User talk:Nadiatalent/Archive 5

Sehome Hill Arboretum

Nadia, my additions to the Sehome Hill Arboretum page were not categorized in the way things usually are (i.e. "native" versus "invasive" plants). This categorization of plants and animals brings a lot of psychological baggage, and quite frankly is arbitrary, pseudo-scientific, and useless in the real world. It is impossible to prove that a plant is native when there is no consensus about when plants began moving across space. To say that a plant "discovered" here by Douglas is "native" while the ones subsequent peoples brought are "invasive" carries racial undertones, and implies that native americans lived in a stagnant environment that they did not influence. Reverting back to the older version deleted information about flora that actually grows there. I should take better care to photograph and share new plants found in the sehome hill arboretum (i.e. mountain ash, holly). All-too-often, the existing information about an ecological place is out-dated, and misses a very significant truth; they are always changing. I thank you for your work on Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.121.149.206 (talk) 19:57, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but as a scientist who works on plant dispersal, I have to disagree about the impossibility of knowing anything about what plants are "native" and which are not. It is certainly difficult, and in some cases unknowable, but there is a lot that can be discovered. I agree that the earlier version of the page isn't perfect, but I think that your changes were a bit too drastic, likely to discourage people who might have been able to iteratively improve the page. By all means try putting things back, but I will contest refusal to acknowledge that there are some species that are native to one continent (or area) and introduced on another, or that there is no such thing as an invasive species. It would be good to get citations to authoritative works, or to an official plant list for the arboretum, if there is such a thing. Nadiatalent (talk) 20:10, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants

Nice addition, Nadia. Well written and much needed ! Hamamelis (talk) 16:16, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

It certainly is notable enough, in my opinion which I know doesn't count for too much. The only thing I could see that it needs to guarantee notability is beefing up with additional references, as it only cites icbn. Some editors think all such articles are non-notable just for that reason (deletionists, I guess) and try to "speedy delete" it, without giving it a chance. I definitely don't think it should be merged or deleted, I'd rather see it as a basis to build upon. Hamamelis (talk) 18:20, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

Chresonym

I'm inclined to think at present that the article Chresonym should be proposed for deletion.

1. It's doubtful that it can be considered notable. The statement in [1], p.9 that the term "has not exactly been embraced by taxonomists" is quite right, based on a Google Scholar search for citations of the original article.
2. If the article does stay, it should make clear that the concept has only been applied in zoology. I can't find any reference which applies it to non-zoological taxa (do you know of any?), and the different rules in the other codes seem to mean that the term would have to be applied differently, as I've noted on the article's talk page. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:15, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi Peter, I see your point, that the words related to chresonymy are very rarely used, but I expect that the terms may get more use as biodiversity database efforts become more sophisticated, and could potentially crop up in database documentation. They are essential in the process of tracing what the type of a taxon is, back through a chain of references. Also, I think that Wikipedia could have a valuable role if you add the citation that these terms are rarely used, which could be a huge help to someone who comes across them. A wiktionary page doesn't seem to have the capacity to fulfill the role of explaining the difficult meanings. At the risk of belabouring the point, this term sounds as if it ought to be a term in linguistics, and some innocent linguist might think that they need to know all about it, so Wikipedia could save them considerable hardship (cf. Synecdoche). I wouldn't favour deletion.

I first heard about these terms during a botany course, but from a professor who also reads the zoological literature. No, I don't know of any use in botany in print of these terms.

I haven't read enough of A. Dubois's writings, and don't sufficiently understand how circumscription interacts with nomenclature in zoology to be able to come up with an example of heterochresonymy. From memory, people do use Crataegus ambigua Sarg. as if it were a name that Sargent intended to make, but he was just relaying descriptive information about an existing name (describing the plants as they grow in his arboretum, and recommending them to others). That would be orthochresonymy. I've wondered whether Crataegus brevispina Douglas ex Steud. might come up as an example of heterochresonymy. Steudel was sinking C. brevispina Douglas as a synonym of C. punctata Jacq., but Index Kewensis misread the subtle difference between roman and italic fonts and listed a new name due to Steudel. Perhaps that's not the sort of situation that is meant by Dubois; we'd need an expert to fix the wikipedia entry.

Perhaps we should be discussing this on the talk page for Chresonym. If you want to copy this there, I have no objection. Nadiatalent (talk) 13:02, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Move Dahlia image to common gallery

Thank you - pls can you tell me how to move the image File:Dahlia-photo-by-gil-dekel-UK-2011.JPG to the gallery? Or of you could move it yourself pls? --GilD (talk) 18:07, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

ICN vs ICBN and referencing

I noticed your changes to Botanical nomenclature, i.e. changing "ICBN" to "ICN" as per the new version of the Code. However, in at least one case, this makes the reference wrong, i.e. the article says "according to the ICN" but then references the Vienna Code. It's not clear what to do about this until the new version is online. Of course, this applies to a significant number of nomenclature/taxonomy articles. Um... Peter coxhead (talk) 10:56, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

I'll reply on my talk page to keep things together. Peter coxhead (talk) 01:33, 21 August 2011 (UTC)

Sarcococca hooker(i)ana

I've returned the article to its original name. In the future, if you wish to rename an article, please don't to it by "cut and paste". This breaks the edit history for the article, and some unpaid admin will have to go through the process described in Wikipedia:How to fix cut-and-paste moves, feeling very sorry for himself. Instead, use "Move page" command available in the "Page" drop-down menu. Favonian (talk) 12:50, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Oops! Looks like it wasn't you who did it. Sorry about the accusation. Favonian (talk) 12:51, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Moving comments about objective synonyms

Hi Nadia. In trying to copy/move the comments made about objective synonyms at the WP:Plants talk page (here) to the talk page at Name-bearing type, I considered it perhaps prudent to edit the discussion slightly, including one of your sentences. Before I make the move, you might want to check out my pruned version (and intro to the discussion) at my sandbox here, to see if you approve. Thanks. (PS I've also sent you an email) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 22:14, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi PaleCloudedWhite, I've made a small change. It would be good if that discussion could prompt someone with deep understanding of the zoological code to make it comprehensible to others. Nadiatalent (talk) 23:47, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

Hi Nadia. I've copied the comments over. I added some more of my own comments at the end, as that seemed to round off the discussion a bit better, though everything else remains unaltered. Thanks again. PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 07:24, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

Asexual reproduction

Hello. You might want to correct Fission (biology) as well (if it's wrong, that is). I was basing it on that, heh, as it says fission is different from mitosis. I really have no clue though.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 13:02, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

Plumcot, Apriplum, Pluot, or Aprium

Hi, Nadia. I see you've tried to merge all of these together into one article, which I think may be a smart move. The title is a bit hefty, though. Reading that first sentence, do you think Interspecific Prunus hybrids might be a better, more natural title? Is that the intended scope? I think they were notable in their own right and certainly had enough to be stand alone articles, though. Thoughts? Rkitko ^(talk) 03:01, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Although not absolutely ruling out "Plumcot, Apriplum, Pluot, or Aprium", WP:AND does frown on such article titles (there have been serious edit disputes elsewhere about the use of titles with "and" in them). So I do rather agree with Rkitko's suggestion. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:45, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi all, perhaps we should move this discussion to the page. Here's a copy of my initial response to Rkitko. I agree that the title of this page is clunky. The reason that I didn't go with something about interspecific prunus or IS plum, is that the fruit of these three (or four, since two of the names are synonymous) have become agriculturally important and are often confused with one another, but there are potentially many many more hybrids, including completely inedible ones. There are already wikipedia pages for peacotum and nectaplum, hybrids involving peach. I'd been trying for some time to improve those three separate pages, but it was difficult to get away from the hard distinction between plumcot and pluot that I find unattractive (as a botanist with the bias that later generations get the same name as the first-generation hybrid). Nadiatalent (talk) 12:12, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Would Plum-Apricot hybrids be an acceptable title, do you think? Nadiatalent (talk) 11:23, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Giant hogweed pagemove

Please be aware that wp:pagemoves can be controversial. It is generally regarded as good practice to discuss them first except in trivial cases (capitalization, spelling errors, etc.) In this case, it looks as if the rationale for the move was that other common names are used, though that was based on just one New Zealand source. Do we have evidence that these other common names are similarly widespread? LeadSongDog come howl! 21:30, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi, well I'll admit that I didn't expect the move to succeed, I'm still finding my way around the page move process. Anyway, I trust that the additional citations that I've just added are sufficiently convincing. The reason that I particularly wanted to do this is that I've encountered confusion about what "wild parsnip" might mean and whether seeking and eating such a plant is a good idea (no, it really isn't, not if Conium grows anywhere on the same continent). Nadiatalent (talk) 22:06, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I strongly support your page move. I would also like to see Hogweed moved to Heracleum, if you agree. Common names for white umbellifers are highly variable, not just from country to country but from region to region. (I still get confused over the common names for some of them in the part of England where I now live because I learned different names as a child; in at least one case the same common name is used in different parts of England for different plants.) Since some white umbellifers are, as you rightly pointed out, highly poisonous, I think that this is a group where it's particularly undesirable to use common names for article titles (and where articles should mention the possibility of confusion). Peter coxhead (talk) 08:37, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Hi Peter, I strongly support your suggestion. There is a disambiguation page to complicate matters. I just did a bit of follow-up and discovered to my amazement that two standard authoritative references (on the Heracleum page now) don't even call the genus "hogweeds"! What a mess! Nadiatalent (talk) 11:46, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Well, I moved "Hogweed" to Heracleum (plant) (given that Heracleum is occupied by the disambiguation page). I looked at links to "Hogweed". Some of these were clearly meant to be the species usually called "common hogweed" in the UK (i.e. H. sphondylium) and shouldn't have been to "Hogweed" in the first place. I've also edited the page a bit. We'll see if there are any complaints. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:22, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Re: Stolon and sporangiophore

Sorry I took so long to respond to you - I've been away; then sick. But better now!

You wrote: "...On the Stolon page you questioned whether Sporangiophore should link to Sporangium. That page doesn't cover the matter adequately at present. They are rather different concepts, and could justifiably have separate pages. What would you think of delinking?"

After looking up definitions for sporangiophore, sporangium and hypha, and then trying to square them with how sporangiophore and hypha were used in the stolon article, they didn't make mutual sense. I'm probably not knowledgeable enough in the subject to understand it clearly. Is it possible that the meanings are analogous, yet somewhat different, in regard to fungi and plants? To answer your question directly, until it is covered better (possibly in its own article), no objection here to delinking. Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 00:51, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Looking at how the term "sporangiophore" is used in WP articles, and how it's defined in the limited sources I've looked at, it seems to be very much secondary to "sporangium" – a sporangiophore is any structure which bears sporangia. These structures are clearly of quite different kinds and in no way homologous: the "fruiting bodies" of fungi are called "sporangiophores" as are the fertile branches of land plants which reproduce via spores. So it's not clear to me that it's worth having an article with this title. What could usefully be done perhaps is to add this term to the Sporangium article, then the link could be restored. Views? Peter coxhead (talk) 09:42, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Glad that you are better now Hamamelis. You must have a better way of getting back to where you were in wikipedia than the watch list that expires after 7 days, fantastic memory, presumably.

Yes, the sporangium page could be improved quite a bit (though I've tangled before with an editor who has an interest in such matters and am not entirely confident that what I'd consider high polish could be achieved there). If Sporangiophore could be a separate page, I have in mind something like dehiscence (botany) has partly become, mostly a lot of thoroughly explained images. That is rather different from many wikipedia pages, and perhaps it will be zapped at some point for violating some policy. Of course, getting enough images is quite a difficulty.

The sporangium page is very incomplete. There is only one entry under internal structures (surely elators and pseudoelators should get a mention). External structures could get a mention. There really should be a large section on the sporangia of spermatophytes. Nadiatalent (talk) 12:17, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I like the structure of dehiscence (botany) (which I hadn't seen before). I think we need more articles explaining technical terms in botany which are well-illustrated. (You can see the kind of image I like at Roscoea, but I have been told in the past that "Wikipedia is a text encyclopedia" and that labelled images violate access policies.) I have recently tangled with two editors who are active in WP:Plants, who have removed what I still think were useful galleries of images, citing WP:IG.

I agree that Sporangium needs considerable expansion. There's also the evolutionary aspect to be considered, e.g. from the earliest polysporangiophytes onwards. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Roscoea is certainly a nice balance of well-explained images and not very many of them. If you let us know which pages have been stripped of their "galleries", perhaps we should do battle there, perhaps we can come up with a compromise. Nadiatalent (talk) 19:23, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's one example. Chlorophytum comosum (old version) has two images in a gallery: one of the flower, one of the roots. They can't be put into the article at present because it's too short and they don't fit. I think that an image of a flower should always be present in an article about an angiosperm; the roots of Chlorophytum are an important characteristic. Chlorophytum comosum (current version), although improved in many other ways, doesn't have these images. See User talk:Rkitko#Galleries for a discussion as to why User:Rkitko removed them. (I have also tangled with User:Stemonitis, who does a great job patrolling new plant articles, including adding taxoboxes where needed, but who also removes image galleries, whereas I think that in a short new article, having a gallery of carefully selected images of key parts of the plant is highly desirable.)

[By the way, the last sentence of the "Description" section of Chlorophytum comosum still has the "stolon issue" outstanding...]

The separate issue is labelled diagrams, which, as I noted above, some editors don't like, although they are a key feature of every botany textbook I know of. I can't find the discussion at present (it was on the talk page of an article I think), but at present no-one is removing these, so perhaps the issue has gone away.

Note that I was able to put the labelled images into Roscoea because there is quite a bit of text. However, I think they should be there anyway, even if there wasn't so much text, but then they would need to be in a gallery. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:57, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

So I had a go at the stolon part of Chlorophytum comosum, see if you think it is adequate. That page now has quite a bit of text, so it seems to have the potential to have at least one image added, and it would be nice if a green "wild-type" plant could be shown. Your strategy of adding the photos to the genus page seems like a good one, do you expect them to get zapped from there too? Have a look at Anthericum ramosum, that needs a gallery cleanup! Unfortunately I won't have much time to work on wikipedia for a few days. Nadiatalent (talk) 12:15, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

• Stolon bit is now much better; thanks. A good reference – seems like a useful book I might try to get hold of: would you recommend it?
• I think editors who don't like galleries haven't (yet?) noticed the genus page. :-)
• Anthericum ramosum is one of a large number of pages created by User:Ettore Balocchi. His energy is great, and he has helped to increase the number of articles on European plants (as opposed to North American plants which are better covered). But his English needs copy-editing, and he is prone to creating galleries with many duplicate images, which I agree should be trimmed. (Here I think only the inflorescence image adds anything and I'll remove the rest.)

Peter coxhead (talk) 13:46, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a feel for what editors who trim galleries think about tiny images, such as the 28-pixel ones at Glossary of plant morphology terms? e.g., Nadiatalent (talk) 15:01, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

About the book, I resisted buying it for a while, some of the entries are too short, need some polishing. Younger persons around me were using it, so it seems necessary, and it probably has considerable utility for cleaning up wikipedia. If you find a deficiency in it perhaps you can write to the authors and prompt them to improve the next edition! I love Goebel, but looking at it recently for this very matter, I see how so much of its wonderful material has become almost lost. It is in a narrative style, and for general snippets of education, a tabular form like Hickey & King is necessary. Nadiatalent (talk) 14:28, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your response. I see Hickey & King is available in Kindle format, which would make it easier to look things up. There's also a similar work, The Kew Plant Glossary: An Illustrated Dictionary of Plant Identification Terms by Henk J. Beentje, which is cheaper. Like you, I definitely need something newer than the books I have now... Peter coxhead (talk) 16:42, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I should probably get that one too. For plant-identification terms I generally use Stearn's Botanical Latin (!), which has nice discussions of how Linnaeus used "lanceolate" differently from everyone else, etc. Nadiatalent (talk) 17:07, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Dehiscence

A while back I thought about having [[Category:Dehiscent plants]]. I think it would be instructive to have a single page one could go to to bring together the diversity of plants having this dispersal function. Does this seem like a reasonable idea to you (Nadia and Peter)? This sub-thread can be restarted on the dehiscence talk page if you think it's a positive idea...
To respond to your response to me, above, Nadia: My memory is sadly not where it should be; I was merely responding to your query to me on my talk page. Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 13:20, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

A list-of page? Interesting. I think that subcategorizing them further might prove difficult as I'm not sure where one would draw the boundary of explosive dehiscence (some structure being less explosive in wet conditions, liverwort elaters don't act until they dry out, etc.); perhaps someone has studied that in depth, I don't know. Good idea to restart the discussion on the dehiscence talk page. Nadiatalent (talk) 14:56, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

What I meant was, by adding a template to the appropriate articles (ie; all articles of plants that dehisce; or articles dealing with dehiscence in plants), an alphabetized list is automatically created on the page entitled Category:Dehiscent plants, or Category:Dehiscence in plants, or something like that—likened to the page Category:Plants and pollinators. As indicated here, I will re-start this at talk:Dehiscence (botany)#New category proposal. Hamamelis (talk) 17:59, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

We just start putting the [[Category:Dehiscent plants]], or the other version, on the pages, I think. Nadiatalent (talk) 20:36, 14 October 2011 (UTC)

Yes, mostly: aside from actually typing something on the page that [[Categoroy:xyz]] leads to, and then saving. I just wanted to vet the idea with others first, which should improve it. I have "been bold", however, in creating categories (where they clearly follow a previously established pattern; ie, Category:Flora of the Zanzibar Archipelago - but is that really so bold?). Hamamelis (talk) 20:43, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've just created Category:Plants with dehiscent fruit. Please check it and see if its alright. Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 07:31, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

It is now blessed with its first entry: Phlox. That is because I wanted to grow some more P. paniculata from seed, and put the fruit in a shallow bowl; they've been jumping all over the place. Nadiatalent (talk) 15:03, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks Nadia! I'll add either cat to articles where I can find a good citation for them. I'll start by doing a wikipedia search for the terms "plantae" (existing in any plant article with a taxobox), and different forms of the words "dehiscent"/"indhiscent". A few days back, I did a test search (but made no edits based on it so far) and the first article I came upon was for Pistachio; but it turns out the PDF used as a citation for its dehiscence showed that some kinds are dehiscent, while others are not dehiscent. This reminded me of Peter's apparent frustration with the idea of this catorization, which I now understand better, I think. Do we then categorize pistachio as having both "dehiscent", and "indehiscent" fruits? (I think I'll leave those ambiguous ones alone for the present).
I took a look at P. paniculata: what a lovely flower (and apparently a quite prolific one!)
Thanks for taking the time in getting these categories underway. Hamamelis (talk) 19:32, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Hamamelis. Indeed, that can be difficult for quite a lot of agricultural crops, I would think. It is also difficult to sort out at what level in the taxonomic hierarchy dehiscence is noted, for example, I just checked Salicaceae, but APG has thrown the older dehiscent genera in with a lot that have drupaceous fruit. Even though they are apparently trimming the list of genera back down again, for the moment I've just added Populus to the dehiscent list, and plan to try to do the same with Salix later. Yes, Phlox is lovely if you look at it sufficiently closely and it isn't a bad season for mildew, and if the individual you are looking at doesn't have flowers of an insipid colour. Nadiatalent (talk) 14:29, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps if it could be found that a plant originally, I mean before human cultivation, had dehiscent fruits, then it should (given it has a reliable citation) be included. I would suppose that would be true for pistachio, at least. Please correct me if I am mistaken on this, but I believe that for pistachios, the mechanism is there in the plant locked in genetically, as a possible future (or present) trait, even if dehiscence doesn't always de facto occur (whether because a certain variety lost the tendency through natural selection, or it was selected out for by horticulturalists). I hope I am making sense, it can be difficult to express such things with precision.
In regards to the newest APG groupings: cannot a fruit be both drupaceous and dehiscent? I note that pistachios are characterized as having drupes. Or, am I just misunderstanding something. Hamamelis (talk) 15:44, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Of course, I think that you are absolutely right that a drupe can be dehiscent, I think that is what is said about almonds (but I'd have to check). About pistachios, the dehiscence genes might be non-functional in the cultivated strains, so if no wild plants ever contribute their genes to offspring, then the dehiscence attribute could be permanently lost. Dollo's law of irreversibility says that it is difficult to reconstruct the genetic requirements for a trait once they have been messed up (there are exceptions listed on that page, though). There's a related theme that needs work in wikipedia: shattering in agricultural crops that isn't dehiscence, notably the non-shattering rachis of cultivated wheat. Nadiatalent (talk) 16:38, 3 November 2011 (UTC)

Ok. As in humans being descended from amphioxus, ala:

It's a long way from Amphioxus,
It's a long way to us,
It's a long way from Amphioxus
To the meanest human cuss.
It's good-bye to fins and gill-slits,
Hello lungs and hair!
It's a long, long way from Amphioxus,
But we all came from there.

—From an old song by Sam Hinton (if you've never heard it before, it's hummed to the tune "A Long Way from Tipperary")

Shattering/non-shattering in agricultural crops is something I've never even thought about, so I'll have to look into it. Interesting ... Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 16:33, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's us, possibly unable to ever re-evolve the elegant outlines of Amphioxus. There is a red link for the agricultural meaning at shatter, and you might find this article about Brassica interesting. Nadiatalent (talk) 17:43, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Fruits

Hi, and thanks for contributing to List of culinary fruits. I'm puzzled by some of your edits, though.

• Coffee isn't a culinary fruit
• Yew is a fruit[2]

Could I ask that you be a little more careful with your edits, or, if there's something I'm missing here, explain on the talk page? Thanks. Waitak (talk) 13:06, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Response to my talk page. Waitak (talk) 14:25, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

Talkback - Olim

Hello, Nadiatalent. You have new messages at Talk:Olim.
Message added 16:44, 4 November 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Talkback

Hello, Nadiatalent. You have new messages at Tgeairn's talk page.
Message added 18:25, 15 November 2011 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Tgeairn (talk) 18:25, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

List of culinary nuts

		A beer on me!
		Thanks for your contribution to List of culinary nuts! Waitak (talk) 01:40, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

I may not have mentioned, but List of culinary nuts is a featured list candidate, should you want to participate in the discussion. Waitak (talk) 17:14, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Hippeastrum

The original source of Herbert's creation of the genus is a great online find; thanks! The Hippeastrum–Amaryllis argument is an interesting illustration of taxonomists in action: a 50-year long debate on both sides of the Atlantic, often acrimonious, plus a name conservation decision in the Code, all to get back to what Herbert knew in 1821... Peter coxhead (talk) 09:50, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi Peter, that is a surprising find. Hopefully it isn't at risk from the big copyright suit, but even if it is taken down online, we can mine it for information in the meantime. That's neat that you read the explanatory text, I'd only been looking at page 31 with the formal description (and should have listed a page number with the citation). Nadiatalent (talk) 14:13, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Off the point of Hippeastrum but still on taxonomy, I saw your edits at Synonym (taxonomy). This article really does need to be got right, because it has so many links into it. One of the difficulties is writing a summary in the lead which is consistent with both codes. I'd been wondering whether splitting (as was done with Specific name) might be best; "Synonym (taxonomy)" could be a disambiguation page leading to "Synonym (zoology)" and "Synonym (botany)". Or is this being defeatist? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:27, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

I've seen the list of changes on that pages, and, frankly, a bit of defeatism at this point seems appropriate (!). If you follow the link Valid name (botany) you also get to a thoroughly inadequate coverage. (Just going back in to try to add another point.) Nadiatalent (talk) 17:33, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

It may not be well expressed, but there is a third meaning for Specific name! I found it mentioned on pages about IBM DB2, but couldn't find a sufficiently specific page to point to in wikipedia. Nadiatalent (talk) 17:54, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Phyllanthus

Hi Nadia,

Both are true. It is apparently legitimate to use the same generic name if used in different Kingdoms, i.e., Animalia, and Plantae. Not even I was aware of this until your question. Linnaeus used it in Plantae, and Lesson in Animalia.Steve Pryor (talk) 18:21, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. It took me a while to see what had happened, but the primary cause is that there is no page for the bird genus. Nadiatalent (talk) 18:24, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguating

Hi Nadiatalent, Thanks for correcting my mistakes. I'll try to be more careful in the future. I'm especially red-faced about messing up my cambiums (cambia?). Are you sure your reversion in Ostrya virginiana was correct, though? I linked "involucre" to a page where it is defined as corresponding "to the cupule; it is found in the related family Betulaceae, notably in the genera Carpinus and Corylus. It differs in being more leafy in appearance, but performs a similar role in protecting the developing nuts." That seems more accurate than linking to a page that defines it as "bracts that appear in a whorl subtending an inflorescence.... a common feature beneath the inflorescences of many Apiaceae, Asteraceae, Dipsacaceae and Polygonaceae."

Hi, indeed, the cupule/involucre question isn't at all well covered. I've tried some fixes at Involucre, Calybium, and Bract. Notice that the Calybium page says Fagaceae. I looked at FNA Fagaceae and FNA Betulaceae, the latter of which says "without multibracteate cupule, often subtended or enclosed by foliaceous hull developed from 2-3 bracts". Nadiatalent (talk) 20:29, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

P.S. yes, Cambia is a good word, fun to use in a sentence.

Hi from the phytoliths...

Hello Nadia, thanks for the heads-up about the lousy wording. I regret to admit that when I hurry, or when my concentration slips, the standard of my writing goes haywire and I am unable to detect the effect if I reread my own text less than a few days later. It was nice of you to be so gentle about it. Cheers, Jon JonRichfield (talk) 19:05, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi John, that problem that you spotted and worked on fixing was a bad one. I can usually spot my own problems by the next morning; the brain must be more more leaky. A bad memory can be useful at times (or so I like to claim). Phytoliths are cool. Nadiatalent (talk) 19:16, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the hyphen!

Nadia, thanks for weighing in on Dalea purpurea the other day. Please see my questions on this at the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants page. Also, per guidelines, should the Douglas-fir page be renamed to Pseudotsuga? Best-- --Araucana (talk) 17:47, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi, common names are a huge area of wikipedia that needs attention, but there are so overwhelmingly many of them. One might argue that there are other databases that try to list all common names so the effort isn't so important, but wikipedia allows for something different that I think could be hugely useful for helping people to learn about the plants around them: take a look at Bush lawyer (plant), admittedly an amusing example, but I don't think there is anywhere else that you could find Scotch Attorney linked with those other plants.

As I discovered recently when moving Sweetgum to Liquidambar, moving plant pages can open up a can of worms, so work on that tends to be slow. To start in a small way, I've added another common name to Bigcone Douglas-fir, and requested that it be moved to Pseudotsuga macrocarpa. Moves like that are usually done within about a week. I hope that will set the stage for moving the genus page later. Nadiatalent (talk) 20:18, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

Barnstar

		The Bio-star
		For your excellent contributions to Kudzu, filling in a gap that had gone unnoticed for years. I especially appreciate how quickly you addressed my concern. Thanks! 74.178.230.234 (talk) 05:09, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Medlar tea

You were right. Chinese medlar tea is goji, wrong genus entirely. I've reverted it. Waerloeg (talk) 13:03, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

I've put a remark at Mespilus germanica, sadly without a citation. See what you think. Nadiatalent (talk) 13:23, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your message

Thank you for the messages which you left on my userpage. The source for the claim about rosaceae leaving many valuable foods but not producing the staple food of any country was the Encyclopaedia Britannica, although I shall admit that it was back in 2003 that I read the claim there! Again, thank you for the messages, ACEOREVIVED (talk) 09:16, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Pokeweed

Thank you for your message on my userpage!

I just edited the pokeweed page as it was very badly incomplete about the genus. But should the page not be called Phytolacca, like most other genus pages? Not all of the species are called "pokeweed". I looked at the page moving instructions, but they were too daunting for me. Is this something you would be able to get done? Keteleeria (talk) 15:24, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Happened to see this. I don't think it's quite as simple as just moving the whole page to a new title. The sections on "Uses" and "Toxicity" appear, from the sources quoted, to apply only to pokeweed in the sense of the species Phytolacca americana (where some of it is repeated). Pokeweed probably needs to be a disambiguation page, directing to the genus page and some of the species. I have a bit of time so I'll have a look at this. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:57, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Nice! I can just sit back and watch the cleanup proceed. Hi Keteleeria, I'm glad you were unblocked. Nadiatalent (talk) 18:04, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Well, I've done as much as I'm going to do; some of the material I left at Talk:Phytolacca americana could be used, so perhaps Keteleeria would like to work on it. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:05, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree. It should not have taken so long to unblock him/her. Best wishes, Walter Siegmund (talk) 20:01, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Indeed, another person willing to work on plant articles is very valuable. I'd guess that the admin-type people have to slowly learn the ropes like the rest of us. I did a tiny bit of editing to try to see if I could set up Pokeweed as a disambig, but didn't find enough material. Nadiatalent (talk) 20:49, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

(disambig) No, I think the hatnote is enough for the present; only if there were more articles on other Phytolacca species called "pokeweed" would a disambig page be needed, I think. [Had forgotten to sign] Peter coxhead (talk) 12:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Minor milestone (is cue for appreciation)

	Hi Nadia. I've been editing Wikipedia for exactly a year now, and coincidentally this very edit is my 1,000th, so I thought I'd use it to send you a rose (albeit a virtual one!), in recognition of both your Wikiwork on Rosaceae, and also our various 'rosy' discussions! Best wishes, PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 03:32, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Dash

Just a line to say "thank you" for your help. Much appreciated. Gareth Griffith-Jones (talk) 20:37, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

A cup of coffee for you!

Hi. I am new to Wikipedia and don't know the limitations. Are there any such restrictions. Can we add our links under references?? Pbanwari (talk) 13:55, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Strawberry Plant Defense Mechanism

Hi, thank you for your suggestion. I agree with you. I have now transferred the Review from "Garden strawberry" to "Fragaria". Thanks again! Granateple (talk) 21:49, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Speedies

Hi Nadia, these are the relevant places to dispute the speedies:

• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 December 15#Category:Plants with dehiscent fruit
• Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2011 December 15#Category:Plants with indehiscent fruit

I have already posted to them. Hamamelis (talk) 05:58, 16 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Nadia, I will be very busy from now until Jan 2, and will not be around much to participate in discussions. Got your message, and I am sorry about how things went/are going. I have some ideas to fix it, but they are somewhat involved. Will post them then. Happy Holidays, and Thanks, Hamamelis (talk) 14:17, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Nadia, I just wanted to touch base with you, as I am enrolled in college full-time now (to be a licenced medical records clerk), and will have time to only edit sporadically for about a year. In regard to our mutual project of categorizing plants' fruit by dehiscence/non-dehiscence: I would guess that although we both agree on its merit (mostly in that it would be a resource as yet unavaillable anywhere else), we might also agree that we both don't have the energy (or now time, for me at least) to develop it to where it deserves to be. If you do happen to have that kind of time and energy and want to go ahead with it, more power to you, you'll deserve many plaudits and accolades. But I, for one, would never hold you (or anyone else, including myself) to commit to something beyond their desire to do so, as everyone is purely a volunteer. Just letting you know where I am about this, and why I haven't been active on it.

The idea of reviving the categories was essentially to break it down into subcategories (explosive, poricidal, longitudinal, circumscissile, etc) - and as it turns out Rkitko had the same idea, and brought it up at the Categories for Discussion (links above) as part of his 'Nay' vote against deletion. That is the simplest way to put the idea, but, as you know, the actual process of fleshing such a thing out would be much more complicated than that.

I did attempt, by the way, to read Kadkol's "Brassica Shatter-resistance Research Update", with some small understanding of it, but my background being what it is, it was laborious; one day I will understand it better.

This weekend was long, so I had a little time to devote to WP (somehow I got myself in over my head in editing Ruiz y Pavón for the last month or so, and am realizing it is just about endless - and to what real benefit? The article (such as it was) was a mass of unformatted scrambled-eggs, and now I have it at least more unscrambled - but is it anything anyone would ever want to read? I wonder...) But, I digress.

I will still be editing sporadically, and will check in at least once a week (I think). All the best, Hamamelis (talk) 02:37, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for your kind words at my talk. Thank you especially for the story about the exploding pomegranates (but don't let on about this to the US Military - they might get ideas). This does indeed require further study! Please let me know if you find out more, and I'll let you know if I happen upon any 'juicy' information. Hamamelis (talk) 03:53, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Parthenogenesis, apomixis

Dear Dr Nadia,

I've been (very) slowly trying to rewrite and expand the articles related to asexual reproduction. As you seem to be something of an expert on the field w.r.t plants I will be very happy if you can go over the changes I make to the parthenogenesis and apomixis articles.

regarding the term parthenogenesis in botany: how is it used?

As per my understanding (please tell me if i've got this right):

• All asexual reproduction in plants is referred to as apomixis.(even runners, bulbils etc.)
• in modern literature there is a tendency to use the term apomixis to refer only to agamospermy. Though it may be used in the older (?) more inclusive sense e.g.(Richards, A J (2003-06-29). "Apomixis in flowering plants: an overview". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 358 (1434): 1085–1093. doi:10.1098/rstb.2003.1294. ISSN 0962-8436.)
• Parthenogenesis refers only to the process of asexual (or pseudogametic) embryo formation, and hence is a component process of agamospermy.

Thanks.

Staticd (talk) 08:09, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi, this is a difficult topic. If you restrict "plants" to the flowering plants, then all your statements above are fine. Ferns and bryophytes need to be considered too (and "male apomixis" in a conifer), and the term "apogamy" is also used. The parthenogenesis page isn't perfect. Sorry, I reverted your last edit because I didn't find it to be an improvement. I need to go very slowly in this material too, even though I've spent several years reading and thinking and experimenting with it. The apomixis page is on the heavy side, if I say so myself. I'm impressed that you've grasped that pseudogamy in flowering plants is sexual, I've never encountered a university student who could handle that mind-blowing concept! Please try to go fairly slowly with your edits because of the slow thinking needed to analyze each one (i.e., breaking them up into fairly small chunks would help me a lot). Best wishes, Nadiatalent (talk) 20:11, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Bryologists tend to avoid the word "apomixis", since it is vaguely defined and can refer to many different processes. The general term used in bryology is "asexual reproduction". That said, the glossary volume Mosses and Other Bryophytes by Bill & Nancy Malcolm defines apomixis as: (1) in bryophytes, any kind of vegetative reproduction, (2) development of a sporophyte from an unfertilized egg or from the fusion of an egg with a vegetative cell rather than a sperm. (bold words in the book indicate an entry exists on that word) Thus, there are two major meanings in bryology, which is why "asexual reproduction" (or "vegetative reproduction") is the preferred term for the general phenomenon. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:30, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

There are two distinct difficulties, I think. Some of the concepts involved are complex, but also the literature is inconsistent. (Even the spelling is variable: British sources seem to use "apomyxis" with a "y" or "apomixy" with an "i".) The Kew Plant Glossary, which was published in 2010, is clear that apomyxis includes both apogamy and vegetative reproduction, so I don't think that the inclusive sense can be called "older". The relevant articles could certainly do with some editing; good luck with it. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:45, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi Peter. There are good recent review articles that state that they will use the term "apomixis" to mean "agamospermy" (i.e., in seeds), and I'd take a blue editing pencil to any document that used it in that sense without explaining the usage. (Koltunow, A.M., and Grossniklaus, U. 2003. Apomixis: A developmental perspective. Annual Review of Plant Biology 54: 547–574. doi:10.1146/annurev.arplant.54.110901.160842. is one that defines apomixis in the narrow sense, very deliberately.)

About the spelling variations (some of which look like foreign-language borrowings), I'd guess that wikipedia should include them.

Hi Petey, about bryophytes, I'd say that there are other meanings there as well, but not perhaps in the more careful literature (and I'd dispute the "vaguely defined", except in sloppy usage). Apospory and apogamy are important terms in ferns and bryophytes, meaning switching between sporophyte and gametophyte without a change in ploidy level. The terms have become entangled with "apomixis", however. To quote a little from my own work:

Apogamy: Originally defined by de Bary (1878) based on the behavior of ferns, then generalized to other plant groups but also narrowed in meaning by subsequent authors. Replaced by Winkler with the term APOMIXIS (1908), which he explicitly generalized.

There is a difficulty sometimes that the term "asexual reproduction" could be broader than the writer wants. It covers, for example, the gemmae of liverworts (which, by the way, are not explained on the Marchantiophyta page except in a figure). To match the definitions above to more specific terms, (2) development of a sporophyte from an unfertilized egg could be called parthenogenesis, (2b) fusion of an egg with a vegetative cell rather than a sperm could be called autogamy. Nadiatalent (talk) 21:15, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The term "gemmae" actually covers two distinct phenomena, both of which are rare in liverworts. The multicellular "brood body" form is the one included in the diagram, and it is the rarer of the two phenomena. I would much prefer that the generalized life cycle diagram for liverworts did not include this, as gemmae cups are limited to genera of the Marchantiaceae and Lunularia, which altogether amount to less than 0.5% of liverwort species. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:34, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

If you take that out of the diagram, I think it should be explained on the page (I don't touch pages that have anything to do with bryophytes, ferns, or gymnosperms since tangling early on with another editor (by gosh, it was your own self)). The liverworts that many of us know as greenhouse weeds have those structures. Nadiatalent (talk) 21:42, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

The liverworts you know belong to the single species Marchantia polymorpha; it is about as typical a liverwort as the platypus is for mammals. I know that the platypus has poison spurs on its heels, but I wouldn't put that on the Mammal article because it isn't relevant to the group as a whole. Likewise, I know that Ravenala is pollinated by primates, but I wouldn't force the article on Flowering plants to discuss pollination by primates. It's an oddity within the group, and belongs on a page where it will be appropriately covered. Likewise, a discussion of gemmae cups belongs at Gemma (botany), Marchantia, and Marchantiaceae, and not on the article about the division or on the article about plants as a whole. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:55, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree and would prefer to include unusual cases, particularly of familiar plants, and to link to Gemma (botany) from the Marchantiophyta page by saying that these are unusual though familiar features. I consider it wrong to give the impression that primates never act as pollinators. But that's enough for me, I'm continuing to stay away from the pages on the topics that I listed above, and continue to label myself a WikiSloth. (P.S. most of my pet liverworts have been Lunularia.) Nadiatalent (talk) 23:18, 17 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you all for the quick replies, but eeks, now i'm scared of touching on the plant part of the article.

One more(but probably not the last) query " In plants, parthenogenesis means development of an embryo from an unfertilized egg cell, and is a component process of apomixis." what about nucellar embryos and the like where an embryo is formed asexually from sporophyte? (following the definition in point three in my previous post) I think parthenogenesis in plants (development of an embryo without fertilization) will end up having the same definition at the top level as for animals. Do they actually have different defintions.

Thanks.

PS: (also the the watchers of this talk page) please look into the plan on the Talk:Parthenogenesis and do give your inputs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Staticd (talk • contribs) 05:45, 18 December 2011 (UTC) Staticd (talk) 05:51, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Hi again, I've left some comments also at Talk:Parthenogenesis. About nucellar embryos etc., indeed, they would not be parthenogenetic. There is also "Apogamety" in flowering plants, to quote myself again (first noting that the central cell IS considered to be a gamete):

Apogamety: Development of an embryo from a cell of the gametophyte other than a gamete (Renner 1916, p. 348), but also used (e.g. Nygren 1967) to include any cell other than the egg, and thus including central-cell embryos."

Now if you are going to wrestle with similar matters in "lower" plants, e.g., what embryos derived from the ventral canal cell might be called, I haven't gone into the literature enough to have a worthwhile opinion on that. By the way, the terminology that I use in flowering plants is not absolutely the only system; it is a consensus from a lot of heavy literature. Here's another quote from my 2009 paper:

Pseudogamy: Seed development requiring pollination although the embryo has no paternal inheritance (Focke 1881), a very general term. The meaning is commonly restricted to cases where the endosperm requires fertilization but the embryo develops by PARTHENOGENESIS, for which see CENTROGAMY. This is notably different from Naumova’s use of the term (1993), for which see HEMIGAMY.

Nadiatalent (talk) 14:07, 18 December 2011 (UTC)

Kittens

I prefer adult cats, although playful kittens can be fun for the short term. If you're a cat lover, then I hope you're familiar with the animated "Simon's Cat"—a must-see British series. Some of the Wikipedia links do not work, but the whole series (except the latest one) are all on YouTube. --EncycloPetey (talk) 04:10, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Nice to meet someone who also appreciates the mature feline. Yes, I know Simon's cat, my housemates behave in a similar way, but don't point at their mouths when hungry. One of them has lately taken to pulling the covers off me in the morning. Nadiatalent (talk) 13:12, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

A barnstar for you!

	The Barnstar of Diligence
	Took a quick look through your contributions - I'd like to thank you for your excellent work on botany-related articles. -download ׀ talk 22:06, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

"Short sutured rice"

Thanks Nadia, for spotting the above in History of plant breeding- it gave me one of my Wiki-chortling moments! PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 00:37, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

fruits and seeds

I guess my instincts took the better on me. I gfelt som sort of reference between category:seed (or rather that member) and the new category was appropriate. Maybe a hatnote would have been a better choice. Go ahead and fix it, I have no objections. Circéus (talk) 18:06, 27 December 2011 (UTC)

Reversion of Wikitable formatting

You have reverted my edit on History of University of Dhaka saying: "Undid revision 468071703 by Nafsadh (talk) Reverted unexplained change". Whereas the change was actually an improvement of the article towards conforming standard wikitable style as per WP:TABLE. Anyway, I already undid revert, which put us in the edge of an edit war. » nafSadh did say 15:34, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your response (on my talk). I do understand that mass disrupt on some articles sometime lead to revert of good faith edits. Anyway, I mentioned about Edit War because my act of undoing your revert is (if not always) often regarded as edit war - and mine mentioning wasn't a threat. In good faith » nafSadh did say 16:57, 28 December 2011 (UTC)

Sequencing names of parents of hybrids

Nadiatalent, thanks for the comment you send 20 December 2011 on sequencing the names of parental (or presumed parental) species of plant hybrids:

... I have a quibble though, that you have put the diploid parent first. In a case like this where the male parent was unknown until much later, I would advocate putting the female parent first. In fact, this is so often done that there is a fairly common (though admittedly not very helpful) convention that A×B is taken to mean that A was the mother plant. ...

In my experience in systematic botany, but not particularly horticulture, there is no one predominantly used standard here; instead, at least three contrasting patterns are widely used:

1) Alphabetic by the scientific names accepted in the particular work.

2) Female-first, possible only when the actual sequence of events is known, as is often the case in agriculture and horticulture, but rarely known for naturally occurring hybrids or for hybrids appearing spontaneously in ag/hort plantings.

3) By ploidy level, with lowest level first, when known/presumed parental species have different ploidy levels that are specified along with the formula, and ploidy is otherwise being discussed.

Of these, any can be used in a single-hybrid discussion to the extent the necessary facts are known (as in the loganberry case), but only the alphabetic approach is feasible for floras or other larger works treating many hybrids.

Since the the loganberry is horticultural, and at least in North America apparently not recorded as a wild-growing escape from cultivation, I'd have no objection to using the female-first sequence here, so long as the reason for the sequence is specified along with the formula, and have revised the article accordingly.--LarryMorseDCOhio (talk) 06:58, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

WikiProject Plants talk page edit conflict

Hi Nadia. Apologies for temporarily wiping out your recent contribution to the above page - an unintended consequence of getting caught in an edit conflict. I think it's all been restored now.... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 17:26, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

Umlauts

Thänks Nädia! PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 18:07, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Deletion in Garden Roses - sorry

Hi Nadia. Apologies if that deletion of text was me (looks to be so but was definitely inadvertent). Memo to self is to avoid late night edits. Sorry. (talk)Libby norman 15:56, 2 January 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Libby norman (talk • contribs)

Happy New Year and thanks

Just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year, and say that I appreciate seeing you pop up in small edits, reverts and the like on articles that I've got on my watch list. It's refreshing to have someone who's both knowledgeable and gracious making contributions like these. Waitak (talk) 17:24, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

You might find it useful to know my own reasons for using WP. Years ago, I embarked on studying some areas that I truly knew nothing about. I wasn't qualified to publish in these areas (although I'm published in others), so I needed to choose a means of recording and, possibly, sharing what I learned. I considered building a Web site, or integrating what I learned into an existing site. I also considered just being diligent in making notes for myself, thinking that I'd just postpone the idea of sharing what I learned. I chose WP ultimately, as an experiment. I wanted to understand the tradeoffs between:

• Having others be able to contribute what they knew to what I learned and contributed.
• Having input and correction by others who are more knowledgeable.
• Making what I learned as widely available as I could.

on the one hand, and on the other

• Not receiving any credit for what I contributed (as my WP user name is unrelated to my actual name).
• Giving up control of what I wrote.

Like I said, it was an experiment, but seven years later, I'm still here. I use other means of disseminating information too, of course, but I think that this will remain part of what I do for a good, long while. Waitak (talk) 18:04, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

All fair statements. Like I said, it's a tradeoff. What I hadn't counted on, I suppose, is the ongoing role of maintaining the quality of WP. That's usually a pretty thankless job, but it's what makes WP worth reading. I figure that if folks like us have other means of supporting ourselves, making this sort of contribution personally affordable, it's a good complement to the other channels that we have available to us (like paid teaching, or published research). It's actually kind of refreshing, defending our edits to people purely based on the merits of the discussion, rather than on credentials or position. I think of it as keeping me honest, I guess, and not allowing myself to lean too heavily on the comfort of a title or an office (not that there's anything at all wrong with either), for at least a portion of what I produce. Waitak (talk) 18:27, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

nomina illegitima

Regarding the 1910-1930 interval: This is when Franz Stephani was publishing the most error-laden volumes of his Species Hepaticarum, so that largely answers the question regarding illegitimate liverwort names...and there were a lot of them he was responsible for. Liverwort nomenclature long has been haunted by this. There was also an earlier near-simultaneous publication of three major liverwort classifications, all circa 1820, and Stephani's sometimes incorrect choices of genus from among them worsened the confusion as he named "new" species (and named them again, and named them again). The resulting confusion as to which generic and species names to follow lasted for more than half a century, and the illegitimate names are still actively present in collections of major herbaria--even ones with an in-house bryologist and dedicated collections managers. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:22, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

Hultén

Thanks a lot, but I really don't think I'm going to need that much details ;-) It really is only a passing reference. You can see for yourself. Circéus (talk) 14:10, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Can you help with a bit of ICBN trickery? I'm looking at Needhamiella and being a bit confused because the code seems not to be clear on whether a rejected name can still affect legitimacy of later names. It kinda makes sense that if a name has been rejected, then allowing its later homonym to become legitimate is liable to add a level of confusion, hence late homonym of a rejected name are not legitimate, but the code does not actually states this (the same way that it explicitly says epithet-bringing combinations under an illegitimate genus are still valid basionym, but does not make the same statement for rejected names...). Am I just overlooking the statements in the code? Circéus (talk) 14:52, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it is Needhamia R.Br. The question is have is purely on the code side, and has little to do with the history of the name, but let me run through the whole thing for convenience: Needhamia Scop. is a rejected name against Tephrosia Pers. Needhamia (see Brummit, Taxon 16(1):73, 1967, for a quick summary about those names). Needhamiella is the replacement name for the homonymic Needhamia R.Br. (Watson in Airy Shaw, Kew Bull. 18(2):272. 1965 ).

This not being the first time I run across something like this, it is clearly the case that a nom. rej. can still make another name illegitimate for reasons of homonymy (and indeed for reasons of inclusion of type, as mentioned for Colinil by Brummit, l.c.). Now here's the question:

1. Is this explicitly or implicitly stated in the code (Vienna will do for now)? Circéus (talk) 22:03, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind that. I had a look (for entirely separate reasons) at Appendix 5, and it states what is unstated everywhere else:

"The rejected names are neither illegitimate nor do they cease to be validly published (Art. 6). Later homonyms of a rejected name (Art. 53), and names illegitimate because of inclusion of the type of a subsequently rejected name (Art. 52), are not to be used unless they are conserved." Circéus (talk) 05:45, 19 January 2012 (UTC)

I had come to the same conclusion as to why (heterotypic) rejected synonyms should have that effect. I also noticed that lectotypication does not count to make a generic name illegitimate (i.e. if genus Fooia is lectotypified on a species that is itself selected as the lectotype of the prior genus Baria, rejection of Baria will revalidate Fooia), which covers all grounds.

Deviating into general reflections on the code, I noticed one hole in the system. When they introduced the change of typification for genera and above, they integrally preserved, for all practical purposes, the use of species as types for the vast majority of cases (I for one have never seen a genus typified directly to a specimen, other than the one example in the code). The result, due to the code's presumption that every name has a type (at least a theoretical one), is that genera are commonly lectotypified without regard to whether the species selected is itself correctly typified. Personally I have a suspicion this might render any such typification incorrect (since clearly there is no single specimen at the time of lectotypification).

No no. I mean, the type of a genus is a specimen, right? BUT the code explicitly allows the practice of designating a species to continue (by the conceit that designating a species actually designate that species' type). Now, the question is: under the code, if you perform the designation of a genus' type by referring to a species which has not yet been lectotypified properly, did you perform a proper typification of the genus?

There IS the possibility of the type of a genus not being that of a species (one example is in the code), but that seems exceedingly rare, and was somewhat unrelated to my actual question. Circéus (talk) 18:55, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Paleopolyploidy

One reason for identifying vertebrates as palaeopolyploids is the possession of 4 homeobox clusters (7 in teleosts, and I presume 14 in salmonids). I don't know offhand what other evidence, if any, is adduced. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:58, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

Talkback

Hello, Nadiatalent. You have new messages at Reaper Eternal's talk page.
Message added 19:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC). You can remove this notice at any time by removing the {{Talkback}} or {{Tb}} template.

Calabe1992 19:39, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Opuntia ficus-indica

I left these two sources in, even if duplicate, because I did not know what else has been taken from them. The article is (was) obviously a rewriting from a different citation style. I would propose to cross check against uncited statements, if they are from these "sources", before removing. Thats why I left them in, as I suspected they have been used more generally, where inline citations are missing. 70.137.138.83 (talk) 14:44, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Toxic plants

As you were remarking food safety in Cashew nuts, if I understood right - I believe the food globalization, as a component of globalization in general, will have a lot of surprizes for us. This reaches from the presence of allergens like urushiols in novel (for us) foods to the use of mustard seed oils in imported foods, with a potential for contamination by Argemone oil, which has previously only been observed where mustard seed oil is a staple. See epidemic dropsy. In such cases likely the authorities as well as end customers are unprepared, as they had no opportunity to assess the possible pitfalls with such novel materials, do not know how to roast or otherwise properly prepare them or select them or recognize symptoms which are familiar in the countries of origin. So I ask myself, if e.g. imported mango pickles in mustard oil are analyzed for traces of contamination etc. or if there is a possibility of "imported epidemic dropsy" and the like. Same for imported legume products, fava beans etc., are we familiar with their possible pitfalls? Just a thought. 70.137.136.109 (talk) 18:18, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes indeed, that is a scary plant, and 1% of its seeds used to make mustard oil is too much. I know from personal experience that it is also a difficult weed to get rid of because it sheds such enormous numbers of seeds. About mustard oil safety in general (rapeseed oil), Lorenzo's Oil is also an interesting story. There seem to be quite a few wikipedia pages about plants that could be improved by noting in the lead paragraph that they are poisonous, or not very safe to eat. It's not something that I've made much study of, but general ignorance is sometimes quite astonishing. Yesterday I passed a store with a big sign in the window "All natural remedies, no side effects", to which I think the appropriate colloquial response is "as if". Nadiatalent (talk) 18:54, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Edit to Synonym (taxonomy)

Good to see some work on this article again! It would be useful, though, to have some references for the changed material, e.g. "although it is now the usual practice to list misidentifications separately" – it ought perhaps to be, but is there evidence that it is? Peter coxhead (talk) 09:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes. Couldn't find it at the time, but it's Recommendation 50D. Nadiatalent (talk) 12:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Trachycarpus request

Could you help keep an eye on these pages, please? Trachycarpus, Trachycarpus fortunei, and Trachycarpus wagnerianus (the last should be a redirect to the second). In summary, T. wagnerianus was once treated as a separate species but is now known to be synonym / cultivar group of T. fortunei (e.g. Flora of China, USDA, Kew). A few popular books, and some nurseries with financial interests in selling them, still like to treat it as a species, but without any scientific evidence. Some anon editors keep trying to push this view despite the evidence against it, and keep reverting the scientific data. Is it time to ask for protection of these pages? Thank you! Keteleeria (talk) 12:28, 7 February 2012 (UTC)

There are sources all over the internet and books published by botanists that list the T. wagnerianus as a distinct plant. This user has continually blanked the Trachycarpus wagnerianus page under the argument that the T. wagnerianus is nothing more than a T. fortunei, having personally grown many Trachycarpus I can say that the two can not be more distinct, even more so than any other two in the genus. If this user wants to mention that according to some texts the two are considered the same, he or she can mention it on the Trachycarpus wagnerianus page, rather than blanking the page and rederecting it to Trachycarpus fortunei.--65.103.214.135 (talk) 20:22, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi

I see you are not only interested in the botany article, but are a PH.D. and work in the field. I'm working on improving the article as best I can and would greatly value your input. I was advised to use genetics as a model for improvement. I am considering how to structure adding in topics like cells and organs. I've set watch on your page so you can respond here if you like. 512bits (talk) 03:12, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Hi 512bits (nice binary name that isn't a binomial!). I haven't had time to look at your edits to the botany page, but have seen that you've made a very large number of them! I generally don't have enough time to have much of an effect in wikipedia, though every now and then I get to spend an hour or two on it. These last few weeks have been particularly overfilled with other things. I hope that situation will improve soonish. Best wishes, Nadiatalent (talk) 13:35, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

No problem. Any help when you have time would be appreciated. There's a present for you on my user page. 512bits (talk) 14:58, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Gosh, that's really nice! Thanks! Nadiatalent (talk) 20:23, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Oldest seed

Hi there, thanks for correcting my recent edit to seed. I wonder if you would be able to check out this second attempt. The same mistake was made by someone else, in this edit to Oldest viable seed. Could you perhaps cast an eye over that article too? Because of the great potential for confusion amongst us laymen regarding this Russian claim, I feel we should explicitly eliminate it in these articles. Regards, 86.160.82.236 (talk) 13:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC).

Input sought

Please see Talk:Botany#Botany_article_structure_and_concerns. Thank you. 512bits (talk) 23:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)

Angelica

They really mean "Pharmacal", its not a typo but some Korean journal.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/0253-6269/

70.137.154.146 (talk) 17:50, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

No problem, I miscorrected it myself before and undid after I opened the doi. 70.137.154.146 (talk) 18:01, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Night critical photoperiodism

When Allard and Garner published their discoveries on photoperiodism in 1920, it was thought daylight length was critical, but it was later discovered night length was critical. Do you know who made, and when, this discovery? Is there a reference we can use for this subsequent discovery?512bits (talk) 13:59, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Got the answer on my talk page. Thanks!512bits (talk) 14:20, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

Withania somnifera

is the "title" of the entry, "tropicos.org" the work in which this entry is contained. 70.137.149.205 (talk) 15:17, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, "Tropicos", actually. Nadiatalent (talk) 16:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization of titles - questionable. The cited articles do that themselves. I followed that. e.g.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2729375/?tool=pmcentrez

I've been following the Wikipedia style guidelines at Wikipedia:Citing sources#Journal articles. Nadiatalent (talk) 16:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Removal of line breaks: is a matter of taste. With line breaks it is locally more readable, but less writable and it may with long citation lists scroll out of the range (screenfull) which you can easily read. Without linebreaks it is more writable and easier to copy-paste. There are proponents of each method. Got scolded at for including citations with line breaks too, in other articles. So you can't make it right for everybody either way. 70.137.149.205 (talk) 15:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Oh well, I find it problematic sometimes to chase back in the code to find where a change belongs, and the line breaks can be very helpful. Nadiatalent (talk) 16:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

I have previously maintained the citations of this article without complaints. (other 70.137 edits before) What about the nonsense section with authority "Kaul" is that really bogus or is it some Indian local patriotism? Kaul seems to really exist as a botanist? Or is that a systematic forgery? 70.137.149.205 (talk) 15:47, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

That nonsense section is, I'm sure, due to a lack of understanding about what a plant name is. "Withania somnifera Kaul" might appear to be a zoological subspecies name; if it were a botanical subspecies name it would be written Withania somnifera subsp. kaul. The correct author is Dunal, but it happens fairly often (particularly in old works, which the one in question is not), that plant names are ascribed to the wrong botanist (Kaul, in this case). The zoologists only allow one infraspecific rank, the subspecies, so they don't use the clarifying "subsp.". I don't have access to that document to check what it says that might have led to this confusion. The subspecies listed in IPNI is called Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal subsp. obtusifolia (Tackh.) Abedin, Al-Yahya, Chaudhary & J.S.Mossa, published in Pakistan Journal of Botany in 1991. The creation of that name would also have created the autonym, Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal subsp. somnifera. In Wikipedia, though, we don't try to follow every taxonomic act such as the creation of those subspecies, but rely on secondary works like major floras to reassess the evidence before we incorporate it here. Nadiatalent (talk) 16:30, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Well, I hope it is all ok. now. The style guidelines are not specific about capitalization of titles. Seems to be ok to follow the cited document there. As you can see I am doing constructive edits to the best of my knowledge. 70.137.149.205 (talk) 17:06, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

The example on that page shows the article title of the journal article not capitalized. Going to the effort of capitalizing it if it wasn't originally is undesirable, in my opinion. Nadiatalent (talk) 17:27, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Calico "Who"

Why did you dd the "who" line to "The beginning of serious study of calico cats seems to have occurred around 1948 when Murray Barr and his graduate student E.G. Bertram noticed dark, drumstick-shaped masses inside the nuclei of nerve cells of female cats, but not in male cats. " in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calico_cat ? Travürsa (talk) 04:25, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the Barnstar

Hey, that was very thoughtful of you -- a very nice surprise. Thanks! Rhode Island Red (talk) 20:53, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Photos

Nadia, please comment here User_talk:MarshalN20#Photos 512bits (talk) 00:42, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

See [3]. I did better on the trichomes (hairs) than I thought. 512bits (talk) 02:15, 20 March 2012 (UTC)

Celery/celantro

Hi Nadiatalent; If you have the file name, I'll try to fix it.[4] To correct the name of a file, please use Commons:Template:Rename (Commons:Commons:File renaming). --Walter Siegmund (talk) 22:40, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Bumblebee Orchid

Hi Nadia. The Bumblebee Orchid is a typical example - who would have thought it? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 21:37, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if that text is/was actually a piece of copyvio, as it only makes sense if you imagine it to have something preceeding it (which presumably it did in its original context). That also might explain the rather colourful lines which came later - they read a little like a coffee-table book, trying to whip up a bit of excitement.... PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 21:53, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

And it seems that in that case the text being put back by the person who claims to be fighting a blocked user, is more likely to be a copyvio. At Laelia speciosa the person removed a large amount of poor-quality material that has the look of being specially written (by someone who didn't have much of a clue). (One could perhaps be very cynical and suspect that the point of all the accusations and reversion is merely to create confusion.) Nadiatalent (talk) 11:56, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Phylloclade

I am not sure why you removed the picture - it is of Ruscus aculeatus - see http://www.plant-identification.co.uk/skye/liliaceae/ruscus-aculeatus.htm and that is of course a phylloclade and not a leaf - the illustration in the article shows the same thing but in far less detail. The fact that it can confuse an observer is indeed part of its value. I could think of a variation in the caption, but I think removing it is plainly retrograde unless someone provides a better picture. Shyamal (talk) 03:02, 29 March 2012 (UTC)

Okay, if you can explain it well. I've added a non-Ruscus image. Perhaps epiphylly could be mentioned on the page somehow. Nadiatalent (talk)

I think we should draw attention to the way in which the stem end in Ruscus from a "sharp pointed structure". The question is what to call it. The glossaries I've looked at aren't entirely consistent, but I think that the structures formed by the stem ends in Ruscus should be called "spines" rather than "thorns" as I first thought. I'll leave it to a professional! Peter coxhead (talk) 11:52, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Oops, definitely not the spine that I called it! Nadiatalent (talk) 12:52, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, hadn't seen your results from the Kew glossary at that point. No wonder people give up on understanding this sort of material, it is quicksand-like. Nadiatalent (talk) 14:30, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Absolutely! I thought it was straightforward, but I should have learned that this is virtually never true of botanical nomenclature! The problem is that some books stress the source of the object in question, in which case "thorn" = modified branch; "spine" = modified leaf. But others stress the continuity of the woody part (xylem, vascular tissue). The more definitions I look at the less clear it seems to me! The reality seems to me to be that within particular taxa there is a traditional nomenclature (Cactaceae have spines; Rosa has prickles (but non-botanists always call these thorns); Prunus has spines (as per Prunus spinosa, but the Latin spina covers both according to dictionaries of botanical Latin); Citrus has thorns; etc.) and then glossary writers try to 'back construct' a logical definition. The article Thorns, spines, and prickles could do with a bit of editing (including referencing). Peter coxhead (talk) 11:11, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, Thorns, spines, and prickles has been a battleground, and is not how I'd like it to be. It is disappointing to find that Bell and Goebel completely contradict one another on the Cladode/Phylloclade distinction! Nadiatalent (talk) 11:38, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Baby fig

The baby fig in that picture got blown off in a rain storm. There are a few others on the tree though. We bought it from a nursery last fall. Even with it's new leaf growth, it's only about 18" from it's top to the ground, so it's still quite young. New leaves are growing well. 512bits (talk) 00:33, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Poor wee figling. We're having cold weather again here and the fig's top leaf bud that had started to open might be in danger. When I grew a fig tree inside the house, its fruiting time varied from year to year, as if it was on about a 9-month cycle. Outside, it seems that perhaps the season isn't long enough to prompt it to flower, but it has had only one full year outside and this coming summer will be an important test.

Fig leaves are rather nice in the garden though, and perhaps passers by who've had a wardrobe mishap might have a need for one ... Nadiatalent (talk) 12:59, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Catasetum

The same ip address that attacked me here: [5] is now trying to put the same information as the banned user here: [6]. Policy states that banned users are not allowed to edit therefore I am reverting it. End of story. CanadianLinuxUser (talk) 14:13, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. At this rate we might be able to pinpoint them geographically (possibly Albuquerque), though I don't intend to try. I won't restore anything to that page. Unfortunately, this means that I really can't do anything to improve orchid pages. Perhaps someone who has a lot of time to totally revamp them one at a time might be able to make some progress, but my style of making small incremental improvements is effectively locked out. Nadiatalent (talk) 14:52, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

If you can vouch that what the IP address is fine, put it back, but banned users... do not have the luxury of assuming good faith. WP:AGF CanadianLinuxUser (talk) 15:03, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, putting back even a portion of that material might just encourage them. Nadiatalent (talk) 15:11, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Hmmmm... I agree. CanadianLinuxUser (talk) 15:18, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Botany status

Please see Talk:Botany#Where_to_go_now. Thank you. 512bits (talk) 15:55, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

I reworked the spot where you asked for clarification. Please advise if it's acceptable and of any other ways we can improve the article. Which edit is obvious from the summary and it was a few minutes ago. And see my commons page for 21 day photos of my fig and persimmon.512bits (talk) 21:49, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Sweet photos. I see you are using multiple cameras, including a Sony. I've been wondering about looking for a replacement for my Canon that works beautifully on close-up, but is rather disappointing for colour, particularly the greens. An older Sony camera seemed to get the colours right every time, but was inadequate for closeup. Like all digital cameras that I've ever tried, they both can't autofocus on yellow flowers, which is a bit troublesome. The photos that I contribute under-represent yellow flowers. Nadiatalent (talk) 16:29, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I wish my camera did closeups better too.512bits (talk) 20:37, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Update on my talk page. Let's centralize there.512bits (talk) 23:32, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Please see post I just made at talk:botany.512bits (talk) 22:04, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

I've expanded the intro in order to help get it ready for GA candidacy. Improvements by you are appreciated. 512bits (talk) 18:47, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Article names

Why are some articles under their common name while others under their botanical name, ie: California poppy vs Cornus florida? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 512bits (talk • contribs) 19:38, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Laurel forests and Biodiversity of New Caledonia

Hola, he visto que es usted botánica. Le agradecería que revisase Biodiversity of New Caledonia, ya que yo no estoy capacitado en botánica. Tambien le agradecería si le interesa el tema, que desarrollase Biodiversity of Madagascar ya que es un tema importante. Muchas gracias por su atención.

Hi, you are a botanic, I am not botanic, besides, my English language is not fluent. I wish you check Biodiversity of New Caledonia, please, because these Islands are very important ecologically and they are a very forget area. I wish you to create a Biodiversity of Madagascar article, because Madagascar botany is very important too, and it is a very forget botanical area too. Thank you very much. Curritocurrito (talk) 14:01, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

VC dimension

The same reference was added in multiple articles, often not by an IP but by a user named Magdon, and one of the authors happens to be Magdon-Ismail. They often edited the same articles, too. So the COI is easy to verify (it even was automatically tagged as such on some of the other articles where I undid this addition). Anyway, thanks for checking. --24.43.41.182 (talk) 03:53, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Calico cat

In Calico cat article i add this first picture which you removed with 2 other pictures.

1st picture

I added it to show color pattern of that cats. It shows both belly, dors, legs and front face of them.

I suppose it shows their pattern far better than this second picture: Which resides in article now.

2nd picture

Thank you for interest

Mekem (talk) 05:52, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi, yes, I think you are right; the cat in the photo in the article now could not really be said to be "largely" white, so it is more of a torbie than a calico. Put it back if you wish. My intention was to remove image clutter, which happens when many people upload photos of their favourite cat.I've now added a link to wikimedia commons, the place for photo galleries; there are a lot more pictures of calico cats there. Best wishes, Nadiatalent (talk) 13:06, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Plant photos in NJ

Hi I was at a nursery in Cranford, New Jersey, and took lots of pictures of plants a week or so ago in April. I don't know much about plants or gardening but I tried to make sure that the name of the plant (from a tag) was in each picture. If you'd like to use any of these pictures for the plant articles which you monitor, here's a link to them in Commons.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:51, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

The plants all have "growing in NJ in April" in the photo file name. Also, check out this one: the flowers are shaped like hearts. Cool. Never saw anything like it before. Plus I am growing a red raspberry bush plus some lettuce so I can take photos of those as they grow.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 01:55, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Bleeding Hearts plant.

Hi, I was surprised that you didn't find the wikipedia page for the bleeding heart plant, so I've made some adjustments. I hope that you can find it without difficulty now. Thanks for the link; unfortunately, there's never enough time to systematically fix a large number of wikipedia's plant pages! Nadiatalent (talk) 12:35, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, my sense is that people such as yourself are more knowledgeable about plants than me, and I was hoping that you might consider using some of my photos at your discretion if you thought they were worthy. I may take more photos of plants from time to time but it helps to get a sense of what people are looking for (close-ups? any particular ones? etc). I figured it was easier and better to point you to my photos for possible inclusion by you than for me to add them to articles which may not need the new photos.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:40, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, I will take a look now and then. Deciding which photos to use on a page is always a matter of judgement, and it can involve wanting to show some particular unusual feature that somebody might or might not have captured, so I often look in wikimedia commons.

If you feel inspired to spend some time, you might want to check wikipedia pages to see if they include a link to a wikimedia commons gallery, if there is one. Quite a few wikipedia pages lack that link, even when there is a gallery in commons and/or a page in commons. Rosa persica is an example of linking to a commons page (which has more information than the commons category "Rosa persica"), and Rosa arkansana is an example of linking to the category (which in this case has more than the corresponding commons page about the species). Of course, improving the categories and the captions in Commons is another huge task ... Right now there's about 2 hours of work ahead of me just to go through the overnight activity on my watch list, so it's unlikely that I'll get that finished until this evening, and I have to do real-life things right now. Nadiatalent (talk) 13:06, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for explaining. I'll try my best. Mostly at Wikipedia, I create and revamp articles. And I'll link to the wikimedia commons gallery when I can.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 15:01, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Botany GA nom

I've nominated this for GA now. Big thanks to you for all your kind help.512bits (talk) 21:53, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Lauraceae

Hi Nadia. I've decided to take a more ruthless approach to pruning the Lauraceae articles (e.g. Lindera), being of the view that it's probably better to build up new sourced material from scratch, rather than trying to wade through reams and reams of dubious content to see if any of it may be acceptable. I wonder what your view is? PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 12:57, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Biodiversity of Madagascar

Hola, he visto que es usted botánica. Le agradecería que revisase Biodiversity of New Caledonia, ya que yo no estoy capacitado en botánica. Tambien le agradecería si le interesa el tema, que desarrollase Biodiversity of Madagascar ya que es un tema importante. tambien deseo agradecerle todas las aportaciones y correciones que ha venido usted efectuando todos estos días, las cuales le agradezco mucho y dan muestras de su vigor y denonada fe en favor del celo y la calidad de los articulos de nuestro proyecto, confiamos en seguir recibiendo sus aportaciones como hasta ahora y me permito brindarle mas articulos en los que desarrollar sus habilidades, no dudando que nos confiará su inestimable colaboración, de la cual estamos muy satisfechos, como lo estan el resto de mis compañeros. Si se decide usted a crear el articulo mencionado, puede solicitar la ayuda de los colaboradores que crea necesarios, como User talk:PaleCloudedWhite, de lo cual le quedaría muy agradecido. Su trabajo será muy satisfactorio sin dudarlo, por medio del corazón inmaculado, para reparar las ofensas que se pudieran causar y favorecer un tratamiento completo y profesional del necesario conocimiento y contribuir en cuanto podamos a que se de una mision prioritaria al conocimiento de la botanica, en estas cepas tan antiguas. Muchas gracias por su atención.

Hi, you are a botanic, I am not botanic, besides, my English language is not fluent. I wish you to create a Biodiversity of Madagascar article, because Madagascar botany is very important too, and it is a very forget botanical area too. You can do it. I'm sure, please, do it, because these Islands are very important ecologically and they are a very forget area. I'm sure that if you are busy, or you think is too hard for you, mister User talk:PaleCloudedWhite, can help you from scratch. He is a very hardworker and clever one, and you have the idea of an article as a whole, just not dripping and spurring, please please please, do Biodiversity of Madagascar Thank you very much. Curritocurrito (talk) 06:08, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Curritocurrito, PaleCloudedWhite and I are very busy people in real life, and although we are trying hard to correct wikipedia, we cannot cope with all the poor-quality material that is already in place. I feel quite strongly that it is not appropriate to create new articles until the existing ones have reached a high standard. I agree that the biodiversity of Madagascar is an extremely important topic. I have created a redirect to the page Wildlife of Madagascar. Nadiatalent (talk) 14:15, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Format of entries in List of botanists by author abbreviation

Small point: when you add an entry like this to the list:

• '''Symington''' – [[Colin Fraser Symington]] (1905–1943)

both dashes should be en-dashes, not hyphens, according to the Manual of Style and for consistency with the other entries. I usually check when I don't know the editor who added the entry (both the format and that the information is in the IPNI – which sometimes isn't the case). But I don't usually check your additions; I just happened to notice this one. When I add an entry, I usually copy the one above and change it. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:49, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks Peter, I hadn't noticed the difference, I've been copying the line from IPNI rather than the line above. I'll reform my ways. Nadiatalent (talk) 12:13, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Let me add something I meant to say before: personally I think that MOS:HYPHEN and MOS:DASH are crazy; typical of the decisions by the kind of editors who haunt the MOS. The overwhelming majority of people don't notice the difference between "1918-1998" (wrong) and "1918–1998" (right). Even if they did, the relative size of a hyphen and and en-dash varies between fonts and operating systems (with my Mac-based system, the en-dash is actually smaller than a hyphen in the default font I use). But absolute consistency does make it possible to do some automated processing: I have an Excel worksheet which generates a sort key from the author abbreviation and enables me to check periodically that the entries are in the right order. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the font that I see varies according to what browser I'm using, which complicates matters. Why anyone would design a font in which the n-dash is so short is one of life's mysteries. The list of botanists by author abbreviation is clearly useful for finding the wikipedia page for the person, but do you think that other list of botanists is useful? Is it perhaps useful for people who don't have an abbreviation as a taxonomist? Could it be deleted? Nadiatalent (talk) 02:35, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

My instinct (as an academic computer scientist) is always to avoid redundancy. On this basis, a list of "botanists without author abbreviations" would be a useful complement to the list of botanists by author abbreviation, but having people in two lists doesn't seem sensible to me.

On a quite different matter, if you enjoy nomenclatural debates, you might be amused by User_talk:Curtis_Clark#Roscoea_cautleoides_or_Roscoea_cautleyoides. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:47, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you (and Curtis Clark) for dealing with the Article 60 matters; those would make anyone's head spin! Interesting that you are an academic computer scientist; I live in a household of such people and once made a living hacking Cobol etc. on IBM mainframes (even PL/I, may it rest in peace).

I've made a suggestion on the talk page for the list of botanists; a random choice showed that C.Bicknell didn't have his abbreviation listed on his page, so there's probably quite a lot of that to be done before the pruning would be a simple matter. Nadiatalent (talk) 21:29, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

There's a list at User:Peter_coxhead/Sandbox which I've been working my way through when I have a few spare moments (I've reached "M" as you can see). This list was obtained by cross-checking the category Category:Botanists with author abbreviations with List of botanists by author abbreviation. The cross-check doesn't quite work because the names which are wikilinked in the list are often redirects, so don't match the article titles in the category. I think we need some "bot expert" to write a tool which can properly check that everyone in List of botanists by author abbreviation who has an article has the {{botanist}} template in it, which both gives their abbreviation and puts them in the category.

PL/I!! I started seriously using computers as a research student in the 1970s, doing statistical analyses on an IBM 360/165, then the largest computer in the UK. (I used to tell bored undergraduates how they increased its memory at vast cost from 1 to 2 Mb; a lot of the cost was for strengthening the floor to take the weight of the cooling system for the magnetic memory!) I did try PL/I but "graduated" to Fortran. Fading knowledge of PL/I and IBM JCL was, I thought, just useless information cluttering up my brain, until I met a couple of people who work for the Canadian tax authority in Ottawa, who told me that they use both (as well as Cobol) in the legacy systems still in use there.

The problem with Roscoea cautleyoides/cautleoides is that thanks to Curtis Clark's encouragement and my emailing IPNI & WCSP, the two databases now have different entries which is not really a step forward. Let's hope that they can decide who is right! It may depend on something in the new version of the ICN; it will be good when it is online. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:54, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm amazed that anyone is still using PL/I, though Cobol I can well believe, it (and its wonderful requirement that the for-loop index must be initialized or random behaviour will result) seem destined to never die. I'd bet that if faced with debugging JCL you'd have the horrible realization that it is all still retrievable from your brain.

When I was a student the university had bought a Univac 1100 because it had the best hardware; it ran an awe-inspiringly user-unfriendly system called EXEC 8. What we had to type on a crt was exactly what would have been punched on a card, I think it even had a continuation marker in the 80th column, or something as bizarre. Incredible as it may seem, IBM JCL seemed neat and well-designed by comparison. That sort of experience is quite enlightening in an odd way, revealing something about reality, or human culture, or the relative unimportance of good hardware, or something. Perhaps that is influencing what we do in wikipedia, what you might call our "vision" ... (or perhaps we're just crazy).

About Roscoea, have you tried communicating with GRIN people? I had a problem in Rosaceae recently, and GRIN was ahead of the other databases in understanding the new code, and email was extremely helpful. Nadiatalent (talk) 11:57, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Lycopodium minchegense

See the Huperziaceae draft for Flora of China and the Taxon paper to which it refers. If I understand the situation correctly (questionable, even before I made the mistake of looking at that Roscoea thread), Ren-Chang Ching, accidentally published the species as L. minchegense, a corrigible error for L. mingcheense, in April 1982, and then published it again, with a different holotype, as Phlegmariurus mingcheensis in May. The latter was transferred by Holub to Huperzia (in the sense inclusive of Phlegmariurus), but he was unaware of the priority of L. minchegense [sic] and did not include it in his combination. I assume it's because L. minchegense is a heterotypic rather than a homotypic synonym of P. mingcheensis that it's still listed as valid on TPL.

I'm not keen on starting a "Formerly..." section in Lycopodium, as it would be burdened by the repetition of the entire species lists from Huperzia, Diphasiastrum, and Lycopodiella. I will add this species to the list in Huperzia. Given that club moss articles are not exactly burning up the New Page Patrol, I think it's best to add redirects from older synonyms on the rare occasions a new one appears. Choess (talk) 01:56, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

Oh well, better that than the alternative at the time, which was writing up the year's "outcomes assessments". Being a molecular biologist by training and botanist only by avocation, I get nervous when things hang on my interpretation of fine points of the ICBN. Oddly, we've had two clubmoss stubs in the past week, one of which (Huperzia varia, formerly Lycopodium varium), doesn't appear in TPL at all. Choess (talk) 02:44, 17 May 2012 (UTC)

Baby figs and persimmons

Babies on both young trees, yea! See my Wiki Commons user page. 512bits (talk) 21:51, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Social and environmental impact of palm oil

Hello Nadiatalent, thank you for your comments on Social and environmental impact of palm oil. I have made another try at the draft for the Social issues section and would be glad if you could look again at this. Thanks in advance. YellowOwl (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I've made the change as you requested. Just to let you know, I'm essentially retired now, just active in Commons, so I'm unlikely to notice activity here in wikipedia very often. Best wishes, Nadiatalent (talk) 22:54, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I very much appreciate your time and help with this request. Although you are retired, if you are interested in the topic of palm oil, I have more changes for the Social and environmental impact of palm oil article (latest here) and your input would be more than welcome. YellowOwl (talk) 19:33, 18 January 2013 (UTC)