User talk:Plantdrew/Archive 12

Help please?

Hi Plantdrew, I just came across Draft:Musa truncata and made a few changes using WFO as a source then checked with POWO and now I think it is a synonym for Musa acuminata subsp. truncata. Could you please take a look and let me know what you think? Regards. Hughesdarren (talk) 03:16, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

@Hughesdarren:, I agree it should be treated as a synonym of Musa acuminata subsp. truncata. The subspecies is already mentioned at Musa acuminata. I don't think there is any need for a stubby stand-alone article for the subspecies; it can be discussed in a section of the species article (several other subspecies already have a couple sentences discussing them there). Plantdrew (talk) 00:02, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Cheers for that, will leave as draft and make a note to any other potential reviewer. Hughesdarren (talk) 04:10, 3 January 2023 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Plantdrew!

Happy New Year!

Plantdrew,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
– Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 21:13, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

– Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 21:13, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Thank you very much. Plantdrew (talk) 23:45, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Happy New Year, Plantdrew!

Happy New Year!

Plantdrew,
Have a prosperous, productive and enjoyable New Year, and thanks for your contributions to Wikipedia.
— Moops ^⋠T⋡ 20:04, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

   Send New Year cheer by adding {{subst:Happy New Year fireworks}} to user talk pages.

— Moops ^⋠T⋡ 20:04, 1 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for the New Year's wishes. Plantdrew (talk) 23:45, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Demale

Hi. You changed female to Demale on the blue-tailed day gecko article. This is a new word to me. Can you explain please. Charlesjsharp (talk) 10:11, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

@Charlesjsharp:, that was a typo. Plantdrew (talk) 23:45, 2 January 2023 (UTC)

Peperomia orba common names or cultivars

Hello! I noticed your changes on Peperomia orba. You had changed the common names I had given into cultivars (e.g. Peperomia 'Princess Astrid'). You're probably right but now I'm just curious where did you find that out? I entered them as common names because Bunting writes:

The pretty peperomia pictured here has been in cultivation for several years under the designation Peperomia 'Astrid' and P. 'Princess Astrid', but nothing is known of its origin.

I understood those to be simply common names (because he calls them designations, not cultivars), which Bunting is expressing with apostrophes to clearly distinguish them from botanical names in this particular text which doesn't allow lot of formatting. (Hence the point of his article "A valid new name for..." Easiest way to find the original: Go to http://peperomia.net/repertory.asp and search for "orba". )

Did you find info somewhere else that these would be cultivars? Or did you change them just because I had left the apostrophes? If that's the case then the problem was my erroneous syntax and the names are still common names. Like I said, I'm just curious about this. I'm a peperomia hobbyist and find it annoying how difficult it is to find good, reliable information about them. And P. orba is especially tricky being not officially accepted in catalogues. All the best, Gemena (talk) 10:07, 9 January 2023 (UTC)

@Gemena:, thanks for the link to Bunting's paper; I had looked for the paper but was unable to find it online. By convention, cultivar names are enclosed in apostrophes (actually, single quotation marks). If Bunting had intended NOT to treat 'Astrid' et al. as cultivars, I think he would have found another way to clearly distinguish them from botanical names within the limited formatting allowed by the publication (on the other hand, if Bunting had definitely intended to treat them as cultivars he ought to have said "cultivar" and not "designation").

There is a formal process for naming cultivars. Any distinctive cultivated variety could potentially be formally named as a cultivar. However, there certainly are distinctive plants in the horticultural trade that are often treated as cultivars (with a name enclosed in apostrophes), that haven't actually been formally named as cultivars. Bunting may have used the word "designation" instead of "cultivar" to avoid implying that 'Astrid' et al. are formally established cultivar names. It might be best to replace "cultivar" with "designation" in Peperomia orba, but I don't think "common name" is really appropriate. As far as I can tell, the "designations" aren't intended to refer to the species as a whole (as a common name would be), but to particular distinctive cultivated forms. Plantdrew (talk)

You make good points, and I totally get your perspective. I couldn't resist going back to his piece (the scholar in me is now bothered because the matter is unclear) and thinking it over once more and here's what I came up with.

In my purely layperson's view, Bunting doesn't mean that those are cultivars listed in his paper. It seems to me he's saying that as the plant hasn't had a proper name people have used various names, "Peperomia Astrid" being probably the most common one. (Makes sense in Sweden, named probably in honor of Princess Astrid of Sweden, later married off to Belgium and becoming Queen Astrid, hence the abbreviated name makes sense too.) And that is why he then presents his formal naming as (I replaced underlining with bold, as is the common convention):

All attempts to determine the identity of P. 'Astrid' have been futile. Therefore, I have deemed it desirable to name this taxon as a species new to science.

Peperomia orba Bunting, sp. nov.

Peperomia 'Astrid'; P. 'Princess Astrid'; P. 'Pixie'; P. 'Teardrop'.

At the end of the paper he also mentions that P. 'Pixie' and P. 'Teardrop' are often used when selling juvenile plants, hence they are being used for the species, and not cultivars. (Both are still in use as sales names for the basic species, whereas there's at least one clear cultivar 'Lime' or 'Pixie Lime'.) Therefore, to me it looks like Bunting is using those single quotation marks to simply list all the different names people have given the species, not giving varieties, and he follows the same in his formal naming paragraph. (No idea to why. Custom not in use back them? Limited possibilities in that publication? Quirks of Mr. Bunting?)

Now, I don't know how you define a common name, but that's what those look like to me. I mean, not necessarily common in the sense that they are widely used, but common as in "non-botanical-names". However, if you think it would be best to not call them "common names" in the article, I can understand that. (Even Bunting might have been a little vague on purpose in this case without good provenance.) Here's what I would do in the article: Move the whole list of names lower joining it with the naming story.

The plant is only known from cultivation, its native range is unknown. Therefore the name is considered unplaced and unaccepted.[ref] G.S.Bunting named the plant based on samples in cultivation, obtained from greenhouses of University of Gothenburg with no knowledge of their further origins. Because of this he used the epithet orba meaning "orphan" in Latin. Before Bunting the plant was known with various names including Peperomia Astrid, Peperomia Princess Astrid, Peperomia Pixie, and Peperomia Teardrop.[ref]

I'd take away the single quotation marks, or replace them with double quotations ("Peperomia Astrid"). Basically to signal that they aren't cultivars. What do you think, would that work? --Gemena (talk) 16:50, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

@Gemena:, that seems like a good solution. Plantdrew (talk) 16:17, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for helping to figure this one out! I'll make the changes to the article. --Gemena (talk) 16:50, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Parisopalpus images

Kia ora Plentdrew, could I check what images you're requesting for Parisopalpus? As far as I can tell, this is many more images than what you'd usually expect for a genus article! --Prosperosity (talk) 21:49, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

@Prosperosity:, whoops, I made a mistake. I copy-paste the project banners when I'm checking new articles and have "needs-image=yes" in what I'm copy-pasting (the majority of new articles lack images). I just forget to remove the image request parameter from the project banners on Parisopalpus. Plantdrew (talk) 21:54, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

All good! I was just checking that I hadn't missed something. Thanks for doing the WikiProject assessment! --Prosperosity (talk) 22:17, 10 January 2023 (UTC)

Gum karaya

Hello, Plantdrew, would this image be helpful to the article. Thank you for your time? Lotje (talk) 06:35, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

@Lotje:, I've added it to the article. Plantdrew (talk) 22:58, 15 January 2023 (UTC)

SIAs

I'm not sure now about the advantages of set index articles for plant common names if they don't take advantage of the freedom to have multiple links per line, images, etc. If I try to add [[field pea]] to an article, I get a warning because it's marked as a disambiguation page. Someone now adding [[native wisteria]] won't. I see the point that Category:Plant common name disambiguation pages also contains articles with mixes of plant names and other uses, whereas Category:Set index articles on plant common names is only for plant names, but I do think the warning is useful. However, if we stick to current practice, Field pea and some others in Category:Plant common name disambiguation pages should be SIAs. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:24, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, I'll try and dig it up, but I had asked somewhere (that was frequented by people who care about MOSDAB) several years ago about the information that would be permitted in a dab entry. Opinions were mixed, but there were definitely some people who would find the information in native wisteria excessive. I think the MOSDAB minimalists envision a world where a lone parenthetical term is sufficient to disambiguate. That sometimes works (e.g. Mercury (element), Mercury (mythology) and Mercury (planet)), but often does not. And the minimalist MOSDAB position can lead to some really stupid redirects (pawpaw (genus) comes to mind, but I know there some others along the lines of "native wisteria (Hardenbergia)" (intentionally not making that a red link)).

It is good to have the warning when linking to dab pages, but MOSDAB minimalism can result in information useful for navigation being lost when a page is marked as a dab. I don't think "native wisteria" is very likely to ever get linked. There are some long standing set indices (since before I ever became involved with Wikipedia) that have many incoming links. Plant common name SIAs starting with "List of plants known as..." could do with incoming link review. I took a stab at resolving links to List of plants known as lotus a few months ago. But there's also List of plants known as nettle, List of plants known as cedar, and Sycamore among others. Plantdrew (talk) 22:26, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

No, I agree that "native wisteria" is unlikely to get linked, but it does show up in Google searches, so might help reduce mislabelling like the recent issue in Commons. (A Google search for images suggests that more species get called by this name by photographers, although so far not by sources that can be used as references.)

The minimalist MOSDAB position seems less influential now, it seems to me. I wonder if there's some way that SIAs could be marked so that the link warning comes up for them as well.

So should Field pea and similar examples be made SIAs? Field pea has a "See also" section which I think a DAB page shouldn't. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

Question on Bathysphaera Page

I noticed you made the page for Bathysphaera.The page mentions six new species seen by Beebe, can you list them? I know of the Abyssal Gar, Giant Dragonfish, Pallid Sailfin, Three Starred Angler Fish, and Five Lined Constellation Fish KanyeWestDropout (talk) 16:06, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Progress with Polbot articles with manual taxoboxes

I've been working on the list at User:Peter coxhead/Problem plant species articles (we've crossed on a few). I've used the approach you pointed out earlier, namely that if the Polbot/IUCN name is a synonym, particularly a heterotypic one, and the distribution is different, it's better to create a new article without the IUCN status in the taxobox. In such cases I've added a conservation section.

The remaining articles to be looked at are all Quercus species (there are some problem cases that will need to be returned to). The List of Quercus species article references doi:10.1007/978-3-319-69099-5_2 but doesn't seem to have used the appendix; for example, the first case on my list, Quercus aucheri, isn't in the list but is in the appendix.

Quercus taxonomy is something I know nothing about. I'd welcome your view on whether List of Quercus species should be expanded to the full appendix and then the sections used in Quercus articles. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:29, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, I think the list should follow the appendix from Denk et al. and the sections in Denk should be used in Quercus articles. I see there were some subtantial revisions to the list in November 2022, to bring it more in-line with Denk (e.g. demoting Cyclobalanopsis from subgenus to section, and adding a discussion of Denk's results to the lead), but as you note, the list isn't fully following Denk (and not just the appendix; Denk treats sect. Mesobalanus as a synonym of sect. Quercus in the body of the article).

Dealing with oak taxoboxes is one of many things on my to do list (I downloaded the appendix last February and saved a re-sorted version with accepted species alphabetical by section (also alphabetical); the original fully alphabetic by species sorting (including synonyms) is very hard to parse reasonably). It is a substantial task; species with automatic taxoboxes may be following an older classification (e.g. Quercus suber currently has subgenus Quercus rather than Cerris).

Would you like to split the effort somehow? Plantdrew (talk) 16:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I downloaded the appendix earlier today and sorted it as you did. I also added the current list of species in PoWO; there have been changes since the appendix was produced.

I guess the first step is to fix the list article and the taxonomy templates. After that, I'll work on the Polbot Quercus articles in my list: these can take quite a bit of work if the IUCN status doesn't fit. Then we can perhaps divide up the remaining species. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:37, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

This is a 3-day weekend for me, and I'm going to do some traveling, so I'm probably not going to make any progress on this before Monday evening or Tuesday (and I've got a couple other things I'm in the middle of on Wikipedia that I want to finish up). Looking at the appendix again, I had forgotten there were two columns with synonym/accepted status (columns C & H). I sorted by column H ("[for Cy.: Deng in le Hardÿ de Beaulieu & Lamant, p. 434; for Lo.: S. Valencia 2004]"), then I, J, and A. Plantdrew (talk) 19:47, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I've set up the missing taxonomy templates. Fixing the list article is going to be more work than I expected. I looked at sect. Quercus: the article has some species not in either the appendix or in PoWO, many missing species, and some species that should be in other sections. I suspect that starting the lists again will be easier than modifying. I hope to look at it over the weekend. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:41, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

Would a list of pages with speciesboxes by subgenus/section be useful? —  Jts1882 | talk  14:26, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

@Jts1882: I've set up a work page for a revised List of Quercus species article at User:Peter coxhead/Work/Quercus. It needs some more checking. I've just copied over the "extra" information from the existing article, but there is a sourcing issue for both the distribution and the English names, which is partly why I haven't yet moved it to main space. (I would definitely remove the apparently unsourced "#" meaning 'evergreen'.)

I think we have to work through all of the Quercus articles, whatever kind of taxobox they have, checking/adding the sections. At present I'm working on the Polbot manual taxobox ones. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:38, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Anyway, here is the current arrangement of taxonomy templates and the articles with speciesboxes using them.

Comparing with your POWO/Denk list and I can see that a lot of the articles with speciesboxes need moving. Your POWO compatible section has 15 species in section Cerris, while the automated taxonomy places 18 species in that section. Only 9 overlap. I can do some moving, but don't want to work at cross purposes with what you are doing. If I move some of the species in the Ilex section, those placed in sections by Denk and recognised by POWO, that should be straighforward. The article on Quercus ilex say's its in section Ilex, but the taxobox as section Cerris, which is an easy fix. —  Jts1882 | talk  15:30, 19 February 2023 (UTC)

Dorcopsis

See Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Dorcopsis. What Sandstein overlooked is that the likes of us can't delete articles, so what I've done for now is swapping Dorcopsis and Dorcopsis (genus), making the latter a redirect to the former. One could now try to get Dorcopsis (genus) deleted if it is worth the trouble. Cheers --Elmidae (talk · contribs) 09:25, 26 February 2023 (UTC)

@Elmidae:, thanks for making the move. I'm not sure it is worth the effort to delete Dorcopsis (genus). Plantdrew (talk) 21:03, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Quercus margarettae

I bcc'd an e-mail to you re the spelling of the epithet of Quercus margarettae. See my text in the Taxonomy section. I don't want to choose between IPNI, PoWO and Tropicos! Peter coxhead (talk) 11:25, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, thanks. My apologies for not helping you work through Quercus. I see that IPNI, Tropicos, and the eFloras version of Flora of North America all mention margaretta as the original spelling. FNA is quite a mess across different versions.

The print version of FNA (1997) just has it as Quercus margaretta throughout, but is cited as a source by Tropicos for Quercus margarettiae.

eFloras FNA has it as Quercus margarettae throughout (except for the initial note about the original spelling)

Wiki version of FNA has it at the title Quercus margarettae, cites the basionym as Quercus minor var. margaretta, but then goes on to spell it Quercus margaretta (unitalicized) everywhere else (as in the print version, except it's italicized there).

I can edit the Tropicos record if that turns out to be necessary (or create a new record for an illegitimate spelling). Plantdrew (talk) 21:01, 2 March 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it's a muddle. I sympathize with Denk et al. (2017) who wrote "margarett[i]ae". After an initial response from Govaerts to say that it seemed clear that it should be "margaretiae", there were second thoughts, it seems. The epithet might be based on a nickname "Margaretta", which would then seem not to need the "i" added. I understand that it's still being discussed. (An issue for me is that the author doesn't explain the etymology.) I'll keep you posted. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:41, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I've revised a bit what I had written at Quercus margarettae § Taxonomy. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:52, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Searching IPNI, it seems that Ashe used the name "Margaretta" quite often. For example, "Crataegus Margaretta", published here. So I begin to think that margarettae is likely to be correct. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:07, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

On the other hand, I hadn't seen the Taxonomic Notes here, which agree with what I (like PoWO editors) first thought, and give a source. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:55, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

I've just been told that the Kew people have concluded that the original "margaretta" is not correctable: "we assume it is a nickname and so does not fall under the rules of personal names or at least is a noun in apposition". Um... I suspect other variants will continue to be used by sources in future. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:07, 3 March 2023 (UTC)

Polbot manual taxoboxes, etc.

I've finished what I originally set out to do with Polbot species manual taxoboxes (having got diverted to Quercus on the way). User:Peter coxhead/Problem plant species articles lists some remaining issues: one set because the status of the species is unclear, the other because they are bryophytes, which I haven't touched. Anything you can sort out will be welcome. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:47, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, I'll try to work on the bryophytes. There is a new resource for bryophytes, The Bryophyte Nomenclator, it claims to be a contributor to WFO, but it doesn't seem to have been completely (at all?) incorporated, as I'm finding inconsistencies in WFO. E.g., WFO treats Myriocolea as a synonym of Colura, but has Myriocolea irrorate (sic, should be Myriocolea irrorata) as "unchecked" and no record for Colura irrorata. And with Perssoniella, WFO has the opposite problem; genus is "unchecked", but the only species is treated as a synonym of Schistochila vitreocincta. Plantdrew (talk) 17:58, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

I came across bryonames.org a few days ago and was going to post something. The search and classification pages have been around for a few years (as they are archived on archive.org), but the website with the menus is new. The classification of mosses largely follows Goffinet's book and website (but drops the subdivisions). I did some work on mosses a few years ago using Goffinet's classification and WFO for the species. bryonames.org seems to recognise fewer species, but this could be related to the methodology. They state they are using the Tropicos database as their source and adding some additonal criteria for recognising taxon names. My first impression is positive that they may be the best source to follow for species.

On a related note, I see that WFO have added a WFO Plant List site as a successor to TPL, e.g for Sphagnum. The WFO Plant list recognised 382 species, while WFO recognises 410 species and bryonames.org 341 species. —  Jts1882 | talk  20:57, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

The downside of bryonames is that the species lists aren't compatible with {{Format species list}}. Plantdrew (talk) 17:30, 7 March 2023 (UTC)

Just seen this. It can be fixed. Remind me if I don't do something in the next week. —  Jts1882 | talk  20:27, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

If it's not too much trouble, that would be great (it looks pretty complicated to me, but you've got skills I don't have). Plantdrew (talk) 00:23, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I think the existing |compare=NAME parameter will work. It only processes lines beginning with the text given in the parameter. So for the bryonames page for Kymatocalyx

{{format species list|compare=Kymatocalyx|1=

Kymatocalyx africanus Váňa & M. Wigginton, Haussknechtia Beih. 9: 158. 1999. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)

Kymatocalyx dominicensis (Spruce) Váňa, Oesterr. Bot. Z. 118: 575. 1970. (Váňa 1970)

Basionym: Jungermannia dominicensis Spruce, J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 30: 363. 1895.

=Jungermannia cubensis Gottsche ex Steph., Sp. Hepat. (Stephani) 2: 79. 1901. ≡Kymatocalyx cubensis (Gottsche ex Steph.) Váňa, Folia Geobot. Phytotax. 9: 197. 1974. (Váňa 1974; Gradstein & Uribe-Meléndez 2016)

=Kymatocalyx stolonifer Herzog, Memoranda Soc. Fauna Fl. Fenn. 25: 55. 1950. (Herzog 1950; Gradstein & Váňa 1999)

=Solenostoma apertum Schiffn. ex S.W. Arnell, Denkschr. Österr. Akad. Wiss., Math.-Naturwiss. Kl. 111: 41. 1964. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)

=Stenorrhipis grollei Gradst., Trop. Bryol. 1: 32. 1989. (Gradstein & Florschütz-de Waard 1989; Gradstein & Váňa 1999)

Kymatocalyx madagascariensis (Steph.) Gradst. & Váňa, Haussknechtia Beih. 9: 164. 1999. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)

Basionym: Acrobolbus madagascariensis Steph., Bull. Herb. Boissier, sér. 2, 2: 460. 1902. (Wigginton 2018)

≡Stenorrhipis madagascariensis (Steph.) Grolle, Trans. Brit. Bryol. Soc. 4: 441. 1963. (Grolle 1963)

Kymatocalyx rhizomaticus (Herzog) Gradst. & Váňa, Haussknechtia Beih. 9: 166. 1999. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)

Basionym: Stenorrhipis rhizomatica Herzog, Trans. Brit. Bryol. Soc. 1: 290. 1950.

=Ruttnerella rhizocaula Schiffn., Arch. Hydrobiol. 21: 394. 1955. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)

}}

Output to be substituted:

• Kymatocalyx africanus {{small|Váňa & M. Wigginton, Haussknechtia Beih. 9: 158. 1999. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)}}
• Kymatocalyx dominicensis {{small|(Spruce) Váňa, Oesterr. Bot. Z. 118: 575. 1970. (Váňa 1970)}}
• Kymatocalyx madagascariensis {{small|(Steph.) Gradst. & Váňa, Haussknechtia Beih. 9: 164. 1999. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)}}
• Kymatocalyx rhizomaticus {{small|(Herzog) Gradst. & Váňa, Haussknechtia Beih. 9: 166. 1999. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)}}

Renders as:

• Kymatocalyx africanus Váňa & M. Wigginton, Haussknechtia Beih. 9: 158. 1999. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)
• Kymatocalyx dominicensis (Spruce) Váňa, Oesterr. Bot. Z. 118: 575. 1970. (Váňa 1970)
• Kymatocalyx madagascariensis (Steph.) Gradst. & Váňa, Haussknechtia Beih. 9: 164. 1999. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)
• Kymatocalyx rhizomaticus (Herzog) Gradst. & Váňa, Haussknechtia Beih. 9: 166. 1999. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999)

There is the issue of the references being included in the authority. This has to be handled manually as I can't see a safe way of handling that programmatically.—  Jts1882 | talk  07:08, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jts1882: I have played with extracting only the authors from comparable sources. In theory, it's possible to parse the authors if they are consistently set up, but in practice any small error or variation messes it up, because similar sequences of &, comma, etc. can occur in the reference. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:50, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm a bit confused by the format of those authorities. I assume (Herzog) Gradst. & Váňa, Haussknechtia Beih. 9: 166. 1999. (Gradstein & Váňa 1999) would be shortened to (Herzog) Gradst. & Váňa, but why is revising authority repeated at the end in parentheses?. —  Jts1882 | talk  11:59, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

@Jts1882: There's a References section after the species list, and the authorities at the end of the line for each taxon name correspond to the references. Basically it seems to be showing the source bryonames is following for acceptance/synonymy. Authorities proposing a new name/combination obviously accept it, so the authority gets repeated at the end (there does seem to be some inconsistency with synonyms though; e.g. Stenorrhipis madagascariensis ends with {Grolle 1963), but Grolle published that combination and didn't treat it as a synonym). Plantdrew (talk) 21:08, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

A Barnster for you!

		The New Page Patroller's Barnstar
		For your WikiProject assessment on my fish stubs, you always seem to be assessing the new articles I created, for that I award you this barnstar. Dancing Dollar (let's talk) 18:17, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the barnstar, and thank you for your efforts creating fish articles. Plantdrew (talk) 00:24, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Rubiaceae genera

I note your comments at User:Plantdrew/Plant automatic taxobox progress about Rubiaceae which I hadn't seen before I starting fixing some manual taxoboxes in Rubiaceae articles. To do this, if the genus was accepted by PoWO, I looked it up at the Tropicos Rubiaceae project genus list. Up to now, there either wasn't a taxonomy template for the genus, or it agreed with the placement given by the project. However, I've now found at least one discrepancy: Template:Taxonomy/Calycophyllum, created by User:Orbicule way back in 2013‎, has tribe Condamineeae, but the Rubiaceae project entry, dated 2022, has Dialypetalantheae.
I'm inclined to go with the Rubiaceae project. What do you think? Peter coxhead (talk) 20:20, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, the Rubiaceae project is particularly focused on the Neotropics and isn't globally comprehensive (Galium is a glaring omission from the few Rubiaceae genera that occur in my part of the world), and doesn't show tribes for all included genera (e.g. Ixora, although the tribe is mentioned in the text). I'm not opposed to citing the Rubiaceae project for tribes where it is comprehensive. But how do we know that it is comprehensive? If we have to cross check against other references to show that the Rubiaceae project is comprehensive, maybe just cite those references? The project is at least using a 3 subfamily classification, rather than the 2 subfamily classification suggested by APWeb.

I suspect Bremer, 2009 is going to be the latest treatment for some tribes. Last time I thought about doing taxonomy templates for Rubiaceae, I figured I would use Bremer as a starting point, and deviate from it when Wikipedia's tribe articles cited a more recent publication (and maybe check with Orbicule to see if they were aware of any tribes where Wikipedia was not up-to-date). Calycophyllum in Condamineeae is following Bremer 2009. Plantdrew (talk) 13:59, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

I saw Bremer (2009) when looking for sources, but was put off by the date. 14 years seemed rather a long time ago for a classification based on molecular studies. Sure, the Rubiaceae project covers only a subset of genera, so isn't useful for working down from tribes to genera, but is it useful to find the tribe for a genus it does cover? I assumed yes. It's right about Dialypetalantheae, by the way; I hadn't looked carefully enough. Condamineeae is a synonym of Dialypetalantheae Reveal, published here in 2012, i.e. after Bremer. So it's just a name change, not a classification difference, and our occurrences of Condamineeae need updating, it seems. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:59, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

14 years is a long time, but there isn't a single more recent publication that covers the entire family. By all means, you can use Rubiaceae project for the tribes it covers, and use other publications that focus on single tribes for the tribes they cover. I haven't tackled Rubiaceae because it's going to be somewhat complicated, with multiple publications needed to cover the infrafamilial classification (and, as I said, I expect there will be some tribes where there isn't anything more recent than Bremer (2009); NCBI and GRIN still cite Bremer, but NCBI at least has some more recent citations for certain tribes). Plantdrew (talk) 21:35, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Ok, then I'll try to work through the genera that are covered in the Rubiaceae project that have manual taxoboxes.

The tribe articles and name are another issue. APweb, for example, has Calycophylleae included in Dialypetalantheae (= Condamineeae), but what subfamily does the tribe belong to? See here, which gives "Dialypetalanthoideae (formerly Ixoroideae)". But then APweb says "Cinchonoideae Rafinesque (includes Dialypetalanthoideae Reveal, = the old Ixoroideae)". It's clear why you put off tackling the family! However, it does include a lot of the remaining manual taxoboxes. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:27, 13 March 2023 (UTC)

Hi, both. The subfamilial and tribal classification of Rubiaceae is not easy. As far as I know there is no recent publication with a complete overview. I have my own overview of which genus belongs to which tribe and I have added the tribes and subfamilies to the Rubiaceae page, but this is not published so I cannot reference to it. Also, it needs an update.

For a long time, Rubiaceae was considered to have 3 subfamilies but more and more the 2 subfamily classification is followed (see Antonelli et al. 2021, https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.1697). Cinchonoideae and Ixoroideae should thus be merged into subfamily Cinchonoideae, becoming supertribes Cinchonidinae and Ixoridinae (see Robbrecht & Manen 2006, https://www.jstor.org/stable/20649700).

The Dialypetalanthus story makes it more complicated. Its position in Rubiaceae was uncertain in the beginning but it is now sure it belongs to Rubiaceae (e.g. see Vrijdaghs et al. 2022, https://doi.org/10.5091/plecevo.84606). Dialypetalanthus is however an old name and the inclusion of this name in Rubiaceae stirs things up. Based on the rules of priority, tribes and subfamilies should be renamed (see Reveal 2012). The tribe Condamineeae became Dialypetalantheae, but Condamineeae is in the (old) subfamily Ixoroideae, so this subfamily should then become Dialypetalanthoideae (see Tropicos, http://legacy.tropicos.org/Name/100534445?projectid=34). However, since the subfamilies Ixoroideae and Cinchonoideae should now be one, the new name of the subfamily should also be Dialypetalanthoideae (instead of Cinchonoideae). Complicated! That being said, this string of name changes is not (yet) much followed in Rubiaceae literature. In fact, the Tropicos project (managed by one person) is the only source so far (that I know of) implementing these changes.

Calycophylleae is to my knowledge part of Condamineeae, so now it is Dialypetalantheae. The subfamily is the old Ixoroideae, which is now Cinchonoideae, which is now Dialypetalanthoideae (if you follow the Dialypetalanthus changes). Orbicule (talk) 12:42, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

@Orbicule: APweb also acknowledges the "Dialypetalanth-" names, but although they appear to be correct under the current ICNafp, and are in IPNI, they don't seem to have wide usage yet. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:08, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

I've now created automated taxoboxes (and associated taxonomy templates) for all the Rubiaceae genera covered in the Tropicos Rubiaceae project that previously had manual taxoboxes. Those remaining right now are listed at User:Peter coxhead/Problem plant species articles#Rubiaceae genera with manual taxoboxes. I think APweb has tribes for most if not all of them. Is APweb here ok as a source for tribes? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:14, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure where APweb's tribal classification comes from. And APweb apparently doesn't think much of APweb's classification: "I had just (12.x.2017) begun putting in a tribal classification of Rubiaceae, but reading Rydin et al. (2017) a week later suggested that this might be premature"; I assume the classification in APweb now was done prior to 2017, and Peter Stevens decided against revising it in 2017. I'm going to try to cross-check your remaining genera against APWeb, Bremer 2009, NCBI, and Wikipedia. One thing I noticed so far is that APweb treats Psychotrieae as monotypic (as does TRP), but POWO does not (APweb doesn't treat Tobagoa and Gillespiea as synonyms of Psychotria, but I assume that's an oversight). I don't think I've ever directly followed APweb for an infrafamily classification on Wikipedia (I do use APweb to find other sources that I then follow).

@Orbicule:, you said "Cinchonoideae, which is now Dialypetalanthoideae". Is that correct? Ixoroideae is now Dialypetalanthoideae. But the sources you provided for a two-subfamily classification have Dialypetalanthus in Cinchonoideae. Plantdrew (talk) 16:28, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

APweb is a source for tribes but I have not used it and I have not cross-checked it with my own database. The delimitations of the tribes are in a state of flux. I base myself on recent publications but that is a lot of work.

I mostly use POWO during my research but that is a personal choice. I would also not consider Psychotrieae as monotypic but the tribe is not my expertise. I have Tobagoa and Gillespiea as accepted names, but again, not my tribe so I would need to do some digging in literature.

Maybe I was too quick with saying Cinchonoideae is Dialypetalanthoideae. Ixoroideae is indeed Dialypetalanthoideae. If in the 2-family classification, the subfamily should be called Cinchonoideae or Dialypetalanthoideae, is something that I am not 100% sure about yet and it is not published. So for now, you could say that Rubiaceae has 2 subfamilies: Rubioideae and Cinchonoideae. Unless you follow the 3-family classification, then it is Rubioideae, Cinchonoideae, and Dialypetalanthoideae. Orbicule (talk) 20:04, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Peter coxhead:, I've put together a table at User:Plantdrew/Poison_ivy#Rubiaceae comparing Bremer, APweb, Wikipedia and NCBI for the remaining genera lacking taxonomy templates. But there are a lot of genera with taxonomy templates that have Rubiaceae as a parent; not sure if you want to tackle those. I've found one spelling error in APweb's genus list; Kiandia should be Kindia (we don't have an article for it). I think APweb's placement of Tamridaea in Sipaneeae may also be an error; I have no idea where that comes from. Kelloggia in Paederieae also seems to be an error (in the main discussion on APweb, it's mentioned alongside other Rubieae). Phialiphora (described in 2010) isn't listed in APweb. APweb has Didymosalpinx in Octotropideae, but in 2014 paper left it unplaced to tribe.

I'd be OK with citing APweb for most of the remaining genera without taxonomy templates, but NCBI might be better. I haven't found any errors on NCBI yet, but it does leave some genera unplaced to tribe that APweb places (in the case of Didymosalpinx NCBI seems more up to date). Another option is citing various tribal level phylogenies that have been published since 2009. However, there are recently described genera that aren't covered in the older phylogenies and aren't listed in Wikipedia's tribe articles; APweb covers all the new genera I've checked (aside from misspelling Kindia), as does NCBI. Hopefully there will be a coming publiction that covers the whole family and we can go back and clean things up when that comes out.Plantdrew (talk) 20:26, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

My general feeling is that it's better to get taxonomy templates set up and manual taxoboxes converted to automated ones for both genus and species articles, even if the parent is just set to Rubiaceae, because it's much easier to modify just the taxonomy template later. If there's doubt as to the tribe, then I would just put the family in the taxonomy template for now; incompleteness is better than error. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:51, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

That's fine with me. Plantdrew (talk) 21:54, 16 March 2023 (UTC)

I've added the APweb tribes to the list at User:Peter coxhead/Problem plant species articles#Rubiaceae genera with manual taxoboxes. I'll cross-check with NCBI, as Plantdrew suggests. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:13, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

Phialiphora is in tribe Spermacoceae (https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.596013). Placopoda is a synonym of Dirichletia, which is in tribe Knoxieae (https://doi.org/10.2307/25065904). Orbicule (talk) 13:42, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

@Orbicule: thanks. I've sorted these, and I think all of the other accepted genera that didn't have taxonomy templates/automated taxoboxes, except for a few unclear cases listed at User:Peter coxhead/Problem plant species articles#Rubiaceae genera with manual taxoboxes which I've left. Any ideas about these? Peter coxhead (talk) 11:35, 18 March 2023 (UTC)

Plantdrew, @Orbicule: there are now only 6 genera listed at User:Peter coxhead/Problem plant species articles#Rubiaceae genera with manual taxoboxes where I'm unsure of the tribe/subfamily, so articles still have manual taxoboxes. They could just be treated as Rubiaceae if there's no resolution of the uncertainty, I guess. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:31, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Kajewskiella is indeed unclear, which is surprising because the suggested tribes are in different subfamilies.

Leptomischus is indeed in Argostemmateae.

Phylohydrax is indeed in Spermacoceae.

Rhaphidura, keep it in Urophylleae for now.

Xantonneopsis, keep it in Octotropideae for now. Orbicule (talk) 08:59, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

@Orbicule: thanks for your response. Right now, there are no manual taxoboxes for Rubiaceae, so I'm off to do something else! Peter coxhead (talk) 10:44, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, excellent work. I mentioned this above, but Kelloggia is listed in NCBI, in Rubieae, and the text (not the genus list) of APWeb mentions it as being "sister to the rest of the tribe [Rubieae]", so I think Paederieae in APWeb's genus list is just an error. For the others, I'm OK with setting up taxonomy templates that don't have a tribe as the parent. Plantdrew (talk) 16:45, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Whoops, yes, I forgot that. Kelloggia and Kelloggia galioides now fixed. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:22, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Category:Agave species

Hello, I received an alert that the category was empty and it looks like you upmerged all of the contents from Category:Agave species to Category:Agave. What was the intent behind that change? (Were they not "species"?) - RevelationDirect (talk) 03:11, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

@RevelationDirect:, the usual practice is to put species in a category for the genus (or a category for a higher rank if the genus too small to have a category). "Agave species" is redundant to "Agave"; why does there need to be another category for species when this isn't done anywhere else on Wikipedia (there was once a category for Bromeliaceae species (Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 February 6#Category:Bromeliaceae species), but Bromeliaceae species articles were also placed in genus categories as normal)? If you think there's a problem having species mixed in with agave products, the products should get a subcategory, not the species. Category:Agave-based drinks would cover most of the products (going off of Category:Drinks by main ingredient, "foo-based drinks" is the typical name for categories that include alcoholic beverages made from a particular ingredient). Plantdrew (talk) 16:49, 28 March 2023 (UTC)

Just a quick note, it doesn't apply here because Agave is a genus, but sometimes you need to use the word genus along with the species you are trying to describe in the category, particularly if the genus is monotypic and the common name is the same as the monotypic genus, but it happens only rarely...see Grandala and Phainopepla in birds......Pvmoutside (talk) 02:16, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

From a content standpoint, I read Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Categorization within your link and see your point; I'll let the category be deleted. From a process standpoint, the next time you're concerned about a category I'd encourage you to reach out to the creator or open a WP:CFD nomination. - RevelationDirect (talk) 23:34, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Gotcha. Plantdrew (talk) 16:45, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Patternless Delma

Hi! You put in a notice for the merging of Patternless Delma into Patternless delma, however I couldn't find an appropriate merge discussion page. I ended up doing it anyway, but did you have any thoughts on the matter I haven't already addressed? Also, as this is my first merger, I'm not too sure I've done everything correctly, so I'd appreciate any assistance if I haven't done something correctly. For example, there still seems to be a notice in both the Amphibian / Reptile and Australia WikiProjects which I'm not sure how to get rid of. SuperTah (talk) 05:43, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@SuperTah:, looks great, thank you for taking care of the merge. I made a few copyedits and took care of the WikiProject banners. Plantdrew (talk) 15:28, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

No worries! Thanks for taking care of the rest. SuperTah (talk) 21:51, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Amara (genus) to Amara (beetle)

Plantdrew! I didn't want to add--yet another--aside to my stub proposal for the beetle genus Amara, so I'll ask you this here. You proposed moving the category Amara (genus) to Amara (beetle). If that's approved, does that mean someone is going to have to go through and relink all the articles in the category? Uporządnicki (talk) 14:18, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

@AzseicsoK:, a bot should take care of it (that is one advantage of going through a formal process to rename a category). There is also a gadget, commons:Help:Gadget-Cat-a-lot, that makes it easy to recategorize articles en masse. With a Cat-a-lot, it would take a couple of seconds to change the category from (genus) to (beetle). You might find it helpful for some of the categorization work you do (but it doesn't handle categories produced by stub-sorting templates, and doesn't allow you to add/modify sortkeys). Plantdrew (talk) 15:21, 29 March 2023 (UTC)

Your edit of Syzygium sayeri

Hi Plantdrew, could you explain why you changed the {{Speciesbox}} of this article from the single parameter "|taxon=" to the double parameters "|genus=" and "|species=", when the former is the recommended use (see Template:Speciesbox#Simple_cases). While my original edit is slightly easier to create, I don't care which we use as long as there is consistency in these instructions.  Junglenut |Talk  08:01, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Junglenut: just to say that the original recommended use is something I wrote, I think. My argument is that it's simpler for editors and more consistent with {{Automatic taxobox}} to use one parameter. The counter argument is that the separate parameters |genus=+|species= are needed in special cases, such as disambiguated genera, so the overall consistency within all uses of {{Speciesbox}} is higher with the separate parameters. It's something that Plantdrew and I don't agree about; it seems to me better all round to accept either. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:57, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead. Thanks, for the explanation. I agree with your final statement - if it works it doesn't need to be changed. I hadn't considered the situation of a disambiguated genus, and that's food for thought, but in those cases I would see the display is not working (doesn't everyone check their work before saving? 😉 I would still like to hear @Plantdrew's thoughts.  Junglenut |Talk  09:15, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

@Junglenut:, I forgot about responding to this. While I prefer genus+species, I don't seek out instances of |taxon= to change. I do change it in the course of making other edits if there is a (mostly) consistent usage with in a particular group of organisms. Syzygium (and Myrtaceae in general) pretty consistently have genus+species (because I did most of the work converting manaul taxoboxes to speciesboxes in that family, and editors creating new articles since then have mostly gone with genus+species). Spiders consistently use taxon (Peter has done a lot of work there), and I added a taxobox today to the spider Latrodectus hystrix with |taxon=. (in the case of Syzygium sayeri I made two edits because I forgot to make the change (downcasing "Pink satinash") that prompted me to edit the article in the first place). Plantdrew (talk) 21:44, 11 April 2023 (UTC)

Automatic taxobox question

I'm working my way through updating the tribes/genera/species lists at various Pterophoridae articles, and ran into a specific situation I don't think I've handled before (or if I have, it was several years-long breaks ago, and I just don't remember it).

There's a taxonomy template for Exelastini, but as it turns out, Exelastini is a synonym of Marasmarchini, which does not have a taxonomy template yet, and I realized I'm not quite sure what's the "proper" way to handle this on the taxonomy template side of things. Move the template to the right name, or create a new one at the right name and [blank/redirect/list at CfD/leave alone] the one at Taxonomy/Exelastini? (I do know I'll need to update the genera templates to point at the right tribe afterwards, but hey, at least for once it only involves a handful of genera...) AddWittyNameHere 20:07, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

@AddWittyNameHere:, with taxonomy templates, there generally isn't much edit history, nor any content that isn't specific to a particular taxon name, so I wouldn't bother moving any of them (unless the name is misspelled, or needs disambiguation to distinguish it from another genus published under a different nomenclatural code). Create a new one at the right name. Once you've resolved any incoming links, unused taxonomy templates should get blanked, with Category:Unnecessary taxonomy templates added. Templates in that category get deleted on a regular basis. Plantdrew (talk) 20:38, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

All right, thanks! Easy enough to do, and makes sense. AddWittyNameHere 23:08, 10 May 2023 (UTC)

@AddWittyNameHere: it's perhaps worth adding that taxonomy templates should not be redirected, which will happen automatically if the template is moved. (Redirects mess up some of the inner workings of the automated taxonomy system, particularly checks.) Occasionally, if several names for a taxon all seem to have general currency and are likely to be used in different taxoboxes, it's appropriate to have multiple taxonomy templates, and use the same_as parameter for all but one of them. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:51, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for letting me know, Peter coxhead! Was aware of that last part, but don't think I knew (or I once did and forgot, who knows) the part about redirects messing up some of the inner workings. AddWittyNameHere 16:29, 11 May 2023 (UTC)

Dates

Are we supposed to put the years in plant disambigs like you did in Polygonum microcephalum? Abductive (reasoning) 00:44, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

@Abductive:, there's no requirement to include years. I did want to indicate which name was legitimate, but I guess I could have also done that by noting nom. illeg. for the one published by Hassk. I've gotten in the habit of including years because most of the disambiguation pages I've worked on covering homonyms under a single nomenclatural code involve cases where taxonomists haven't yet realized that homonymy is an issue (or at least, nobody has yet published a replacement name for any junior homonyms). See e.g. Lobularia; there's a plant genus (1815) and a fungus genus (1934). The fungus genus name needs to be replaced, but nobody has done so yet (Mycobank says the fungal name is legitimate, but it is not).

Most disambiguation pages for taxon names deal with "hemihomonym"s (published under different codes), and I don't include authorities and years in those cases because both names are legitimate (well, technically, "legitimate" is a botanical term, and not a zoological one, but zoology has a similar concept). There's also a Lobularia under the zoological code, but I didn't include authority/year for that. Plantdrew (talk) 01:18, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

It's funny, right, you are trying to fix nomenclatural issues on Wikipedia, but Wikipedia is for lay readers who don't have the faintest idea what that's about. My take is that disambiguation pages are for navigation purposes, and I generally only create them if there are incoming links and all outgoing links are blue. Abductive (reasoning) 01:48, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Categories

Hello, Plantdrew,

Please do not empty out categories like you did recently with quite a few bird categories. This is called "emptying out of process" and is considered disruptive editing. Instead if you believe a category should be deleted, renamed or merged, please make a nomination at WP:CFD. You are a very experienced editor so I'm surprised to see this behavior. Emptying out categories and having them tagged CSD C1 might be a quicker way to get a category to be deleted, but it is not how we advise handling category changes. Please make use of CFD. Thank you. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 02:11, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Thank you

From, BloxyColaSweet

BloxyColaSweet (talk) 07:42, 15 May 2023 (UTC)

Barnstar

{{subst:The New Page Patroller's Barnstar|alt=yes|text= I see you patrolling pages I've been making for genera like Bryconops and Astyanax and wanted to say thanks for your hard work :] -> ~~~~}} Snugglyaggron (talk) 00:17, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Thank you. Plantdrew (talk) 00:26, 5 June 2023 (UTC)

Oreomecon

I'm puzzled as what exactly to do about Oreomecon. The situation right now appears to be:

• There is clear evidence, widely accepted, that as traditionally circumscribed, Papaver sensu lato is not monophyletic.
• It could be made so by including Meconopsis but this has not been accepted. (Issues with Meconopsis cambrica being the type species but clearly not in the genus have been resolved by conserving the genus name.)
• Sections Argemonidium and Meconella must then be elevated to separate genera to make Papaver sensu stricto monophyletic.
• Names in Roemeria for species in P. sect. Argemonidium appear to have been provided and are included in our article.
• However, only 6 of the necessary names in Oreomecon have been published to date for species in P. sect. Meconella. The number of species in the section varies widely, and so far only a few better known species have been transferred. I'm surprised that PoWO has made partial moves; usually it seems reluctant to do so.

I've created the article Oreomecon, but I'm reluctant to move the 6 species from Papaver when (a) only PoWO of the major taxonomic databases seems to support the move (b) there are clearly more species needing names in Oreomecon. But it does leave the article in an odd state. Your view would be appreciated. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:12, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

I have limited internet access until Sunday and will look into this in more detail then. In general, there's a case for not following POWO when their generic circumscriptions leave a bunch of species "unresolved" (lacking a published combination in a POWO recognized genus). Plantdrew (talk) 16:59, 7 June 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, I think you've handled it well; an article for Oreomecon, but leaving the species as Papaver. I'm surprised that POWO hasn't marked the other species in sect. Meconella as "unresolved", but since they haven't I feel that leaving the species as Papaver is best for now. I guess this is the only case I'm aware of where POWO has split a genus that doesn't have all the required combinations (I'm aware of lumps with Hexastylis into Asarum, Mahonia into Berberis and Hebe into Veronica where species are (or have been) unresolved). Plantdrew (talk) 20:56, 13 June 2023 (UTC)

excellent

you have caught some there! thanks for cleaning up the tagging... JarrahTree 01:19, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

@JarrahTree:, yeah, somebody recently created Category:Pages using WikiProject Plants with unknown parameters, so I've been working through that. Plantdrew (talk) 01:24, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Thanks - few take interest in that area, good on you!

I can think of quite a few projects that could benefit from similar checks JarrahTree 01:28, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

@JarrahTree:, definitely, but most of the projects I'd be interested in doing this for have edit-protected templates, so would need somebody with template editor privileges to set up the check. Plantdrew (talk) 01:44, 16 June 2023 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Keraudrenia

A tag has been placed on Category:Keraudrenia indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 22:09, 24 June 2023 (UTC)

Speedy deletion declined: Wikipedia:Wikisaurus

Hello Plantdrew. I am just letting you know that I declined the speedy deletion of Wikipedia:Wikisaurus, a page you tagged for speedy deletion, because of the following concern: I can't think of a CSD criteria that this would fit. I think this would need to go to WP:MFD. Thank you. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:58, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

TOL automatic taxobox progress

Hi Plantdrew, thanks for posting the latest update. With respect to this comment:

I don't know what's going on with beetles and Lepidoptera; the total for beetles is down by 7 since last time, and down by 32 for Lepidoptera. Perhaps a bunch of articles on synonyms have been merged, or maybe I made a mistake in my last update.

I don't think that you made any mistake in your tabulations. Instead, I suspect that my efforts in updating articles of the grass skipper subfamily Hesperiinae would have caused the overall drop in the total number of Lepidoptera articles. Many of these butterfly genera articles were originally sourced to LepIndex (last updated in Jan 2018) and these names have now been synonymized with other taxa. Subsequently, I changed many of these articles to redirects.

'Cheers, Loopy30 (talk) 17:39, 2 July 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. If I had made a mistake in the update from 30 December 2022 by mistyping numbers so they were larger than the actually were it could have also produced a drop in the totals for the current updated based on any mistaken numbers in the last update. I did double check that I had done the math correctly for the current update, but there's no way to double check that the numbers in the last update were correct.

Synonyms being redirected also came to my mind as an explanation, but I didn't expect that would outpace the rate of article creation. I'm more surprised that beetles had a decline in total than Lepidoptera, as few Lepidoptera articles are being created these days.

What made me look at the totals compared to the previous update in the first place was seeing a larger "# of manual subtracted" than "# of auto added" for beetles and Lepidoptera. I started tracking "# of auto added" in the third report I produced (obviously, I couldn't have tracked that in the first report), and much later started tracking "# of manual subtracted", which is actually the more informative number. If I had to do it over again, I would only have done "# of manual substracted". Plantdrew (talk) 15:06, 3 July 2023 (UTC)

By counting my edits to Talk pages with the edit summary "class=redirect", I can identify 54 lepidopteran articles that I redirected to a senior synonym in the Jan-Feb period (later instances are mostly snails). Loopy30 (talk) 02:33, 4 July 2023 (UTC)

An old edit

I was thinking to myself what editor muddled up what Tropicos said and so made this incorrect edit. It turns out that Tropicos is inconsistent. Under Sudamerlycaste Archila it says that the legitimate name is Ida, but under Ida A. Ryan & Oakeley it says that it is Sudamerlycaste. As far as I can make out, the former is correct – see my attempt at writing up the taxonomy at Ida (plant). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:58, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

I agree that Ida is correct. I've edited the Tropicos records. I also looked at the Govaerts paper cited in IPNI on the publication dates of Revista Guatemalensis, as well as the the Pupulin & Karremans paper cited in the Tropicos record for Sudamerlycaste. However, I wasn't thinking about your wording at Ida, specifically "Fredy Archila Morales first published Sudamerlycaste in 2002". The effective publication dates of both Rev. Guatam. 5(2) and 5(3) are not the dates printed on the cover. I'll go back later and see what date Govaerts gives for 5(2). Plantdrew (talk) 17:11, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, Govaerts gives effective publication dates of 12 December 2008 for Revista Guatemalensis 5(2) (cover date Nov 2002) and February 2009 for Revista Guatemalensis 5(3) (cover date Dec 2002), based on when libraries actually received copies. Depending on how far you want to take WP:NOTTRUTH, I'm not sure that we can say Archila actually published anything in 2002. The situation is really weird, and there's probably some fraud.

Govaerts discusses two other names published by Archila in Revista Guatemalensis 2(3) (cover date 1999), received in libraries in 2012, which were both "later" described by other people under different names. Archila's Oncidium javieri was published as Oncidium sotoanum in 2010 (it was known that a name for a South American species had been misapplied to a Central American one, which needed to be named). Archila's Verapazia didn't have a type designated, and a name for the same generic concept was validly published as Muscarella in 2006. IPNI added a record for Verapazia in 2012 (when Rev. Guat. 2(3) hit libraries) with a note that a type wasn't designated. In 2018, Archila distributed a PDF purportedly of 5(3) that had text designating a type for Verapazia, but which differed in several ways from the printed version of 5(3) that libraries received in 2009 (including differences in the cover); Govaerts estimates that the PDF was produced between 2012 (when IPNI noted the lack of a type) and 2014 (when an image of the PDF's version of the cover appeared on the internet). Plantdrew (talk) 20:33, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Interesting. It's difficult not to see some "editing of the truth", if not outright fraud. I've revised what I wrote at Ida (plant); please check. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:30, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

Acronia - plant and animal

For "Acronia" (e.g. a genus) you made the wiki of that name into a redirect to an orchid genus Pleurothallis, which indeed has a synonym genus Acronia, so essentially redirect is fine - but the name is also an animal - a beetle, currently on wiki as "Acronia_(beetle)". So should there be modification to setup with disambiguation page or such? [I'm relatively new at this so, not sure on the right approach]. Cheers. Sjl197 (talk) 19:28, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

@Sjl197:, I made the last edit to Acronia, but I wasn't the one who set it up as a redirect. Making Acronia into a disambiguation page would be an improvement. The current situation isn't good; any disambiguated title such as "Acronia (beetle)" should be linked somehow from an undisambiguated title: from either a disambiguation page, or a hatnote from the page with the undisambiguated title (or a hatnote on the page to which the undisambiguated title redirects). Pleurothallis doesn't have a hatnote for Acronia, so that should be fixed somehow.

There isn't a one-size-fits-all solution for dealing with a genus name that is an inter-kingdom homonym, and which is treated as a synonym in one kingdom. Acronia could be made into the title for the beetle genus (with a hatnote to the plant), or it could be a disambiguation page. If the synonym (the plant in this case) is really obscure, the hatnote route might be better. If the synonym and the accepted name are equally prevalent in the literature (perhaps because the synonymy is fairly recent), the disambiguation route is better. Somewhere in between, it's a judgement call.

My sense is that the plant Acronia is more obscure than the beetle (I test that by plugging inter-kingdom homonyms into a search engine and seeing whether both uses come up, although in this case the search engine results are made complicated by a video game called Acronia). Plantdrew (talk) 03:56, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Speedy deletion nomination of Category:Pygmaeocereus

A tag has been placed on Category:Pygmaeocereus indicating that it is currently empty, and is not a disambiguation category, a category redirect, a featured topics category, under discussion at Categories for discussion, or a project category that by its nature may become empty on occasion. If it remains empty for seven days or more, it may be deleted under section C1 of the criteria for speedy deletion.

If you think this page should not be deleted for this reason you may contest the nomination by visiting the page and removing the speedy deletion tag. Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 06:58, 19 September 2023 (UTC)

CfD nomination at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 October 1 § Category:WikiProject X members

A category or categories you have created have been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 October 1 § Category:WikiProject X members on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Qwerfjkltalk 09:34, 2 October 2023 (UTC)

Images of related species

Hi Plantdrew. Thank you for all your help refining the covering of lesser-known species on wikipedia. It is greatly appreciated. I have been striving to improve the coverage on jumping spiders and note that recently you have been removing images from these articles with the stated reason that it is a "bad idea to use image of related taxa, Wikidata and other websites will assume image is exactly the taxon in question". WP:IMAGEDD recommends that editors, "try to find at least one image for each article". Guidance for infobox images in MOS:LEAD states "the image used should be relevant and technically well-produced". As many of the sources in the articles attest, spiders within the same genus are often indistinguishable without examination of sexual organs. Based on this, I feel that an image of a related species is relevant and useful, particularly for non-experts. I would therefore appreciate your help restoring the images. simongraham (talk) 08:40, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

@Simongraham:, the articles I removed images from are: Mexcala angolensis, Mexcala fizi, Mexcala kabondo, Mexcala namibica, Mexcala ovambo, Mexcala signata, Mexcala smaragdina, Mexcala vicina, Mexcala synagelese, Mexcala torquata, Hyllus rotundithorax, Hyllus remotus, Hyllus ramadanii and Hyllus ignotus. I agree that an image of a related species can be useful and preferable to not having an image at all. I'd be more comfortable with including images of related species if they were placed somewhere outside of the taxobox (I am concerned about Wikidata sucking up images from Wikipedia taxoboxes without verifying them), and if the WikiProject Spiders template on the talk page continued to include "needs-image=yes" (it would still be desirable to have an image for each species). I'd prefer that the image of the related species be captioned as that species (i.e., not "A spider of the Mexcala genus", but something like "A related species, Mexcala quadrimaculata).

Is commons:File:Mexcala quadrimaculata 100238445.jpg really the best image available on Wikimedia Commons for a Mexcala species? It's a great anterior view of the chelicerae and eye arrangement, but the abdomen is obscured and out of focus. commons:File:Mexcala quadrimaculata 1666646.jpg has a good dorsal view of the abdomen, an OK view of the eye arrangement, and poor view of the chelicerae. I can't vouch for whether either of those images is correctly identified as Mexcala quadrimaculata (or even Mexcala); but as a spider non-expert, I'd find a dorsal image with the abdomen more relevant than an anterior image with better view of the chelicerae. If an image of a related species is used it should be carefully considered against other available images for its relevance to non-experts and experts. Plantdrew (talk) 03:17, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: That sounds a very reasonable plan. I have added the image and caption you have suggested to the Mexcala species and added what I believe is a similarly helpful image to the Hyllus species. Please feel free to amend either. simongraham (talk) 09:26, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Re: John Hunter Thomas

Since you're the only botanist who has shown any interest in John Hunter Thomas (as you likely saw it appear on your watchlists), I would like to ask you to give it a peer review (simple and brief is fine, however much time you can spare), and either propose changes on the talk page or make them yourself. I started the article because I was working on a separate article about Pillar Point in Half Moon Bay, and I discovered, quite by chance, that Thomas had catalogued the plants in this region in his famous book. Thanks for any help or suggestions. Viriditas (talk) 22:06, 8 October 2023 (UTC)

Apologies

for that revert. It must have been a misclick—I didn't notice for several days. Choess (talk) 03:48, 11 October 2023 (UTC)

good to be reminded

about myrmecia... JarrahTree 04:52, 15 October 2023 (UTC)

Louvar

Hi, I noted you “cleaned up” the taxobox for Louvar . I was advised by other editors that .even for a monotypic taxon with the same author for the parent and species we should set that out in the taxobox. Quetzal1964 (talk) 08:10, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Floodplain mussel

Hey @Plantdrew. For Floodplain mussel, you cleaned up the taxobox by removing the IUCN "not listed" status. Can you explain why it should be removed? Thanks. 99% fad-free (talk) 00:50, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

About Talk:Triops baeticus

Hi Plantdrew, and thank you for the explanation. The short version is that I'm leery of someone (ie: me) with admin level permissions who has no expertise in life sciences and life sciences journals adding things to live articles. Also: /r/todayilearned (actually 3 days ago) that there are tadpole-sized freshwater crustaceans with three eyes that look like miniature horseshoe crabs! Happy to have a longer discussion about this. Shirt58 (talk) 🦘 10:20, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

CfD nomination at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 October 26 § Category:Wikipedia XX-Class level-n vital articles

A category or categories you have created have been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2023 October 26 § Category:Wikipedia XX-Class level-n vital articles on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. Qwerfjkltalk 14:47, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

TY!

Thanks for whatever magic you do to magic the taxoboxes work on obscure genera, and thanks generally for being the "new species greeter" on Wiki. Really appreciate. jengod (talk) 20:41, 26 October 2023 (UTC)

Species as a synonym of a section

Picking up a point you made at Talk:Trema micrantha and not wishing to detract from the discussion there, why exactly can a species and a section not be synonyms? I see nothing in the ICNafp which would rule this out in terms of its weak definitions of synonym and taxon. I guess you could insist that "Taraxacum officinale F.H.Wigg." has to be the name of a single species, but the binomial Taraxacum officinale has been used so widely and has been considered to comprise so many apomictic microspecies, not always under explicit names like "Taraxacum officinale agg.", that treating it as a synonym of a section of Taraxacum seems to me a sensible move. (Which section is another matter; Stace's New Flora of the British Isles treats T. officiale F.H.Wigg. group in T. sect. Ruderalia.) Peter coxhead (talk) 12:11, 3 November 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, yes, that is the argument being made. Taraxacum officinale s.s. doesn't occur in the United States, and maybe not in the UK either. POWO is following this publication that retypified the species and suggests sect. Taraxacum over sect. Ruderalia (the publication postdates Stace's 3rd edition, but not the 4th).

When I started to ask my (member of the Nomenclature Committee for Vascular Plants) colleague whether a species could be a synonym of a section, I was got "no, no, no" before I finished asking the question. I didn't ask for further clarification. The ICN doesn't have the explicit Genus-group/Species-group arrangement of the ICZN, but names for genera and subdivisions are governed by separate Articles in one Section, and name of species are an Article in a different Section. It doesn't seem at all typical to me to see plant synonyms listed crossing the ranks such as tribe/genus or section/species (tribe/subfamily or subspecies/species, sure).

POWO recently set several hybrid "species" of Citrus to be synonyms of Citrus × aurantium f. aurantium. That doesn't seem to be a particularly helpful approach to resolving the problems with Citrus taxonomy. Sweet orange and grapefruit now have the same taxobox hierarchy. Wikipedia has very few articles on taxa at the rank of forma, and nothing else that is denoted as a hybrid (×) at the rank of species with divisions into forma.

Dynamic POWO is better than a static (well, updated once) TPL, but Wikipedia's editor base can't keep up with POWO dynamism even when the dynamism is well justified (I'm not convinced that the treatment of Taraxacum officinale or Citrus hybrids is well justified). Plantdrew (talk) 03:28, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

My serious question to your member-of-the-Nomenclature-Committee-for-Vascular-Plants colleague is "what article in the ICNafp actually rules out this kind of synonymy?" Peter coxhead (talk) 16:22, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Nomenclaturally, that would be covered by Art. 41.2; the name of a species or subdivision thereof cannot be given new rank as a genus or a subdivision of a genus. Taxonomically, I think it would be a question of taste; e.g., for a monospecific genus sunk into a larger one, is the name of the original genus a synonym of the larger genus, or a synonym of its single species? Choess (talk) 21:08, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Move of a sea anemone

Hello Plantdrew. I performed the technical move of Actinostephanus (sea anemone) that you requested, but some cleanup may still be required. E.g entries in templates? Let me know. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 03:14, 5 November 2023 (UTC)

Bizzaria

Hi Plantdrew, what do you make of Bizzaria? Should it be a considered as Citrus × aurantium var. medica (L.) Wight & Arn. and therefore a synonym of Citrus medica? Even if it is not a distinct hybrid species, it does appear to be notable in its own right but I am not certain what should go in the taxobox. Loopy30 (talk) 16:17, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

@Loopy30:, Citrus medica + Citrus aurantium is the correct notation for this as it is a graft-chimaera. I'm not sure whether we really should be labelling that as a "binomial" in the taxobox. Wikipedia has 3 articles on graft-chimaeras (the other two are + Crataegomespilus and + Laburnocytisus 'Adamii'), and I really am not sure what to do about the taxoboxes. Maybe they should have {{Infobox cultivar}} (rules for naming graft chimaeras and cultivars both come from the ICNCP). Plantdrew (talk) 02:33, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Thiomargarita namibiensis

Hi, I have absolutely no inking of what happened here [1]. Thanks for the revert. Best regards, Graham Beards (talk) 21:04, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

Goodbye

I'm requesting an indefinite block on my account for a wide variety of reasons. Most notably, I am addicted to this project even though it is bad for my mental health. I will not be able to finish the taxoboxes. Scorpions1325 (talk) 22:55, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

@Scorpions1325:, I'll be sorry to see you go, your efforts with taxoboxes have been tremendous. I do hope you feel better after quitting Wikipedia.

I have been meaning to ask you how you select articles to work on. When I look at your edit history it seems that you're jumping between beetles, moth and gastropods (which is where most of the remaining manual taxoboxes are), with no particular pattern that I can discern, aside from working alphabetically through the species in a genus. I've noticed you sometimes revert yourself and restore a manual taxobox; I sometimes do that myself if I notice that an article should be moved and I don't want to take the time to deal with moving, updating references, etc. Usually when there's a needed move I don't want to deal with, I notice before editing and just skip over an article, leaving it with a manual taxobox.

You don't have to have had any particular method for selecting articles that you worked on. But if you had a method, I'd like to understand it if it would help me know what areas still may have lots of manual taxoboxes and which won't. Why did you revert any of your conversions to automatic taxoboxes, and were there issues with article that would have made you avoid converting to automatic taxoboxes in the first place?

The reason I reverted my contributions were because the taxonomy template was not yet made. Many articles for entries in a list no longer exist, and are now redirects to other species. Scorpions1325 (talk) 02:47, 28 November 2023 (UTC)

Apocynaceae taxoboxes

I think I've converted all the Apocynaceae manual taxoboxes. There are the usual issues over how to source parent taxa and whether sources are consistent (I've not gone lower than tribe in the taxonomy templates).

An interesting case is Stapeliinae, which I note that you had converted back to a manual taxobox when it was at "Stapelieae". The wall of poorly or unsourced text under "Description" is an issue, but I'm aware that there exists a band of stapeliad enthusiasts, so it does get more page views than might be expected (190 in November), so I'm reluctant to remove it. (It's also not precisely clear to me what the informal term stapeliad refers to now.) Peter coxhead (talk) 17:21, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: good work. When I put in the tribes at Asclepiadoideae, Asclepiadoideae#Other_genera was mostly genera that were mentioned in Endress 2000, but not in Endress 2014 and most of them were treated as synonyms in whatever database I was following at that point (not sure if that was TPL or POWO). Endress in 2000 and 2014 didn't list synonyms, but I think it's safe to infer that any genera that were not mentioned were regarded as synonyms. Over time, articles on synonyms were turned into redirects (by myself or others) and I removed redirect entries from the "Other genera" section. At this point, there are only 4 genera there that were mentioned in Endress 2000.

Endress has another publication from 2018 that does list synonyms and does accept three genera that weren't accepted in 2014. It is more splitty overall than POWO, but most of the "Other genera" are treated as synonyms. I'll put some notes about the differences in the Endress publications at Talk:Asclepiadoideae.

61 genus taxonomy templates link directly to Template:Taxonomy/Apocynaceae. I assume most of them were created by Estopedist1, and Endress would have a tribal placement for most of them. I'm not very interested in dealing with those at the moment, but it's something I'll look into eventually if nobody beats me to it (I feel that the refs in the taxonomy templates should be updated from Endress 2014 to 2018, and that's a bit more than I want to do now). Plantdrew (talk) 19:46, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for the table, given that the book isn't accessible to me. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:05, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Orchidaceae taxoboxes

I've been messing about with the remaining Orchidaceae manual taxoboxes. (Most of the Orchidaceae articles that were in this category seem to be rather poor, created by editors without much of a botanical background and not following WP:PLANTS style, conventions, etc.) I'm not sure what to do about the articles on artificial nothogenera that have manual taxoboxes. We have the following, all recognized as artificial by PoWO:

• × Bakerara
• × Beallara
• × Burrageara
• × Colmanara
• × Degarmoara
• × Doritaenopsis
• × Hawkinsara
• × Maclellanara
• × Odontioda
• × Odontobrassia
• × Odontocidium
• × Odontonia
• × Sophrolaeliocattleya
• × Vuylstekeara
• × Wilsonara

I'm reluctant to create taxonomy templates, partly because they are likely to be 1:1 with the genus articles, and partly because there are issues over synonymy. PoWO isn't really interested in artificial nothogenera (reasonably), and doesn't consider synonymy issues created by genus changes. For example, × Aliceara (which has an automatic taxobox) is given by PoWO as Brassia × Miltonia × Oncidium. × Beallara is given by PoWO as Brassia × Cochlioda × Miltonia × Odontoglossum. But PoWO sinks Cochlioda and Odontoglossum into Oncidium, so on that basis × Beallara should really be Brassia × Miltonia × Oncidium. But this parentage is then the same as × Aliceara, so are they synonyms or not? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:28, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead:, you left out × Potinara. I implemented automatic taxoboxes for all the orchid nothogenera that had all parents accepted by POWO circa November 2022. Remaining nothogenera manual taxoboxes had one or more parents treated as synonyms by POWO. There were a couple nothogenera I ending up redirecting as synonyms; I don't remember for sure, but I think POWO had a statement that the ones I ended up redirecting were synonyms (it might have also been the case that the ones I redirected had all parents lumped into a single genus on POWO, so there wasn't any need for a nothogenus; if I had been proceeding that way, I think I would've redirected Wilsonara, but perhaps I left Wilsonara with an article because Odontoglossum had (and still has) an article).

My understanding is that when the parentage is the same (based on which genera are accepted), the nothogenera are synonyms (see ICNafp Art H.6.2 Ex. 3). I wasn't aware of the "ALPHABETICAL ONE-TABLE LIST OF GENERA AND INTERGENERIC HYBRIDS" PDF you're adding. That's laid out in a way that should make it fairly easy to figure out what the accepted nothogenus should be for a nothogenus that is treated as a synonym (per POWO's lumping of the parents). Not being able to easily figure out the accepted nothogenus was the main reason I haven't done anything with the remaining nothogenera with manual taxoboxes.

Zeuxine rolfeana was something I'd left with a manual taxobox because I wasn't sure about the spelling. In the original publication it was spelled Zeuxine rolfiana. POWO is the only taxonbar database that spells it with an "e" (IPNI spells it with an "i", and POWO/IPNI id numbers are identical, so it appears to be something that was intentionally changed in POWO (only)). I'm not sure that the original spelling with an "i" is correctable. Plantdrew (talk) 17:41, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Ah, I see that you are well ahead of me, and I was only telling you stuff you knew already. Apologies.

Zeuxine rolfeana first. Yes, the original here clearly has rolfiana. In the first paragraph of the paper, King & Pantling thank "R. A. Rolfe" of the Royal Herbarium, so we can be pretty sure that the species is named after Rolfe. The first species they presumably name after him is on p. 581 where they describe Oberon rolfeana with an e. So does Art. 60.1 apply, i.e. is the "i" in Zeuxine rolfiana a "typographical or orthographical error"? It seems a reasonable deduction to me given the surrounding context, but I am reluctant to attempt to interpret the ICNafp.

I agree that it's possible to work out the synonyms for the nothogeneric names when the parent genera are lumped, but the problem is sourcing. At × Beallara, I didn't want to say explicitly that it's a synonym of × Aliceara without a source. Redirecting seems to me to raise the same issue. Or do you think this would be permissible SYNTH, given that the change of parent genus name can be sourced and the resulting nothogenus name can be sourced? Peter coxhead (talk) 19:38, 15 December 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for double checking Z. rolfeana.

Now that I'm thinking about it more, I'm not sure that would be permissible SYNTH. But I'm not sure what else to do with these articles. Plantdrew (talk) 01:47, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

I've discovered that it is just about possible to source synonymy. Annoyingly, I can't find a way of doing it directly for the genera, but you can source synonyms of relevant grexes. For example, × Maclellanara Big Lake is a synonym of × Brassidium Big Lake according to The International Orchid Register and Orchid.org. Have a look at what I've written up at × Brassidium § Taxonomy, which (marginally) satisfies me (and can doubtless be improved). I hope it is acceptable under WP policies.

What I wouldn't want to do is to encourage the creation of articles for the extremely large number of artificial orchid genera, let alone the grexes or cultivars. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:37, 17 December 2023 (UTC)

Brassidium looks good. I certainly agree on not encouraging creation of artificial orchid genera articles. Plantdrew (talk) 03:16, 18 December 2023 (UTC)

Seasons Greetings

Merry Christmas, Plantdrew! Or Season's Greetings or Happy Winter Solstice! As the year winds to a close, I would like to take a moment to recognize your hard work and offer heartfelt gratitude for all you do for Wikipedia. May this Holiday Season bring you nothing but joy, health and prosperity. Onel5969 TT me 02:40, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Onel5969 ^{TT me} 02:40, 23 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, and Season's Greetings to you too. Plantdrew (talk) 22:13, 24 December 2023 (UTC)