Talk:Zosterophyllaceae

Merge of content

I have merged the original content of this page into Zosterophyllopsida, where it is more appropriate. There may be a case for a future narrower article on the family. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

For major mergers like this, it is usual procedure to suggest merging and get feedback, rather than to make the merger straightaway. The merge in this case is questionable, since it seems to be in violation of WP:NOR. --EncycloPetey (talk) 00:05, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually if you look at the content of the Zosterophyllaceae before merger, the article wasn't about the Zosterophyllaceae per se but about the zosterophylls more generally. This is partly from what was there originally (14 Sept 2010) and partly because I'd added the Crane et al. cladogram and the list of genera from this source. So I really don't think that it was a major merger, just putting content in the right place. I would certainly have consulted if I thought it was a major merger (as I have done in other cases). Consider the sections of the Zosterophyllopsida article:

• The Morphology is not specific to the Zosterophyllaceae, although it does not explicitly cover the more 'advanced' zosterophylls.
• The Taxonomy is all about the class.
• The Phylogeny and Genera is all about the class.

So if you're not happy about the current situation, we can go back to the Zosterophyllaceae article of 14 September (although it needs a few fixes, since "zosterophyll" is definitely used in the literature to mean a wider group than the Zosterophyllaceae), and leave the Zosterophyllopsida article more-or-less as it is; I was going to do some more work on the Morphology section anyway.

I didn't (and still don't) think that at present it's worth having articles on the orders/families of the Zosterophyllopsida. I can't find any literature from Kenrick and Crane 1997 onwards which supports them. However, there's a lot of stuff out there, and I may well have missed relevant material. My reading of the literature is that the situation is more, not less, uncertain than in 1997. For example, I've just read a 31 page chapter in a 2001 book (Gensel, P.G. & Edwards, D., Plants invade the Land : Evolutionary & Environmental Perspectives) on Nothia aphylla as part of research to improve the Nothia article. Nothia is classed as a zosterophyll close to the lycopsids by Kenrick & Crane. The chapter concludes that "its taxonomic relationship remains unclear" and that "fundamental differences" between different kinds of emergences have not been taken into account by Kenrick & Crane.

Where is the OR? I have only followed the literature as far as I know. If I haven't, please tell me where so it can be fixed. Peter coxhead (talk) 00:54, 1 March 2011 (UTC)