Talk:Flora of the Sierra Nevada alpine zone

Thanks Hike395

Thanks User:Hike395, for the help with the formatting on references.[1] FloraWilde (talk) 16:57, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

What information about a species should be included, and what should not, in this article.

This article is about plants growing in the extreme alpine zone. Included in the article should be species features that are generally characteristic of plants in the alpine zone, such as growing to very high altitudes; being compact, dwarfed, or miniature; being low growing, forming mats or cushions; having coloration for reflectivity; having hairs for slowing wind to reduce transpiration; and other adaptive features for high winds, low water, high sun intensity, short growing season, etc. Other features should not be included, since this would make the article too long. FloraWilde (talk) 01:40, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

See alpine plants. This article does not have to go into a great detail about the generic physiognomy of alpine plants, because alpine plants does a good job of that. —hike395 (talk) 00:13, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I will read it and its sources. FloraWilde (talk) 01:08, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

Is it alpine zone flora?

Many sources give only elevation, without specifying "alpine zone", or "above timberline". The elevation of the timberline varies from south to north. Unless it specifically says alpine zone or above the tree line, I have been combing sources for an arbitrarily chosen elevations of 12K ft. or more for inclusion. There may be common alpine zone plants excluded, so if you have knowledge that this is the case, please try to find a source and put it in the article. FloraWilde (talk) 03:53, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Varieties

Many alpine zone plants are varieties of plants found in multiple vegetation types. If you have sources with more specificity, please add the variety. FloraWilde (talk) 03:14, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Organization - Sections: Annual, Perennial, Grass/Sedge, Shrub, then paragraphs on families in each section, and alphabetical by genus and species in the paragraphs

This article was organized, as to ending at species, first by these sections - Annual, Perennial, Grass/Sedge, Shrub. Then inside the sections by families, and alphabetically by genus and species in the family paragraphs. What species to include was based on what was chosen by local experts to include in lay-person field guides, or by being distinguished by mention in a publications on the article topic. Suggestions for improvements on this organizing structure are invited and welcome. FloraWilde (talk) 03:18, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Image choice

In botany articles, images are very valuable in providing information and as a mneumonic aid to readers, especially when a long list of plants is required such as in an article on characteristic flora of a vegetation type or habitat. Images should be chosen, when available, that show features of the alpine environment (e.g., rocky or little soils), or a plant's adaptations helping it grow in the environment (e.g., low growth pattern, silvery hairs, etc.). FloraWilde (talk) 13:07, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

While images are useful, they can also be excessive. Manual of Style:Image and Image use policy has relevant suggestions. Images should be positioned and captioned in a way that directly enhances the text without crowding or competing with it. In my opinion, the number of images currently present is bordering on too many: any more might be excessive, and some reduction in image number and/or length of captions might be prudent. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a field guide, and the most image-dense section, Diversity and taxa, might be pruned to a single representative from each family, or perhaps composite images containing multiple confamilial species. If such images cant be found they might be created: the CC license of media on Commons generally allows for the remixing of images into collages, e.g. I made such a collage to illustrate the diversity of Myriapods. --Animalparty-- (talk) 04:11, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Ferns, bryophytes, lichens, fungi, and interacting animals

Please contribute so we can add this section. Someone sent me an unsourced email that I pared down to this "Fungi found in the alpine zone include Calvatia sculpta, Boletus edulis, Spogiporus leucospongia, Tyromyces leucospongia, and Psilocybe montana growing on the fern Polytrichum juniperinum."

Please contribute. FloraWilde (talk) 14:51, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

on using one source, and other suggestions for improving this article

Hi! Thanks for your continued contributions. However, you seem to be relying on a single source rather exclusively, namely Sierra Nevada Wildflowers, Karen Wiese, 2nd Ed., 2013. Per T:ONES, "A single source is considered less than ideal because a single source may be inaccurate or biased. Without other sources for corroboration, accuracy or neutrality may be suspect. By finding multiple independent sources, the reliability of the encyclopedia is improved." Additional sources are preferred, in order to avoid plagiarizing (or unduly promoting) a source, as well as to help ensure that Wikipedia articles are balanced and representative of all published material. Please keep this in mind, and look for multiple sources to strengthen your articles.

Also, as a follow-up, I've noticed you don't always include full publication info for the reference (e.g. author or publisher is omitted). The full citation is important because different versions or editions of a book may have different information, and thus verification can be hindered. The full citation I believe should be something like: Wiese, Karen (2013). Sierra Nevada Wildflowers: a Field Guide to Common Wildflowers and Shrubs of the Sierra Nevada, including Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon National Parks (2nd. ed.). Globe Pequot Press. ISBN 0762780347. Lastly, you can also add page numbers to in-text citations (e.g. "grass is green"^[3]) to avoid repeating the same book dozens of times in the references: see Template:Rp. If you have any questions on citation style you can ask me on my talk page. Cheers! --Animalparty-- (talk) 06:05, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, User:Animalparty. I added sources.[2] You were correct, on careful reading, there were a few some discrepancies from source to source, which I either resolved or noted in the article. I added more content and tried to use full citations. I still have to read the cited journal sources more carefully to see if there is any information that should be in an encyclopedia article, and look for more publications. Do you have any other suggestions that might improve the article? FloraWilde (talk) 00:45, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Yes, in regards to Flora of the Sierra Nevada alpine zone, and in general: first, not every sentence needs a footnote. Especially if the same page(s) of the same source(s) are cited repeatedly in succession, it is acceptable (and even recommended) to simply include the reference/footnote(s) at the end of a relevant paragraph, as excessive footnotes can impede readability by breaking up the visual flow of text (see WP:CITEDENSE). Alternately, statements may be cleverly combined into single sentences or phrases to reduce the density of footnotes, especially when multiple sources are cited in close proximity. While excessively using a single source is generally frowned upon, citing multiple sources that say the same thing may be extraneous and visually cluttered, and probably no more than 2-3 inline citations should follow one another (e.g. "Johnson grass grows in Texas."^[3][4] is preferable to "Johnson grass grows in Texas".^{[3][4][5][6]:23[7][12]}. For more detailed information, see Wikipedia:Citing sources, as well as Help:Footnotes, Wikipedia:Inline citation, and Help:Referencing for beginners. As for block quotations, relevant style guidelines and advice can be found at MOS:QUOTE and WP:QUOTE. In my view, the goal of any article should be to balance accuracy and verifiability with aesthetics and readability (e.g. not too cluttered with footnotes or nonessential images); achieving this may require a good deal of editorial creativity and discretion. For one example, see the article Plant defense against herbivory, which has achieved Good Article status, and strikes a decent balance between information and attribution.

Additionally, certain sources such as a 3rd-4th grade lesson plan may not be the best sources to cite, as the information may be over-simplified for children, and/or may not have been peer-reviewed. In such cases, a college-level textbook or professional handbook might be a more reliable source to substitute. For more info, see Wikipedia:RS#Some_types_of_sources and WP:SOURCE.

Lastly, the lead section of an article (everything above the table of contents), should stand as a concise summary of the article, rather than simply an introduction or enticement to read further, and footnotes in the lead are often unnecessary as long as the information is repeated and properly attributed in the main body of the article. More detailed information is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. Cheers! --Animalparty-- (talk) 03:39, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

A couple more notes: for Flora of the Sierra Nevada alpine zone, you might want to omit information like identification notes or etymology for individual species, info which may be more appropriately placed on the individual species article, and may be trivial or redundant in an overview article focusing on the plant community as a whole. Also, being overprecise (e.g. "67 species... can be found in both subalpine and alpine habitats.") may invite immediate outdatedness should new species be described or re-classified: using generalities (e.g. "nearly 70 species"), provides a buffer against inconsequential numerical changes, and also may avoid overwhelming readers with numbers and fractions. --Animalparty-- (talk) 04:28, 17 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for these good and thoughtful suggestions.

• Re - "not every sentence needs a footnote" - I will go back and try to reduce the amount of citations where it is not necessary. I will only leave multiple footnotes when different parts of the sentence come from different sources, and put the footnote inside the sentence, after individual phrases, when there are inconsistencies in the sources (e.g., as to max elevation range).
• Re - "omit information like identification notes or etymology for individual species". I will go back and remove excessive plant ID info that is off-topic to this particular article. I will try to retain only identification characteristics and etymologies that typify the alpine flora in general, e.g., dwarfism, mat or cushion forming, reflectivity for solar intensity, hairiness to reduce transpiration from wind, etc. This is discussed here.Talk:Flora_of_the_Sierra_Nevada_alpine_zone#What_information_about_a_species_should_be_included.2C_and_what_should_not.2C_in_this_article.
• Re - "being overprecise (e.g. "67 species...)may invite immediate outdatedness..." Very good point. I need to go back and fix this in this article, and then fix it when I see it in other articles. I will propose it as a guideline at the article template at WikiProject Plants.
• Re - "balance accuracy and verifiability with aesthetics and readability" - I will do this balancing when I finish adding in all the info and sources, then go back and pare it down. I still have a number of sources I am combing through.

Thanks again for these good suggestions. FloraWilde (talk) 14:45, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

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