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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Adiantum viridimontanum/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 17:29, 20 January 2012 [1].

Adiantum viridimontanum edit

Adiantum viridimontanum (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): Choess (talk) 06:37, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because I feel that it completely and accurately discusses this rare fern. I am confident that I have addressed all relevant literature. The article was recently passed as a good article by Ucucha, who opined that it might well go forward to FAC. Most sources are peer-reviewed botanical literature, as well as an information sheet published by a reputable botanical organization. The photograph of A. viridimontanum was taken by me at one of the sites described by Zika & Dann (1985), so I'm fairly confident it has the correct species. My principal concern is in the morphological prose: some of the details needed to distinguish this from other species are fairly technical, and I'm concerned about making it accessible for the lay reader. Choess (talk) 06:37, 27 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support Comments forgot about this one - looking the better for some independent eyes now. reading through now - will jot notes below: Casliber (talk · contribs) 21:51, 28 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
In all three, the blade is cut into finger-like segments, themselves once-divided, borne on the outer side of a curved, dark, glossy stalk (rachis). I think "blade" --> "leaf blade" might be more helpful to the reader as I am not sure that "blade" is immediately recognisable as a botanical term to lay readers.
Until 1991, A. viridimontanum was grouped with the western maidenhair fern, which grows as a disjunct on serpentine outcrops in eastern North America and was itself classified as a variety of A. pedatum - I'd align so you use all common names or all scientific names in the one sentence.
Green Mountain maidenhair is a medium-sized, deciduous fern. - to me looks odd without a "The" at the beginning of the sentence.
The sori are borne on the abaxial surface - not a good idea to link abaxial to a huge page where the word is lost, maybe link to wiktionary definition instead. In fact why not just say undersurface?
Green Mountain maidenhair largely reproduces by branching rather than sexually through spores. - I'd think it'd be prudent to add the adverb "asexually" here.
I'd mention what sori are.
I think synapomorphy might benefit from a brief explanation too

In summary, looking good overall. Many fern articles will struggle to be more detailed than this due to lack of ecological information. It is worth being looked at by both plant people and lay people to further assess teh balance of technical and accessible words. I look forward to supporting real soon. Casliber (talk · contribs) 01:06, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  • Image review OK Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:08, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment The language is incredibly unfriendly. In the first line, we have ultramafic and allotetraploid with no gloss, have to click through a redirect to find out what they mean (and I have a science degree), and diploid with no link or gloss. Next para — pteridologist unlinked and unexplained, not in my vocabulary and I'm not going to look it up. I'd like to review this in more detail, and I understand you will have to use technical language in places, but give us a bit of encouragement to get through the lead. Jimfbleak - talk to me? 11:08, 29 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]
    OK, I've started tweaking the lead. I've dropped some of the technical details that aren't really necessary and are addressed in the article. Would you like me to mention that (most) ferns reproduce by sporulation in the lead? Also, I can add a sentence or two on allotetraploidy and why that's a common mechanism of speciation in ferns in the Taxonomy section if you like (or as a footnote). Choess (talk) 05:29, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Continuing review Jimfbleak - talk to me? 15:17, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Underlinking. The following are terms that I think need a link or gloss, but don't have one at the first occurence, if at all: spore, pinnate, taxon, pinnae, node, chromosome number, triploid, morphological, medial, genome, tetraploid
  • Overlinking. Items should be linked at most once in the lead, and once where the next occur. For obvious items like Vermont, just once will do. Please check, I noticed New England and Quebec, but there may be others
  • chestnut brown (castaneous) to dark purple (atropurpureous) — what's the point of the parenthetical bits? If they are just obscure synonyms, leave them out.
  • leafy (herbaceous) to papery (chartaceous) — likewise
  • Ref 3 seems to have a location but no publisher
  • Ref 9 — expanding NJ would help non-US readers
I think these issues are straightened out now.
  • All the terms mentioned as underlinked are linked, glossed, or both. I've also expanded a bit on the implications of pseudopedate structure (end of 1st paragraph under description). This is a bit of a nightmare to explain: in essence, the casual description of the maidenhair leaf (large, deeply divided compound leaf->cut into fingerlike pinnae or leaflets->again cut into pinnulets), which is itself a bit tricky to explain to a non-specialist isn't *quite* botanically accurate, and it's difficult to get across the fine point without the non-specialist's head exploding.
  • I've swept for overlinks. A few of the terms are linked both in lead and 1st occurrence in body.
  • I have removed some of the superfluous technical terms, but not all, for fear of losing technical meaning. (For instance, the term "chartaceous" is often rendered as "papery", but so is "papyraceous," and they're used in botany in a way that implies two different shades of meaning. I've glossed it in a little more detail as "parchment-like," which I think accurately differentiates it from "papyraceous," but I'd rather include the technical term as a back-up.) I've also unified on a format of technical term first, followed by a parenthetical gloss, which corresponds to other botanical/mycological FAs I've examined for guidance on style.
  • Ref 3 is correctly cited according to its own style guide.
  • NJ expanded to New Jersey.
I welcome any continued thoughts on particular points in need of further glossing and clarification. Choess (talk) 06:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support and two more comments I'm happy with most of the changes, but the point of my ref 3 comment is that referencing style should be consistent within the article. You should give locations for all or none, conforming to the the original citation style of your source leads to inconsistency. You could check with Nikkimaria if you don't agree. On the image issue raised by 99of9, fair use is a non-starter since it's obviously possible to (eventually) get a free image Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:24, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess I wasn't clear. It's not that I'm following FNA's suggestions for referencing style, it's that according to their own page, there is no publisher to be cited. Given that this is referenced from the online version, I can't invent a publisher for consistency with other references in the article. Choess (talk) 20:20, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Source review - FN 4 needs page numbers, spotchecks not done. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:42, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Page numbers added. Choess (talk) 06:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment I know it's probably not in the guidelines, but as a reader, for an article like this I'd like to see a high-quality close-up photo in the description section. --99of9 (talk) 11:42, 30 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Appreciated. Unfortunately, those aren't widely available. As a stopgap, I've added an external link to the type specimen for the species (from the Harvard Herbarium), which has a large, high-quality image online. Unfortunately, the terms of use don't look amenable to adding that to Commons. I was rather pressed for time when I took the photo currently included in the taxobox, but I hope to be in the area again to photograph it next summer, and I will certainly try to add more of my own images to illustrate these points. I try not to deal with the morass of NFCC justification, but if anyone more knowledgeable than I sees a way forward to using the herbarium image in the article, drop me a line. Choess (talk) 06:12, 7 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support with a comment - there is a notable amount of information in brackets, including an entire sentence in the lede. Unless there is no other way for something to be added, integrate all such clarifications into the prose. Aside from that, it is a bit difficult to read, but I'm having problems with all articles on this subject so it simply might be my own subjective experience. Short, but very good and encyclopaedic article. - ☣Tourbillon A ? 12:44, 8 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Sasata (talk) 06:41, 4 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support Consider my suggestions below struck-through; I think the article meets FAC criteria now. Sasata (talk) 17:29, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Generally, in my experience, if the article title is under the scientific name, this name is given first in the lead, followed by the common name
    Done.
  • suggested lead links: hybrid, variety, threatened
    Done.
  • "at the edge of the ultimate blade segments" I suspect that many who read this might not realize "ultimate" here means "terminal" or "end", could one of those words be substituted?
    Er. I'm not sure I'd quite say "terminal" here in place of "ultimate", as that carries for me additional connotations of "apical" (but perhaps I'm wrong). "Ultimate segment" is also the term that was used by Paris (1991). The essential problem is that what many manuals call "pinnules" aren't really pinnules due to some odd leaf architecture, and I wanted an accurate term to describe them as a group. I've overhauled the first part of the description again to try to describe it in conventional terms (pedately divided into pinnae and those pinnately divided into pinnules) and, after that's been established, explain the proper technicalities; does that help gloss "ultimate segment"?
  • How about reorganizing the lead paragraph slightly: the second sentence (describing the close resemblance to the parent species) could be moved down the paragraph and merged with the sentence "A. viridimontanum is difficult to distinguish from its parent species in the field." which would place these similar thoughts together and trim some minor repetition that currently exists.
  • are we sure that the "western" and "northern" maidenhair ferns are not capitalized? I'm not sure what the capitalization conventions are for WP:Plants, and our articles on these species are inconsistent
    There's a WP:LAME battle between the MOS obsessives and the birders right now on the subject, but the overall trend seems to be towards non-capitalization.
  • why does the article switch between Latin and common names throughout? This should be consistent. I think the scientific should be preferred (it's the article title, and is shorter)
    Cleared out. I used "western maidenhair" once in the taxonomy section because I didn't want to refer to it by a term that would have been anachronistic at the time of the events described.
  • "the botanist Cathy Paris"
    Done.
  • "the western maidenhair constituted a separate species" -> "was a distinct species"
    Done.
  • "Individual plants seem long-lived, and new individuals only infrequently reach maturity." I don't quite get this …the plants live a long time, but usually plants don't live very long?
  • link frond, chestnut (color)
    Done.
  • "Its fronds range from 30 to 75 cm (12 to 30 in) in size." what aspect of size? Length?
    From base of step to tip of leaf. Done.
  • other than "medium-sized" there's no indication of the overall size of the plant. Does the source indicate what range it considers medium-sized?
  • "The rachis appears to fork into two outward- and backward-curving branches" Why "appears to", rather than just "forks"?
    Eliminated in rewrite of description section.
  • make sure all short form binomials have a non-breaking space to avoid unsightly line breaks
    Done.
  • any meaning lost by replacing the jargon word globose with spherical?
    Looking at descriptions of spores in general (fern, fungal and otherwise), there does seem to be some technical distinction between the two terms, although I'm not sure I could tell you exactly what it is. (I suspect globose implies a slightly greater irregularity than spherical does.) As it's linked, I'd prefer to leave it.
  • ""Successful identification of individual specimens, therefore, must depend upon simultaneous consideration of a number of qualitative and quantitative characters." Shouldn't normally give a quote without clearly attributing it in the text, but I don't think anything would be lost by rephrasing this particular quote in your own words.
    I've dropped the quote. The original intent was just to underscore how (even in the opinion of the experts on the species), field identification was quite hard.
  • "Another distinguishing character is …" A distinguishing character has not yet been mentioned in the prior paragraph, so "Another" doesn't work here
    Done.
  • link morphologically
    Done.
  • is it possible to include a citation to the Fernald's paper that reports the discovery of the fern's disjunct distribution?
    Done by Casliber.
  • link for "biosystematic analysis"?; sensu lato; Anthropogenic; asexual reproduction; bedrock; conservation
    Done (sensu lato now has an earlier occurrence in the article and is linked there)
  • image captions should not have a fullstop if not a complete sentence (see range map)
    Done.
  • NatureServe citation should include when the website was last updated
  • author format not consistent: compare "Cobb, Boughton; Farnsworth, Elizabeth; Lowe, Cheryl" and "Zika, Peter F.; Kevin T. Dann"
  • book title of Dann 1985 is not given in title case (unlike Cobb et al., 2004)
  • are none of the listed external links worthy of being cited in the article?
  • have you tried contacting [http://www.uvm.edu/~plan
I've added a date for NatureServe. Ucucha (talk) 16:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And it looks like the references are all consistent now. Ucucha (talk) 17:04, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I did the GA review for this article and did some further copy-editing during this FAC. I think it now meets the criteria, and almost all of the other reviewers' comments have been resolved. Ucucha (talk) 17:04, 20 January 2012 (UTC) Comments from Ucucha:[reply]

  • What does the "1993+" in reference 4 mean?
    See FNA's How to Cite page. I think they mean that FNA as a whole is published from 1993 forward. Since the citation to v. 2, I've changed it to 1993.
  • Spotcheck:
    • Cathy (1993) is used to cite a sentence about the position of the sori being a synapomorphy for Adiantum, but does not use the word "synapomorphy" and calls the things sporangia, not sori. I don't think we should be using precisely defined terms like "synapomorphy" when the sources don't do it.
      I think the latter point is a distinction without a difference, e.g., I have another paper from Lu et al. on phylogeny of Chinese Adiantum that states "the genus is defined by...the 'false indusium' with sori borne along the apical part of veins on the underside of the sharply reflexed leaf margin." I've changed it to match Paris, however.
    • I corrected something cited to the wrong page, and several other problems with this source.
    • Most other sources seem good; the nominator might want to go through the sources once again to check that everything is correctly cited, but I don't think there are major problems.

When these and Sasata's comments are resolved, I'll be happy to support. Ucucha (talk) 21:42, 8 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My replies have been interspersed. Working on the remaining comments. Choess (talk) 20:16, 14 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the replies. Ucucha (talk) 16:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments. Just a couple of comments; I have no botanical background, so this is from the perspective of a general reader. Overall I think the text is quite dense with technical terms but not unreasonably so given the subject matter, with one exception noted below. I will be glad to support on prose once the second and third points below are addressed.

  • You link to pinnae, but that's a dab, and the relevant subsequent link is frond, which is already linked. I'd either link straight to frond or unlink.
  • The discussion of the pseudopedate nature of the fern is enormously confusing for a layman such as myself. I looked around for a diagram and found File:Adiantum pedatum pseudopedate.png, but it's not that easy to follow either. I almost think you should drop the term "pseudopedate"; it seems to be defined by reference to these ferns, so it doesn't actually explain anything to introduce it early in that paragraph. It could be given at the end of the paragraph. I understood the whole paragraph after reading it two or three times, but if there were a diagram that clarified the points that would be very helpful -- in particular the point about the reason to say "ultimate segments" suddenly became clear once I got the point, and a diagram might have gotten me there more quickly. I will support without the diagram but I think somehow this paragraph needs to be a little clearer, even if it's just moving "pseudopedate" to the end.
  • "Green Mountain maidenhair is one of only five taxa (four species and a variety) recognized as strictly endemic to serpentine when they occur in eastern North America": I couldn't quite follow this; I think the "when" is what's confusing me. Can you clarify? What's the antecedent for "they"?

-- Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:44, 15 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've unlinked "pinna", as there seems to be no article about this meaning of the word, and the dab page doesn't add to this article. I think Choess revised the article's text to address your other two comments. Ucucha (talk) 16:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Notes:

  • Redirect review needed-- for example, Green Mountain maidenhair fern is a red link. The article switches early to referring to the plant as "A. viridimontanum"-- I'm unsure if A. viridimontanum should be un-redlinked? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:23, 16 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I've redirected the former as well as a couple of variants. Referring to an organism by an abbreviated name is common, but it always done only after the full name has been mentioned (with a few exceptions, such as E. coli), so I don't think a redirect is necessary. Ucucha (talk) 16:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments technical issues only.

  • Dab link - pinna.
  • Instead of just linking ulltramafic, link all of ultramafic rock.
  • You convert " 30 to 75 cm (12 to 30 in)" but then stop doing such conversions to Imperial units, why?
  • For a non-expert, or someone unfamiliar with a map of New England and Quebec, the map is sorely lacking in worldwide context. Perhaps the caption could be improved to help here.
  • You have CPC and USDA in the external links, what do they mean?

The Rambling Man (talk) 21:19, 17 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The dab link is gone, CPC and USDA are unabbreviated, and ultramafic rock is fully linked. The measurements are all very small, so that imperial measurements aren't that useful (perhaps with the exception of the 9.5–22.5 mm for the pinnules). I don't tend to convert such small measurements either. Ucucha (talk) 16:57, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Also, I've added context to the map caption. Ucucha (talk) 17:00, 20 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]


The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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