Republic of Cyprus, for which the geoshape is the area under de facto control. In theory you could add Q23681 for Northern Cyprus, but there might be a problem with the geoshape for that entry - which might be the cause of the anomaly in the distribution map. In theory you could use the island (Q644636), but that doesn't have a geoshape, and even it it did there would but issues about offshore islands. If you could solve the issue with Northern Cypress you'd also want to add Akrotiri and Dhekelia (Q37362). In the case of Palestine, the WGSRPD area includes Israel, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Jordan; the Wikidata geoshape for Palestine includes the Gaza Strip and those parts of the West Bank controlled by the Palestinian authority, which are so small they didn't show up visibly on the map. You could add geoshapes to construct the WPSRPD area, but the problem is that the base map shows Israel and Jordan as separate, implying that it's present in both; POWO is not a reliable source for that. In this case Euro+Med is a reliable source saying that it is present in both, but that might not be the case for the a different species (for example local endemic species in Crocus).
 * The Wikidata geoshapes for Portugal (Madeira and Azores), Spain (Balearic and Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, etc), France (Corsica), Italy (Sardinia and Sicily), Greece (Crete, East Aegean Islands?) and Norway (Jan Mayen and Svalbard) all include areas not included by POWO under those names. Lavateraguy (talk) 17:49, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I guess that if we're going to use POWO for drawing distribution maps we need wikidata entries and geoshapes for WGSRPD regions. And ideally a means of excluding extraneous details from the map.
 * The default would be coastlines and WGSRPD region boundaries. If you were using more detailed distribution data from another source, you want to add more. For example if you were taking data from Tela-Botanica for French distribution, you'd want to add departmental boundaries.
 * The UK and Ireland are a bit problematical. The equivalent units for botanical recording are vice-counties, but BSBI mapped is a hectad and tetrad rather than vice-county resolution, and county floras line up with different boundaries depending on data. (Revision of administrative boundaries, such as the relatively recent fragmentations of Dublin and Paris, is a bit of a general problem.) Lavateraguy (talk) 18:20, 14 July 2023 (UTC)
 * GeoJSON data for WGSRPD is available at github - I haven't checked out the licensing conditions, but I don't expect them to be onerous. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:14, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Ulmus americana
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Ulmus americana that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject.  ❯❯❯  Raydann  (Talk)   09:36, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

Guidance for adding maps to infoboxes about plant taxa
Hi all

Based on the conversation above this is my suggested first draft of a text for creating maps, like you can see on Asparagus horridus, any feedback on what information is missing, etc is greatly appreciated.

'' UPDATE: I've created a full page of instructions, listed below in this same post. ''

Plants of the World Online is a recognised reliable source for plant distribution range maps. The distribution information is available underneath the map itself and uses the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. Please add these locations to both the map and the categories (as described in geographical scheme in the Categories section). Other reliable sources may offer more granular distribution and can be used to refine range maps, e.g if the plant is endemic to a single island within an island chain.

I feel like it could go in the Infobox section since the map is in the infobox?

I will also create some guidance on actually creating maps, I guess this will probably be a few paragraphs long so I could do the as an expandable section or a subpage (I'll try and keep it as clear and straightforward as possible). I’m waiting for a Wikidata property to be approved before I can really write the 'how to' properly, so I’ll wait till then. I think there is probably a smart proforma thing someone more technical than me could make as well, but lets get the guidance on the sources of the information agreed first.

Also I have a suggestion for the section on Categories: ‘’information on the geographical scheme can be found at Plants of the World Online’’. Currently it talks about what categories to use but not where to find the information.

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 15:33, 13 July 2023 (UTC)
 * A list of regional "reliable sources" would probably not go amiss - e.g. Euro+Med, USDA, Flora Iberica, Tela-botanica, Harvard Flora of China. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lavateraguy (talk • contribs) 19:19, 14 July 2023 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what you mean above by information on the geographical scheme can be found at Plants of the World Online – do you mean about the scheme, for which World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions is a better link, I think, or do you mean about the distribution of a taxon?
 * Actually the database underlying POWO, the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) – see here – is in some ways a better textual source in that it uses the precise WGSRPD codes, whereas POWO maps them into verbal descriptions, which are sometimes not absolutely clear. The database can be downloaded and searched (although this is not straightforward). Peter coxhead (talk) 06:36, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Not straightforward is an understatement. The only way I could find was via the create checklist feature. Is there another way? Is the geographic information now in the download files (it wasn't in the 2022 version)? — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 07:15, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I'll give detailed steps for those who don't know the first ones, which I'm sure you do.
 * Go to the about page.
 * From the Data drop down menu at the top choose Download WCVP data.
 * Download the latest version of  and unzip it (if your system doesn't do this automatically).
 * Open  – I use a plain text editor rather than, say, Excel.
 * The easiest way to find a taxon is to use the IPNI id used in PoWO. So for, say, Magnolia grandiflora, the id is 554723-1. Search for this with "|" before and after, i.e. "|554723-1|".
 * The number before the IPNI id is the "plant id" (which I think is the old WCSP id). For Magnolia grandiflora it is 117615.
 * Open . Search for the plant id with "|" before and after, i.e. "|117615|". This will give you a set of entries which give the WGSRPD codes. The first line contains "4|ASIA-TROPICAL|40|Indian Subcontinent|ASS|Assam|1". The "1" after "Assam" here means 'introduced', a "0" means 'native'.
 * You can simplify this a bit by setting up some code or Excel formulae to do the extraction. In theory you could import both csv files into Excel, but my version says the first is too big. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:31, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The distribution data is new for the 2023 version. You can't load the whole files in Excel because they are over a million lines (2^20). You can load it in parts using the import functions (Data tab: Get Data).
 * I think they might have additional information available via Pykew. If I get the record for, it contains the following for locations:
 * I think the parts after the underscore are the level 4 codes. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:04, 17 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I think the parts after the underscore are the level 4 codes. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:04, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Hi, the process of downloading 100+MB text files and searching through them is one possible option for more technically competent people than me. To answer your earlier question, I mean the list of where the plant occurs in POWO species pages is listed under the map which displays distribution.

Prototype instruction page

I've put together a low technnical skills guide for creating range maps (still a few things missing like all the code and some missing Q numbers I need to make). I know its still quite a process to go through but doesn't require any data manipulation or downloading big files. Its just; look at the list on the species page on POWO, find the corresponding Wikidata items (I provided a list) and put it in the wikicode for making the maps and then publish. Please let me know what you think.

User:John Cummings/Wikiproject Plants table

Thanks

John Cummings (talk) 13:14, 17 July 2023 (UTC)


 * The list of Q numbers has a lot of duplicates. Lavateraguy (talk) 10:12, 19 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi yes I know, once I've merged all the data into Wikidata I'll have a clean list. John Cummings (talk) 09:43, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Plants used as herbs or spices
The page (plants used as herbs or spices) finally went live, and if any knowledgeable people care to add to the, well, biology-ness of it, I'd appreciate it. <g>

In particular, if some ambitious soul would be willing to add a "pictures" column... Tamtrible (talk) 13:33, 15 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Cool, what do you think about adding images to the table? I guess the two broad options would be the plant growing and/or the 'product' we use for cooking e.g the black pepper plant and the peppercorns. John Cummings (talk) 11:01, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

Map Question
When looking at Pedicularis groenlandica I was struck by the use of a map from GBIF for the range. I have seen discussions about generating maps from POWO data and some about drawing maps, has there ever been a discussion about best practices for maps in the past? Is this a subject that should be revisited? I do not dislike the GBIF map on the page as it in some ways gives a better understanding of the range a a glance, but I also think that a map with N American political subdivisions would be preferable. I have tried poking at the display settings on GBIF to get it to display political division with their little hexagons but no luck so far. Anyone have a trick for that?

Or maybe I should get serious about learning the graphic editing skills to make plant range maps in the style of the bird range maps. MtBotany (talk) 13:16, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

Draft:Syneilesis hayatae
Hi, Draft:Syneilesis hayatae (translated from zh:台湾兔儿伞) is notable but I'm a tad cautious accepting in it's current state as I've failed to even verify that most of the offline sources exist, let along stop fact check the content. A key source Flora of Taiwan, Vol. 4 exists but I can't find a copy. As it stands it's likely to sit in the AfC !queue for months. Should I just WP:AGF and accept? Any input appreciated. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 13:00, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It seems notable as a species article, as we generally take POWO as the guidance for species pages. The other references need translations at the least. I'm not sure of the relationships with Flora of Taiwan, but I found several similar sources at efloras.org:
 * Flora of China includes electronic pages for Syneilesis and Syneilesis hayatae.
 * Digital Flora of Taiwan includes Syneilesis but doesn't recognise the species.
 * Flora of Taiwan Checklist includes Syneilesis which has the same volume and page (IV:1077), but doesn't recognise the species.
 * There is also an entry for Syneilesis hayatae at Taiwan-CoL, which says Syneilesis intermedia  (the species recognised in the Taiwan efloras above) is a synonym. I've added a parameter to the taxonbar to show this. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:22, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I've added an extra couple of source and accepted. We have several editors that usually jump on these quite quick and tidy up any issues, so hopefully any issues will be addressed. Cheers KylieTastic (talk) 17:31, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It is desirable that the taxonomy section explain why S. intermedia was replaced by S. hayatae. I hypothesise that the original Senecio intermedius was a nom illeg. later homonym due to the earlier existence of Senecio intermedius Wight and Senecio ×intermedius Wiesb., and hence the epithet wasn't legitimately available for the transfers to Cacalia and Syneilesis. Confirmation requires checking the literature, and perhaps also ICN nerdery. Another possible issue is whether Senecio intermedius is a nomen nudum - the protologue just refers to an earlier Senecio Krameri (my guess is that the Taiwanese populations were originally considered conspecific with a Japanese species, and the citation refers to a description of the Taiwanese populations under the name of the Japanese species). Lavateraguy (talk) 17:51, 28 July 2023 (UTC)

Zeuxine rolf(e/i)ana
The specific epithet of Zeuxine rolfeana was originally spelled rolfiana. All the taxonbar databases use the rolfiana spelling except for POWO. Is rolfiana correctable to rolfeana? IPNI and WFO (sourced to WCSP) have rolfiana, so it appears that POWO probably decided it was correctable and changed the spelling. Plantdrew (talk) 21:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Credibility bot
As this is a highly active WikiProject, I would like to introduce you to Credibility bot. This is a bot that makes it easier to track source usage across articles through automated reports and alerts. We piloted this approach at Vaccine safety and we want to offer it to any subject area or domain. We need your support to demonstrate demand for this toolkit. If you have a desire for this functionality, or would like to leave other feedback, please endorse the tool or comment at WP:CREDBOT. Thanks! Harej (talk) 18:18, 5 August 2023 (UTC)

Orchidaceae taxonomy and genus list
I've tried for a long time to avoid looking seriously at Taxonomy of the Orchidaceae and List of Orchidaceae genera. Both are out-of-date. The first is particularly poorly referenced, especially in regard to inline references; the second seems to be based on the now obsolete World Checklist of Selected Plant Families although the introduction doesn't make this entirely clear. Sorting this situation out looks to be quite a bit of work. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:22, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
 * 1) My first question is whether we need two articles with lists of genera. Having two articles creates redundancy and many opportunities for inconsistency. My strong preference is to have only one article listing the genera; there can be another with a general discussion of orchid taxonomy.
 * 2) If there is to be only one article, how detailed should the classification be? Chase et al. (2015) at has a genus list down to subtribes, but is now 8 years old. APweb has a list to tribes, but seems to be based mainly on Chase et al. (2015). Are there any more recent reliable sources?
 * What about World Orchids? Michael Hassler keeps Orchids and Ferns as separate checklists (even though included in the world list). I assume this means some particular interest which might make them more up to date. Edit: On reflection, this doesn't answer your question as you want a subfamily/tribe classification. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:42, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think there's anything more recent than Chase 2015 for the whole family. Genera Orchidacearum is older (and Chase is a co-author). Articles/taxonomy templates are almost all following Chase 2015 (NCBI follows Chase, and GRIN appears to be following older sources). I don't think we need two lists of genera, and the list could just be a simple alphabetical list (I'd suggest keeping mentions of tribes in Taxonomy of the Orchidaceae, but not listing all genera there). Plantdrew (talk) 16:29, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Ok, well in preparation for a single list ordered alphabetically, I've created User:Peter coxhead/Work/Orchidaceae genera. There are some redirects where the name is recognized by PoWO, and 72 articles on orchid genera that are not accepted by PoWO. I guess all of these need fixing (although PoWO generally lumps rather than splits). All assistance welcome! Peter coxhead (talk) 19:14, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * A bunch of the genera with articles that aren't accepted by POWO were split from Maxillaria. Chase also treats Maxillaria in a broad sense. The article says "it has been proposed that the genus should be split into several genera, proposals that have been gaining acceptance", which is sourced to WCSP. I'm not sure if Kew has changed their position on splitting Maxillaria, or if WCSP is being misrepresented with that statement (or if WCSP was just mentioning an alternative view). Plantdrew (talk) 19:37, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Redirects/redlinks accepted by both POWO and Chase: Cyrtochilum, Microepidendrum, Oxystophyllum, Quechua (plant).Plantdrew (talk) 19:47, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
 * stubs created on these. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:51, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
 * There are also significant differences between PoWO and Chase. Ignoring nothogenera, I counted:
 * 670 accepted by both
 * 35 accepted by PoWO but not in Chase
 * 66 in Chase but not accepted by PoWO
 * I'm surprised by the number in Chase but not in PoWO. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:18, 29 July 2023 (UTC)
 * I've gone through the taxonomy templates and moved a number of genera to the tribe/subtribe in the classification of Chase et al (2015). This shouldn't interfere with changes related to recognition by only one of Chase and POWO. One issue that came up is that there is an article on tribe Dendrobieae, which Chase recognises as subtribe Dendrobiinae in tribe Malaxideae. I added a brief update on the Chase taxonomy, but this article probably should be moved or made a redirect.
 * , how did you manage to find that Template:Taxonomy/Waireia needed to have a subtribe parent instead of a tribe? I'm kicking myself for having left it as it was. Did you just stumble across that one, or did you use a more systematic method to detect taxonomy templates with parents less specific than given by Chase? Plantdrew (talk) 04:34, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Systematic. I use my taxonomy template browser to compare the template hierarchy with the classification being followed. Often there are genera not placed in the lowest appropriate taxon. So starting at Orchidaceae, the child taxa included five subfamilies and 19 genera. I moved 14 genera to the appropriate Chase subtribe (the other five are not in Chase). In the case of Waireia, I saw tribe Diurideae had nine subtribes and Waireia. I also look for mismatches in number of child taxa (I open and close each child of a taxon, but I might automate this one day) and compare those with the classification. Some of these are genera simply placed in the wrong taxon (which I fix), some are missing automatic taxoboxes (which I convert, although I've only found a few for orchids, unlike some crustacean taxa!), and others are due to differences in the treatment in Wikipedia and Chase. Some of the Cymbidieae have large mismatches in child taxa (e.g. Oncidiinae has 72 child templates, compared to 65 genera in Chase), and these I've leaving alone for now as I assume its differences in Chase and POWO, which is what is currently working on. Small mismatches I'm checking and fixing if not following Chase (e.g. Stanhopeinae was missing Lueckelia). I'm not being totally comprehensive, as if the child numbers match I'm not systematically checking the genera (there could two errors that cancel).
 * One issue I've noticed is in tribe Podochileae. The template hierarchy has genera in subtribes Eriinae (23) and Thelasiinae (3) which are not recognised in Chase. If we are exclusively following Chase these need moving to the tribe. However, the subtribes have articles. Is there any other taxonomy that would justify retaining these subtribes articles and templates? — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 09:38, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * see the Ng et al. (2018) reference at Eriinae. This is later than Chase et al. (2015), and has Chase and Pridgeon as co-authors, as well as some other very highly respected orchidologists. So I regard it as acceptable as a source. (The only complication I've found so far is that there's a muddle over the correct name and authority for Cymboglossum, which I've tried to write up under Taxonomy there, and which I have some queries out for both IPNI and PoWO.) Peter coxhead (talk) 10:00, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * That seems a good source, so I'm glad I didn't move them (I note they've fixed Oxford Academic in the Wikipedia Libary at last). I'll check the taxonomy templates against this new study and keep the subtribes
 * There is another recent subtribe proposal, for Orchideae, in Chen et al (2017; ). They propose a new subtribe Pachitinae for Pachites and resurrects Huttonaeinae for Huttonaea. I had moved Taxonomy/Pachites from Pachitinae back to Disinae, as the change was made while leaving Chase et al (2015) as the reference, but that was before I saw the new study at Taxonomy/Huttonaea. The article on Orchideae also includes the taxonomy in this newer study, so I think this should be used as well. I'll revert my change with the new reference. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 10:30, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Orchideae needs some work; the list of genera is only the genera in subtribe Orchidinae (which needs an article) that were sampled by Jin (2017). See Talk:Orchideae, Plantdrew (talk) 16:59, 1 August 2023 (UTC)
 * The taxonomy in Ng et al (2018) is strange. The abstract says the "generic circumscription of Eriinae s.s. (excluding Podochilinae) is revised, and 21 genera are accepted" and then the paper recognises a 24 genus Eriinae sensu lato (table 1), which includes the three genera in a nested Podochilinae. As the tribe is Podochileae, shouldn't this larger clade be Podochilinae sensu lato, even if it includes many former Eria species?
 * Another thing I noticed is the article for Eria has Eria stelata as the type species in the taxobox. POWO does't contain an entry for the species, even as a synonym. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 12:42, 2 August 2023 (UTC)
 * There are some other cases (though none come to mind at the moment) where e.g. tribe Fooeae has subtribe Barinae, which contains Fooia and Baria. The first name published at subtribe rank typified by any of the included genera would have priority even if that makes the tribe and subtribe names inconsistent. Eria stellata is the correct spelling; it's a synonym of E. javanica (having a type that's a synonym is another counter-intuitive aspect of nomenclature). Plantdrew (talk) 16:34, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

What I'm trying to do at present is to go through the redirects in the list at User:Peter_coxhead/Work/Orchidaceae genera to see whether they should actually be articles, and create them if so. Then, even if they are not moved or redirected, at least the PoWO name needs to be found for all those listed at User:Peter_coxhead/Work/Orchidaceae genera. All assistance will be extremely welcome, as there's a lot of work to do.
 * Additional genera accepted by neither POWO nor Chase with articles: Acianthella, Hylaeorchis, Jennyella, Orthochilus, Phymatochilum. Chase has some discussion regarding Orthochilus and Eulophia; Chase's genus concept of Eulophia may be paraphyletic if Orthochilus isn't recognized, but POWO apparently solves this by lumping other genera recognized by Chase into Eulophia. Plantdrew (talk) 02:23, 9 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Chase described Nohawilliamsia in 2009, and didn't mention it in 2015; weird. Chase (2015) also doesn't mention Archivea, which is understandable as according to Stanhopeinae, the type is a watercolor painting; however, POWO accepts it. I'm going to look into Archivea a little more (illustrations can be acceptable types, but on the surface of it, I'm baffled why anybody would decide to erect a new genus in 1996 on the sole basis of an illustration) . Plantdrew (talk) 03:01, 9 August 2023 (UTC)

Calasterella californica
Where does he go? New plant:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Calasterella-californica-Hampe-ex-Austin-DGLong-TXZheng-Asterella-californica_fig1_372766072 SpookMew (talk) 14:49, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't think its a new plant. It's a proposal for new genus and subfamily for Asterella californica. If the proposal is accepted, then the article should be moved. In the meantime, a statement could be added to the taxonomy section to present this new alternative classification. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 15:39, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Ooooh, thank you for the information! SpookMew (talk) 15:50, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Ive also seen this flower doesn’t have a page, I’m looking theough new species for 2023 atm. I dont know much about plants
 * https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9043400/ SpookMew (talk) 15:53, 17 August 2023 (UTC)
 * There are more than 300,000 species of plants. Wikipedia has articles for 64,000 of them. Finding plant species that don't have articles isn't much of a challenge. Plantdrew (talk) 16:26, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

List of publicised titan arum blooms in cultivation
What should happen with List of publicised titan arum blooms in cultivation? Cultivated titan arum blooms were once a rare event. Now they are something where a bunch of institutions have multiple blooms per year. These events do still draw crowds, but the list is very incomplete. There is a list of blooms through 2008, which I guess is pretty comprehensive (it has 157 entries). Should the list be renamed to have 2008 as a cut-off date, or should it be redirected to Amorphophallus titanum with some discussion about how blooms in cultivation used to be rare (that article is suffering from spammy additions of not particularly notable recent blooms)? I don't think maintaining the list as it is now is really feasible. Plantdrew (talk) 19:02, 16 August 2023 (UTC)


 * I would argue that although such bloomings were once notable, they aren't now, so the article is not encyclopedic and should be deleted. The topic but not the list should be discussed in the species article. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:45, 17 August 2023‎ (UTC)


 * @Peter coxhead I disagree mildly about it not being encyclopedic. The fact that they were hard to cultivate did make it notable and I think it remains somewhat notable because it gives good information about where and when the problems of the cultivation and learning about the exact requirements of this extraordinary plant took place. There also is some degree of interest in blooms even now, but I think that condensing the information down to something like, "In the decade following at least as many plants bloomed in cultivation as did in the first 100 years." 🌿MtBotany (talk) 17:51, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Proposal to merge bramble into Rubus
See Talk:Rubus. Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 22:19, 17 August 2023 (UTC)

Importance ranking at Pitaya
A question has been raised at Talk:Pitaya about this project ranking the importance of the acticle as "Top". Donald Albury 14:37, 15 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Importance ratings aren't very important, and I don't worry about them much. Theoretically, if a WikiProject had collaborative efforts to expand articles, those efforts would focus on articles with higher importance ratings, but there really isn't a history of collaborative efforts to expand plant articles. Distribution of importance ratings follows (more or less) a power law: 75 Top, 698 High, 8,608 Mid, 83,731 Low, which I think is appropriate. Maybe it should not be (approximately) a power of 10, but it should not be 4 equally sized buckets of ~20,000 articles.


 * Pitaya was the 17th most viewed article last month (and been pretty consistently around that rank in other months). While I think page views should play some role in determining importance ratings, they shouldn't be the only consideration. Most of the articles rated Top importance are very basic topics in botany. The only other Top importance article about a particular plant (as opposed to a broad group like moss, flowering plant, etc.) is Arabidopsis thaliana, which I'd be inclined to demote to High importance.


 * Many of the most viewed articles are tropical fruits, or plants that have only recently become available and trendy in English speaking countries. That makes sense, people go to an encyclopedia to learn more about topics they are unfamiliar with. But I don't think pitaya is more important than wheat or rice, even if it does consistently get more page views. Pitaya shouldn't be Top importance. Either High or Mid would be reasonable. Plantdrew (talk) 16:44, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * A couple of years ago I went through most of this Project's articles and assessed them. I set Pitaya to High because it gets 3000 pageviews a day. Somebody put it to Top, Mid is too low. Abductive  (reasoning) 20:52, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Achillea millefolium
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Achillea millefolium that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Wikiexplorationandhelping (talk) 03:49, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Sorbus intermedia
Hi all, the taxon is supposedly the same as  and. Is it necessary to have three distinct Wikidata items? Besides on Commons we have the category Borkhausenia intermedia and the gallery Borkhausenia intermedia but the Wikipedia article is still Sorbus intermedia. Can we fix this mess?-- Carnby (talk) 21:32, 14 August 2023 (UTC)
 * we cannot fix the mess involving Wikidata. As explained at User:Peter coxhead/Wikidata issues, contrary to what the Wikidata description claims, their "taxon" items are instances of taxon name not taxon, so there should be multiple items per taxon.
 * Editors here can move Sorbus intermedia to Scandosorbus intermedia and can also go over to Commons and make or ask for moves there. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:13, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * So most sources now identify the plant as Scandosorbus intermedia and that should be the title?-- Carnby (talk) 06:23, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * POWO accepts the new name, with the others as synonyms, so I agree the page should be moved. POWO is the favoured source for organising article titles and taxobox classification, but the alternatives should be discussed in the text. Not sure if most sources recognise this combination yet. WFO and Tropicos don't recognise genus Scandosorbus. I assume the difference is because it's a relatively new genus (2018), although World Plants recognises xScandosorbus and xScandosorbus ×intermedia.
 * I've added other identifiers to the taxonbar in Sorbus intermedia. Curiously the taxonbar collapses in preview mode (because it has four identifiers), but not on the saved page. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 07:50, 15 August 2023 (UTC)
 * It's now been moved. POWO splits Sorbus into several genera. Under that circumscription, intermedia is an intergeneric hybrid between Torminalis, Aria, and Sorbus which is why the genus name Scandosorbus is needed for it. But the intermedia article refers to the parent species as Sorbus. There is quite a bit of work needed to implement the split of Sorbus on Wikipedia.
 * , Tropicos isn't proactive about adding names that aren't relevant to the expertise of a taxonomist affiliated with Missouri Botanical Garden, or to a geographical region where MOBOT doesn't have a research program. Europe is not an area where MOBOT is going to have a research program (there are plenty of other institutions doing European botany). Tropicos picked up a lot of names not particularly relevant to MOBOT in the process of building The Plant List, but you should expect that Tropicos will often lack records of names of European species published after The Plant List. Plantdrew (talk) 19:39, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Juniper berries and arils
I'd appreciate if someone more familiar with botany would help answer my query at Talk:Juniper berry, specifically regarding the relationship between juniper berries/galbuli and arils. – Scyrme (talk) 15:32, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Interwiki-linking of grasses?
Apparently the German as well as a number of other Wikipedias combine members of poales with a grass-like appearance into an article such as de:Gras. These articles are linked through which erroneously refers to True grass in the English Wikipedia.

The English Wikipedia as well as a few other Wikipedias on the other hand have an article Graminoid which appears to have a similar scope but cannot be linked through as these are already linked in.

What to do? KaiKemmann (talk) 09:50, 31 August 2023 (UTC)


 * It's a well know limitation of Wikidata that it only allows one-to-one linking of wikidata items with language wikipedias. English Wikipedia links with Poales,  with Poaceae, which is logical enough, and then links   to the redirect true grass (which links to Poaceae). The problem lies with, which is an item about grasses, an instance of . The cause of the problem is that the common name can be used broadly or narrowly, at least in English. The links to the broad grass article on German wikipedia and the link to the narrow grass article on English Wikipedia are both valid links, even though they cover different scope. I wouldn't say the English wikipedia link is erroneous, just because the link to the German wikipedia article has different scope. You could equally argue that the German wikipedia de:Gras should be linked to  so it corresponds to the sitelink for the English wikipedia Graminoid. I'm not sure there is a solution, we just have to pick the least wrong one. — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 12:02, 31 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for you comprehensive answer, Jts1882.
 * Well, it seems to contradict the stringency of Wikidata to link true grass (= Poaceae) to, which in general (i.e. in probably most of more than two dozen connected language wikipedias) seems to be about a number of poales species (of which true grass is only one).
 * This minor issue aside, I find it somewhat unsatisfactory that and  coexist without apparent reference to each other.
 * Grass and true grass both redirect to Poaceae which probably does not reflect the concept of most people where "grass" is "anything that looks like grass".
 * Provided that we can agree on this definition (and maybe fall back onto "true grass" as a common synonym for "Poaceae") I would suggest to
 * connect grass (not true grass) to
 * have the redirect grass point to graminoid
 * establish a redirect de:Graminoid (connected to ) pointing to de:Gras and explain the concept of "graminoids" there
 * Thus at least the English Wikipedia and my native Wikipedia would be linked through the Wikidata mechanism and other wikipedias could follow suit.
 * Any reservations about this?
 * Alternatively de:Gras and the respective articles in other language wikipedias could be entered manually as interwikilinks into the source code of graminoid. This would save some time but these interwikilinks would then need to be removed again if an article de:Graminoide for example would be established later on. (Or do the Wikidata-links automatically supercede the manual interwikilinks?)
 * KaiKemmann (talk) 13:22, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

Category: Taxa by author - a hoary old problem?
Seem to me that some editors have difficulty distinguishing between "taxa named by X" and "species named by X" (as for example here), when creating categories (eg. Category:Taxa named by X). Is there guidance somewhere to assist with an explanation of the difference? Gderrin (talk) 04:28, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * As I wrote at Talk:Sambucus australasica, I don't think there is a distinction between "taxa named by X" and "species named by X" – species are just one kind of taxon. A real issue is the difference between the nomenclature codes in how they handle transfers of species to another genus.  The ICZN is only interested in the original author; the ICNafp takes account of the transferring author.  So Sambucus australasica (Lindl.) Fritsch could be categorized:
 * Only in "Taxa named by John Lindley"
 * Only in "Taxa named by Karl Fritsch"
 * In both these categories
 * There's a case for (1) – consistency across nomenclature codes – and a case for (3) – all authors cited with the taxon – but in my view no case for (2). Personally I prefer (1), since it's then consistent with "Plants described in YEAR" (except for replacement names), as well as with ICZN names. Sambucus australasica was described and named by John Lindley in 1838 (as Tripetelus australasicus), so should be categorized in "Plants described in 1838" and "Taxa named by John Lindley".
 * A problem with also using "Taxa named by " is whether current acceptance is enough to privilege one synonym of the basionym over others. In the very broadest sense a species has been named by any author transferring it to another genus. It's cleaner to categorize based on the basionym only. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:48, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I mildly prefer (3) because it is almost like a collaborative naming, just across time instead of like with a more recently named taxon where multiple authors are given credit. But I have been doing (1) because that what I have seen other editors doing. And I think I have failed to properly add the "named by" category on at least one article I wrote where the species does have two authors. Have to fix that when I'm back at editing next month.
 * Thanks for your comment, a very good summary, as usual. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 17:52, 16 September 2023 (UTC)


 * Would Category:Taxa described by xxx (for consistency with the year described categories) or Category:Taxa described and named by xxx be better? — <span style="font-family:Arial;background:#d6ffe6;border:solid 1px;border-radius:5px;box-shadow:darkcyan 0px 1px 1px;"> Jts1882 &#124; talk 14:05, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Possibly, but it would need a wider discussion across ToL WikiProjects, I think. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:58, 16 September 2023 (UTC)
 * This discussion seems to reoccur with regular frequency ... maybe it's time to finally have this discussion and iron out some explanatory text to go on the category page?


 * Follow-up thread started at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Tree_of_Life. Esculenta (talk) 22:11, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Floral emblem
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Floral emblem that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. – Material  Works  16:58, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Requested move at Talk:Eruca vesicaria
There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Eruca vesicaria that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. ModernDayTrilobite (talk • contribs) 14:10, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Distribution categorization of monotypic genera and species redirects
There seems to be a divergence of practice as to where to put the distribution categories for monotypic genera whose only species is described on a page with the genus as the title. I've consistently interpreted the guidance at WikiProject_Plants/World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions
 * "Taxa of the lowest rank are always included (species, subspecies, varieties). Higher taxa are included only if endemic (for example, a genus endemic to Western Australia could have the genus article itself included in that category)"

to mean that the species redirect is always categorized, and the genus article is categorized only if endemic. So, for example, I would put both Scaraboides and Scaraboides manningii in Category:Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces. On the other hand, I would put Pentaglottis sempervirens in Category:Flora of Southwestern Europe but wouldn't put Pentaglottis in a distribution category.

I was prompted by the recent removal of a distribution category from Scaraboides manningii to look at examples to try to find out what the usual practice was. It seems to me that there isn't any consistency and I can't find any explicit guidance. I wonder if we could agree on how to handle distribution categories for monotypic genera and species redirects. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:07, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I also categorise fungal/lichen distributions similarly as your interpretation, and think adding extra guidance to the category page is a good idea. Esculenta (talk) 19:26, 26 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I support Peter's view of the guidance. Category:Endemic flora of the Cape Provinces should be a category for the redirect Scaraboides manningii per "Taxa of the lowest rank are always included" and also a category for Scaraboides per "Higher taxa are included only if endemic". Putting the Pentaglottis sempervirens redirect in Category:Flora of Southwestern Europe is correct, as is not having one for Pentaglottis, not being endemic. The guidance appears clear to me as written, but maybe further clarification could be made that species redirects are included. Declangi (talk) 03:51, 27 September 2023 (UTC)
 * Ok, well as no-one else has commented, and the three of us agree, I added to the guidance the sentence "In the case of monotypic taxa, redirects should be categorized in exactly the same way." Peter coxhead (talk) 09:02, 30 September 2023 (UTC)
 * I also categorized the two examples I gave above as per the revised guidance. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:05, 30 September 2023 (UTC)

Type species sourcing
I was reviewing edits like this and was wondering... what is the best source to find the correct type species of a genus? I looked in POWO but didn't see anything. <span style="font-family:Linux Libertine, Georgia, serif;">Steven Walling &bull; talk  20:33, 6 September 2023 (UTC)
 * IPNI or Tropicos are good for type species. Plantdrew (talk) 03:48, 7 September 2023 (UTC)
 * ING is the most up-to-date for types of genera https://naturalhistory2.si.edu/botany/ing/ Weepingraf (talk) 20:12, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Necessity of new image collages for Plantae and Angiosperms

 * The original images for Angiosperms and Plantae were replaced a few months ago, presumably for not being taxonomically representative enough. While I agree with the sentiment (and the original angiosperm image put too much emphasis on horticultural and European species), the new images are not as neatly organized and the Angiosperm one is entirely comprised of Northern Hemisphere taxa. I'd say we need new collages with their own imagemaps just like those on the Animal pages.Geekgecko (talk) 01:24, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
 * For the Angiosperm one at least, I propose six rows of 3 images each: the first representing the basal angiosperms, the second representing the magnoliids, the third and fourth representing the monocots, and the fifth and sixth representing the eudicots. All photos focus on flowers and fruit, there is representation from many different geographical regions, and only wild-type plants are shown. The collage for the plant page could be similar as it currently is but should be better organized. Geekgecko (talk) 01:24, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

WikiProject Plants MoS?
Is there a Manual of Style page on how to make pages for botanical taxa? Davest3r08 (talk) 13:53, 4 October 2023 (UTC)


 * , see WikiProject_Plants/Template (although it is just advice, not a Manual of Style with guideline status). Plantdrew (talk) 16:02, 4 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Davest3r08 (talk) 16:05, 4 October 2023 (UTC)

Deletion of "List of Lepidoptera that feed on" articles
There is currently a discussion ongoing at Articles for deletion/List of Lepidoptera that feed on Aster that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. AryKun (talk) 09:53, 5 October 2023 (UTC)