Italics for words as words In plant articles like Pumpkin it is normal to use quotation marks rather than italics as per MOS WORDSASWORDS When italics could cause confusion quotation marks instead may be used to distinguish words as words This is because italics mark scientific names I don t think the change you made at Pumpkin matters but elsewhere it might create confusion for readers not familiar with the scientific names involved As an example citrus is used both as a common name and as the genus name Cistrus It would be confusing to use italics to mark citrus as reference rather than a use