Talk:Scilloideae

Genera

The generic list should be checked carefully. I've corrected a couple of obvious errors that were introduced from a source that is widely available on the web but is neither published nor peer-reviewed. More recent and more authoritative published references are available, and should be used. Needless to say all classifications and circumscriptions are opinions representing a POV, and may differ radically from one reference to another, so sources should always be explicitly cited! MrDarwin 16:57, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

With the removal of Camassia and Chlorogalum, the list of genera is not that given in Watson and Dallwitz. Lavateraguy (talk) 18:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

It needs to be checked against and then sourced to the AP-web list. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:05, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

It's probably best to accept the opinion of the content experts that it is in a "state of flux". It is probably not a good idea to have two lists - one here and one under Asparagaceae, as this introduces the likelihood og inconsistency - instead one should link to the other. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 18:37, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Spanish tag

I have checked the article against the Spanish article and added material where necessary - the introductory material in the Spanish page is now all included here. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 19:23, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

Does this mean that the tag can now be removed? Peter coxhead (talk) 01:13, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

No - not untill all sections are up to standard. Note tag has been there since July 2009 --Michael Goodyear (talk) 03:45, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Morphology seems to be at same level --Michael Goodyear (talk) 03:45, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Ecology looks ok --Michael Goodyear (talk) 11:50, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Phylogeny ok --Michael Goodyear (talk) 14:22, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Taxonomy, Economic importance updated, references checked - I think this page now meets standards of tag, so it can be removed --Michael Goodyear (talk) 21:08, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I have upgraded the article - the page on which it is based was rated Good Article, so I don't see why this can't be --Michael Goodyear (talk) 21:44, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Number of species

I removed a clause saying of the Scilloideae "and comprise nearly 100,000 species" which was not in the reference given and is obviously wrong (APweb gives 2480 species for the family Asparagaceae as a whole and 770-1000 for Scilloideae). Given the uncertainty at present over the generic limits, it seems that estimates of numbers are likely to be variable. The Spanish version says 10,000, but this seems to me also to be wrong. Peter coxhead (talk) 01:21, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I forget for the moment who came up with that number, maybe it was for the whole order. My intention was to gather together the various estimates and discuss them in a later section. I don't think it is a matter of right or wrong, but how one defines the subfamily, which has varied enormously. Using the family Hyacithaceae and the subfamily Scilloideae synonymously does not help either. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 04:27, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure if you are aware of past discussions; apologies for repetition if you are. It was agreed by WP:PLANTS that we will use the APG III system as the standard. Because the "lumped" families like Asparagaceae are so big, we then agreed to use the subfamilies as well for those families where Chase, Reveal and Fay have given subfamilies. However, the problem is that the most reliable up-to-date source, namely the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families doesn't go down to the subfamily level (although it is definitive for the currently accepted genera). So the only information available is the original paper and APweb.

So I think the article should briefly discuss historical classifications and numbers, but only as history. The main discussion should be based on APG III + the Chase et al. subfamilies + anything later. I wouldn't make much use of Pfosser and Speta (1999) – this is well before APG III and now out of date. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:41, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Well actually I looked for previous discussions - where are they? I think Speta is of interest for 'historical' reasons, in that he has been criticised, eg by Stedje, for over splitting, ending up with many categories with only one entry. I agree that such a discussion would be of interest though - almost a separate page. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 11:24, 10 June 2012 (UTC)

Authority

The authority (Engler) given for this subfamily is incorrect, this page is an outlier. APG defers to Chase who attributes it to Burnett. I will place a note in the text accordingly. --Michael Goodyear (talk) 10:33, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Other normally reliable sources also say Burnett (e.g. [1]) so we should just change the authority to Burnett. The source given for Engler is older and should not be considered as equally reliable. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:49, 11 June 2012 (UTC)

Agreed - done --Michael Goodyear (talk) 11:52, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Wrong link

The link in the box where is the family name point to some other subfamily. I don't know where should lead, but its obviously wrong 81.108.26.125 (talk) 13:44, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

 Done This was due to an incorrect edit at Template:Taxonomy/Asparagaceae, which I have just fixed. The "link" field in this template must be "Asparagaceae" but had been changed. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:24, 3 May 2013 (UTC)