Talk:Hybrid name

Animals

Why is this article written entirely from the point of view of plants, as if hybrid animals don't exist? We need to redress the balance.

Moreover, is there any rule over whether the mother's species or the father's species is given first? -- Smjg 15:15, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

It could be because hybrid names are commonly encountered and regularly used in botany, but less so when talking and writing about animals. See, for example, the articles on Tigon, Liger, Mule and Beefalo. I don't know of any specific names in the animal kingdom that include a hybrid × (which isn't to say that they don't exist), which only seems to be used when actually describing the cross (eg Liger, Panthera tigris × Panthera leo.)

I believe that the normal usage (in plants, at least) is to show the seed parent (female) first, then the pollen parent (male). This would agree with the description of the Liger given above, as it is the offspring of a male lion and a female tiger. The reverse cross, called a Tigon, is the offspring of a male tiger and a lioness, and would be described as Panthera leo × Panthera tigris. SiGarb | Talk 17:08, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Reviving this old subject a bit late ... I'm still not sure what you mean by the last sentence of your first paragraph - from what are you distinguishing "describing the cross"? Moreover, I wouldn't expect there to be "specific names" in this form - the whole point of the × notation seems to be to identify hybrids that don't have specific scientific names. -- Smjg (talk) 21:27, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Under the ICBN, the "×" simply indicates hybrid status. It can be placed between the names of two parental species when used in a hybrid formula (e.g., Arabis drummondii A.Gray × Arabis holboellii Hornem.) or before the specific epithet if the hybrid is given a binomial (e.g., Arabis × divaricarpa A.Nels.). In a hybrid formula, the "×" is mandatory. If a hybrid is given a binomial, the "×" is optional (e.g., Arabis divaricarpa A.Nels.). Also, the ICBN suggests listing taxa in a hybrid formula in alphabetical order, rather than based on gender.

Although the article suggests that an "×" before a specific epithet usually denotes a cultivated hybrid, this is not the case; cultivated hybrids are governed under the International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants which: 1) does not govern the creation or use of specific epithets; 2) does not apparently use "×" to designate hybrid cultivars. Cultivated plants given names in the form of Genus × specific epithet are either naturally occurring hybrids now grown in--but not created in--cultivation, or incorrectly named; the latter is of course quite common in the horticultural trade.

Note also that the above applies to interspecific hybrids; intergeneric hybrids are treated somewhat differently. Paalexan (talk) 00:57, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

[outdent] All of this is a good argument for merging this article into Hybrid (biology), which does cover animals. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 01:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed that at least one source states that "[a]nimal hybrids are usually expressed as a cross between the two parents, wtih the male parent listed first". Talu42 (talk) 04:47, 10 December 2014 (UTC)

That's something of a shock to me, plant breeders almost invariably list the seed parent first and the pollen parent second, but it is common for style manuals for newpapers and other "popular" literature to recommend styles that violate the standards in biology (e.g., many newspapers set genus names with no initial capital letter). They probably got that idea from animal breeding, where the sire is often listed first and the dam second. I'd ignore that source, it is not a biology document. The ICZN in the glossary says:

For the treatment of names given to hybrids and to taxa of hybrid origin see Articles 1.3.3, 17, 23.8.

From what I can see, the only discussion in those articles is of names that are later found to apply to a taxon that is of hybrid origin; such names are still okay, but do not have priority over names of either of the parent taxa. I take that to mean that this page, "hybrid name" should only deal with the Botanical Code, because zoology does not use names for hybrids, it considers them to be mistakes. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 15:24, 12 December 2014 (UTC)

Spacing or not spacing the multiplication sign

Why is it that most scientific names for hybrids in the English wikipedia have a space between the "×" sign for hybrid, and the hybrid name? For example: en:Platanus × hispanica rather than fr:Platanus ×hispanica as is the convention and recommendation under the ICBN? See: Recommendation H.3A. Although it is only a 'recommendation', in all parts of the code there is no space between the "×" and the specific epithet. (The full Vienna 2006 ISBN code is here). To make matters more confusing, Commons does use this convention. See for example commons:Erythrina ×bidwillii. See also the French (interwiki) equivalent of this page at fr:Nom d'hybride where the same applies. Can we get a Wiki rule style-guide on this? --Pkravchenko (talk) 03:13, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Commons isn't a valid source for anything. And commons doesn't have a convention about much of anything either - people name files however they feel like, within sane limits, so there are "×hybrid", "× hybrid", "xhybrid" and "x hybrid" examples in Commons. Both spaced and unspaced usage are common offline. ICBN (and yes, it is only a recommendation) was written with print publications in mind; it is highly unlikely that anyone with ICBN thought about computer text accessibility issues, and running funky symbols up against real words, measurements up against units, and so on, is definitely an accessibility problem; most screen readers for the vision impaired are not going to interpret that as a symbol followed by a word, but rather as a string of random characters, and will read it (in my example) as something like "times aitch wy bee ahr ai dee" (what exactly would depend upon the software; another might say something like "times symbol aitch wy...", and another that doesn't distinguish between special and normal characters might say "eks aitch wy..."). Problems of this sort are among the many reasons that WP:MOSNUM specifies 14 mm rather than 14mm, spacing in math ("2 + 4 = 6", not "2+4=6"), and so on.

Also, and this is perhaps a little mean, but it's been my experience that most non-English Wikipedias are under-"staffed" with editors, perhaps necessarily put creating articles as top priority and then some, and spend very little time collectively thinking at all much less twice about concerns like accessibility, so they are rarely good examples for much of anything, other than the French WP (for example) will probably have better articles about intrinsically French subjects, of course. Policies and guidelines propagate from en.wiki outward, rather than being imported from other Wikipedias to this one, about 99 times out of 100.

Finally, WP's Manual of Style tries to harmonize with the advice of the majority of well-respected offline manuals of style, general and discipline-specific, but only when a) doing so does not cause problems (especially online-medium problems not adequately anticipated by the drafters of the offline "rulebooks"), and b) doing so does no impose discipline-specific conventions that defy general conventions, since this is a general reference work. Our readership, in the overwhelming majority of cases, have no knowledge of, interest in, or patience for the intra-field geekery of taxonomists, lawyers, pharmacists, or whatever, especially when it clashes with standard practice in formal written English. Reason "a" definitely applies here, and even reason "b" is at play to an extent – in normal prose, we simply don't mash things together like that in English (other than in trademarks). Doing so violates user expectations, harms readability and parseability, and is therefore a general usability problem as well as an accessibility one.

PS, I almost forgot: All of these problems are exacerbated when people use the regular "x" character instead of the special "×" character, which only power editors know how to put into an article, and only nitpicky power editors will bother to put into an article. A large number of cases (I've seen several today alone) use "x", so there's essentially no signal to the eye or to software that something special is going on in that string of characters. A very similar case happens in math in articles; hardly any editors at all other than hardcore math geeks know that there is a special minus character (−) that differs from other hyphen/dash characters, much less remember to and are non-lazy enough to use it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(^Õل^ō)ˀ Contribs. 05:51, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

No merge with Hybrid (biology)

Hybrid (biology) is about hybrids. This article is about how hybrids are named in the ICBN. So they should not be merged: one is about organisms, the other about nomenclature. On the other hand, the title is misleading, since all the content relates to botany. My intention is to move the content into Botanical nomenclature. Any one with knowledge of the ICZN is welcome to construct a page "Hybrid name (zoology)" or to add content to an existing article on zoological nomenclature. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:15, 12 June 2011 (UTC)

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Pronunciation

One thing I looked for in this article and could not find was an indication of how one verbally says a hybrid name such as e.g. "Rosa × alba". Does one just say "rosa alba" or does one say something between the two names? Doctroid (talk) 00:31, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

I hear people interested in botany say "rosa cross alba", as well as just "rosa alba". But I don't have a source, so can't add it to the article. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:57, 1 July 2018 (UTC)