Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants/Archive9

message: After I just created category Chenopodiaceae, I found that category Caryophyllales is defined "as circumscribed by the APG II system (2003)". This seemed a bit POV to me so I decided to remove this part of sentence. It was originally added by User:Brya on 26th May 2006. What's this project standing on the matter? --Eleassar my talk 08:10, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: APG circumscriptions are used extensively in the current botanical literature, so they should be left in.  It is not any editor's POV that this be included, it's just current plant sciences.  It doesn't matter who added it, just what its relevance is to the article.  In this case, APG circumscriptions, and other standard taxonomies, that are mentioned in articles should remain.  KP Botany 14:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Are we talking about the same thing here? Of course I have APG II for a reliable source but I think this kind of information belongs to the article Caryophyllales (where one can cite other sources too), not the category page with this name. IMHO it's strange to put Chenopodiaceae in the category Caryophyllales that is "circumscribed by the APG II system". --Eleassar my talk 09:42, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, category.  No, we're not talking about the same thing, let me reread and discuss what you brought up.  I see.  Because the orders have been restructured deeply by the APG I and II, and because many leading botanists are using these taxonomies in their current work, but not all, it is appropriate and necessary, at this point in time, to list what specific circumscription you are using for a category you create.  We're all over the place on which to use here, so don't advocate any.  But we also don't advocate against any (as a group "we" as opposed to individuals who, of course, advocate their own preferences for the various taxonomies).  If someone created a category already with a specific circumscription that you disagree with you should probably discuss it first.  In this case, on this page.  If there is no feedback, do as you see fit, backing up your decision with the most current peer-reviewed references.  For example, and article in the American Journal of Botany, where an expert in a family, uses the Reveal circumscription for the order, or whatever you use.  KP Botany 03:46, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia follows APG II? 

message: I ran across this as I was cleaning up :Category:Plants. Anyone have any info on this plant? I ran the species name on google and it only came up with Wikipedia mirrors (maybe spelled incorrectly?). The common name gets at least one hit that indicates the plant may be Utrica diocia. Others seem to indicate some kind of gourd. If we can be sure about the species name, I'd say merge what little info is there. --Rkitko (talk) 09:14, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oooh, maybe it's Strobilanthes wallichii? An earlier version of the page had the scientific name as "Strobilenthes". --Rkitko (talk) 09:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've made kandali into a dab page and started Strobilanthes wallichii as a separate stub.--Melburnian 13:24, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for sorting that out! Excellent work. --Rkitko (talk) 19:20, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Kandali]] 

message: Just wanting to know what people are up to these days. Me, I'm trying to do some assessment and starting to work on a new Common Milkweed article (over here). I'm starting to find that Asclepias are a fascinating genus, but again my College's minimal coverage of botany (We do much stronger on forestry, it seems) is not helping. Circeus 00:31, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm studying, in addition to my usual, so I have very little time.  Asclepias is, indeed, a fascinating genus.  I went to a strong forestry and botany school, luckily. KP Botany 02:18, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not actually studying in Botany, myself, even though I love the discipline. And I should take more time to wor on some term papers, actually XD Circeus 02:23, 15 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean in real life or on Wikipedia?  Abridged 00:42, 16 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Papers and studies in real life, indeed.Circeus 21:32, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

text: Still focusing on Stylidium and recently finished off protocarnivorous plant. Lately I've been running BotanyBot for article tagging--just a few more categories to go. I have plans to get my hands on additional resources to complete (as much as I can) the taxonomy of Stylidiaceae, and I just proposed a potential split of the article Durian to include an article Durio (very tentative). And, at the very least, I'm creating stubs for the List of Durio species. In real life, I've just begun work on the Utricularia species here in the Pacific Northwest, specifically in Washington. Great idea, Circeus. Anyone else going to share? --Rkitko (talk) 08:37, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

text: You have my full suport in splitting just about ANY crop plant from the associated food article. Take almond for a random example: I fail to see anything in it that makes it even attempt to cover Prunus dulcis, the plant. I almost sent Saffron to FAR for that very reason.Circeus 15:59, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pulse taking 

message: User:Rkitko originally picked an image at random for the WikiProject Plants assessment banner.  I objected to that particular image because it was a cultivar and felt a species would be a better choice.  I suggested that it could still be a member of the Asteraceae, as the first one was, and as it is a major family of flowering plants.  The current choice is Matricaria recutita  (above).  Picked by Rkitko, but not with any particularly reasoning (pointed finger with closed eyes at screen full of featured pictures).  I did not want a cultivar for the general plants banner, but felt an angiosperm would be appropriate, one of the larger and more familiar families.  I am very satisfied with this random image, although I would like to see an article on the species, if we keep it, which I will start.  Are there reasons for not going with this picture?  Do other editors have preferences or suggestions? We could also, I suppose, pick a spectacular or notable plant, rather than a common and familiar one (my idea behind Asteraceae or Liliaceae).  It is work for the servers to change images, I suppose, so deciding this sooner (with fewer banners placed) is best.  Would folks weigh in? KP Botany 04:58, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oh, I think you misunderstood my earlier comment. (But no worries). The random picking was of the initial cultivar (with my closed-eyes-pointed-finger method). User:Circeus changed the image diff. I, as stated above, have no preference. A lot of projects simply use a line-drawing or graphic, so that's another thought. (And I believe most of the banners are placed or I'm very close to it). Cheers, --Rkitko (talk) 06:35, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah, I see. Well, no worry, whoever picked it, it works now as far as I am concerned, and I think your point about getting input is a good one.   I'd hate to use a line drawing when flowers are probably one of the most photogenic things on the planet.  KP Botany 06:59, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, we have plenty of material to choose from. The main thing is that it needs to be recognizable when very small, so preferably single flower filling the image, with high-contrast background. Stan 00:44, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assessment tag image 

message: At :Commons:Category:Kubota Garden, I've added some rather nice pictures of a Japanese Garden in Seattle, Washington. However, I know very little about plants, and right now the captions just say that it is part of this (20 acre) garden. If anyone can help identify plants, that would be great: please enhance my captions. - Jmabel | Talk 04:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help sought for some picture captions 

message: Hi,
I recently did a cleanup on Zephyranthes and had some questions about formatting plant articles. I used bold for common names and Italic sp for species names within the article. There is a long list of redlink species that I left in normal font as I believe that is the convention that I have seen here. 
I actually redlinked them to encourage me to start at least a stub on each of them, which may take a while but I will peck away at it. My real question is...is there an article that I can use as a 'Ideal plant stub' to base this on? Do you folks have a style and such that you would like to see all plant articles conform to? Perhaps the one linked species, Zephyranthes atamasco? I ask because if I'm going to the effort of creating all these articles I don't want someone to come along and have to make some style change to dozens of articles that I could have done in the first place. 
Thanks, --killing sparrows 05:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just a note: Latin species names should ALWAYS be italicized, whether or not they are bold, redlinked, or otherwise. This is a long-standing botanical convention and wasn't made up for Wikipedia, so we can't just apply it to some cases. --NoahElhardt 05:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, as soon as I read your note I realized thats the way it is done. Any help on my other Q's appreciated. For now I'll use the atamasco sp. article.--killing sparrows 07:01, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Zephyranthes]] 

message: Hello! I have added a Didymelaceae handmade drawing in the Didymeles' taxobox (found in Commons), but I'm afraid of its bad quality. I am writing this because I would like to listen your judgement; if it were negative, I'm no problem with an eventual undo. Thank you --84.121.128.46 10:18, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Didymeles 

message: I've just set up a wiki just for plants and gardening.  The articles on Wikipedia are by rule encyclopedic, and I want to create a plant encyclopedia and garden wiki with much more gardener friendly information, presentation.  I am currently working on adding base material from Wikipedia itself, and then adding things like USDA plant zones, Sunset zones, propogation, common pests and diseases, and all the other types of things a gardener would want to know about a plant...  so hopefully the sites will compliment each other with time.  --RaffiKojian 15:16, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New plant-garden wiki 

message: Hi there,
I posted a question above re: Zephyranthes asking about style for this article. I think it would be a great idea if on your project main page you had a list of 'perfect articles,' stub class, start class, GA class, that outside editors could use when working with articles that are part of this project. 
I have no formal training but a great interest in wildflowers in particular and plants in general and would enjoy copyediting, formatting, wikifying, finding images to add, etc. on these articles but don't want to waste my time if there is no commonly accepted way the articles should be constructed. A short document outlining what is desired (especially re: bold, italic etc. styles as I asked about above) would also be nice but even links to exemplars would do the trick. I think there are other people who might also enjoy improving the articles on a occasional basis if they had a format to follow. As an example, would you always want the taxo box added even if all or none of the info is available to the editor? Is there a minimum level for references if I am going to start creating stubs for the Zephyranthes species and a good place to go to get those refernces? These questions could all be answered briefly in one place and give outsiders a way to contribute.
Maybe the answer is 'just find any article, they are all about the same,' but a list would give new or amatuer editors confidence that they were doing it right. It would also help your project achieve consistancy and raise the quality of plant articles and WP in general. 
Thanks! --killing sparrows 17:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion for this project 

message: I was new page patrolling and someone created an article on Phoebe porosa, which looked like this. It was unformatted and unsourced. I gave a shot at rewriting it so now it looks like this. However, I am woefully unfamiliar with the particulars related to this WikiProject, so I would be more comfortable if a member could look at it for me. In particular, the title of the article and the infobox information. Any help is appreciated. Leebo T/C 14:00, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your edits look good to me.  Thanks! Kingdon 19:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like KP Botany and Rkitko have been helping out too. Thanks for checking on it, everyone. Leebo T/C 19:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help someone unfamiliar with plant articles! 

message: Since the existing Monocots article was redundant with respect to the Monocotyledon article, several merge suggestions were left hanging, and because numerous links on the term "monocots" took users to the less informative and helpful of the two articles, I've finally moved what little was not redundant from the Monocots to the Monocotyledon article, and made the former into a redirect to the latter.  I would welcome anybody to review and clean up the article. MrDarwin 16:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good work.  Only thing which comes to mind is whether the first sentence should talk about the traditional division into two groups (monocots/dicots), or division into three-and-a-few-small-ones (monocots/eudicots/magnoliids/small-ones), or wording which doesn't really commit itself on that point.  But I don't feel strongly enough to try to come up with a wording, and surely that paragraph isn't the place to get into details of non-monocot taxonomy.  Like I said, thanks for finally merging these. Kingdon 19:37, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[Monocots]] and [[Monocotyledon]]

message: Can anyone help me solving the contradiction in the article about Anemone nemorosa? Thanks Aelwyn 13:57, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Found a reference and made the correction with citation. Not sure where the previous (mis)information came from as it was unreferenced.  MrDarwin 14:06, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you very much Aelwyn 14:21, 18 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  ''Anemone nemorosa'' 

message: Anyone know what this one is? I've only seen it in one garden, but it's a serious pain there :)
thumb|left|300px
thumb|right|300px
Any hints?  --SB_Johnny|talk|books 15:00, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I thumbed through my ID key written by a former professor of mine living and working in Central Pennsylvania--I figured she would have had a bias toward the local spring plants--but it would seem this species isn't there. I agree it's some kind of Brassicaceae, but beyond that I can only guess at the genus it belongs to. Where in Eastern PA was it? Have any photos of the flowers? Best guess right now would be something in the Cardamine genus. Perhaps a more dissected form of Cardamine pratensis? Or some other species in the genus; I don't have a lot of information or photos of them. --Rkitko (talk) 15:38, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Fruits! Gotta have fruits! My first thought was Coronopus didymus, but the leaves aren't quite right (despite it having very variable leaves).--Curtis Clark 04:32, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

text: This was in Lower Merion, Montgomery County. I saw fruit on one last year (elongated and upright, definitely a Brassicaceae pod)), but didn't catch the flowers. I'll keep an eye out for it, but I'm not leaving it in there to bloom :). I tryie to Key it in The Plants of Pennsylvania but without flowers, no dice. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 10:06, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Unfortunately not, but I don't recall there being much in the way of caulines (it flowers/seeds very low). This is in a collector's garden (a "Hardy Plant Society person"), and she visits nurseries all over the country (particularly Oregon), as well as English nurseries. I haven't seen it anywhere else, so I'm presumining that it came in with one of those plants. It's actually quite pretty (at least the foliage is), but I'm afraid to let it grow out because it's obviously invasive. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 11:42, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Need ID on a weed 

message: I noticed that in :United States#Environment there is no link to an article about more detail about the :Flora of the United States.  This project might consider whether to include a naming convention for articles of the type Flora of {COUNTRY or REGION}.  (SEWilco 05:55, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I noticed #Flora_by_distribution_categories comments above, which might be helpful to someone writing articles about ecoregions or political regions.  (SEWilco 04:05, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flora of COUNTRY 

message: I had spoken with the contributor about this a while back, but I'm interested in some different opinions. I'm glad to see some more information about phytopathology being added, but most of these lists (List of pear diseases, for example, is a copy of this page) are just wikitabled copies from APSnet, which is quite plain about their copyrights and conditions of use. Has anyone tried to get permission from them to release this under GFDL? I guess I'm just concerned that we're going to have to delete all these things sooner or later, and that earlier article sections about pests and diseases might be getting mixed into these pages (and so will be lost if deletion needs doing). Any thoughts? --SB_Johnny|talk|books 10:55, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Lists of diseases" 

message: I created :Identification of trees of the United States, but the source does not include all trees (covers trees east of Rockies and north of Florida).  I invite expansion.  I'm climbing through the listed trees, feeding the stubs like this one.  (SEWilco 04:15, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: ...and could someone assign an Importance estimate in the project template?  I don't know how important it would be with all trees, much less what else might affect the rating.  (SEWilco 19:35, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Identification of trees of the United States 

message: See: Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Sandbox
Because I apparently have nothing else better to do (!), I created a new look for the project's main page. I subsequently organized a lot of the information into subpages. I, however, didn't want to be too bold and just change it, so let me know what you think and change it at will. If there's good feedback, we can bring the formatting from Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Sandbox to the main page. Some of the changes I'd like people to review there are the scope statement, which I changed to include other topics from an earlier conversation we had here, and the list of resources. Please add some more helpful websites on that page.
I also created an invitation template for the purpose of inviting people to join us here if they're making contributions to plant-related articles. It must be substituted: . Let me know what you think. --Rkitko (talk) 06:28, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I find the new version more appealing, but it does make more difficult to scan the whole article trying to find something that you're not sure where it got put.  Are there some other WikiProjects which use subpages?  (SEWilco 04:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That was my one concern. I tried to leave links to the most important things on the main page. What resources did you use most often that you can't find? Do you see any unreasonable moves? And yes, plenty of other WikiProjects utilize the navbox and subpages: WP:BIOGRAPHY, WP:BURMA, WP:ECHO, WP:BEATLES, WP:AUS, etc. --Rkitko (talk) 04:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I haven't used either much, but until I saw the navbox I hadn't realized the /Template page existed.  The existing link to that page was not obvious (I fixed that).  (SEWilco 16:43, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It would seem we need to expand that /Template page to include examples of the perfect article at every class-level (stub, start, B, good, A, and FA). That could easily be done. Any ideas on good articles for that purpose? The reason I like the navbox system is that it consolidates information into subpages, creating a nicer front-page for users not familiar with our project (e.g. no long list of participants on the front page). All of the important things are right there, including the naming convention, etc. Would there be any changes you would make to it to improve it? --Rkitko (talk) 16:51, 2 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject Plants organization 

message: I came across this new article while adding folklore sections to various plant articles. It needs your green fingers!
PS - could you put a "new articles" section on your project page please, in case I find another one? Totnesmartin 13:12, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that tucked in the templates section is mention that a bot provides a list of articles which recently added a project template.  (SEWilco 15:27, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I cleaned up said article a little, although I know nothing about it. Thanks for the note. --NoahElhardt 15:45, 30 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New(ish) article