Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Plants

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Jabuticaba

There is a request at Talk:Jabuticaba following on from a bit of edit warring and discussion in 2018 and 2019 to move the page either to Jaboticaba or to Plinia cauliflora. There are claims that the current spelling is unusual, rare in web searches, and not in line with Portuguese. Gbif calls it Brazillian grape tree. Janick & Paull call it Jaboticaba, GRIN common names list both spellings as Portuguese. Is there a wikiproject-plants policy to resolve this perhaps by resorting to that ancient tie-breaker, namely Latin? Sminthopsis84 (talk) 00:13, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

That wasn't edit warring so much as a descriptionless rollback of an incomplete edit. I don't think this change would be controversial to anybody in English language circles, as it's pretty much only *because* Wikipedia comes first in search results that it's ever spelled "jabuticaba" here (almost all of cited pages calling it "jabuticaba" are either articles by laymen written several years after the Wikipedia article became prominent, or Brazilian/portuguese-language articles). Dictionaries and encyclopedias have been responsible for spelling changes over the years, but it doesn't need to happen here. Most physical dictionaries and even Wiktionary actually use the "o" spelling, Wikipedia is a very odd outlier. The page doesn't get high traffic from Wikipedians (there's a lot of spelling and phrasing and formatting and translation inconsistency on the page in general, for example there are multiple instances of "jaboticaba" already on the page), so it's unlikely that things will ever change without a push. There was no dissent or even further comment in the original discussion for five years straight. In any case, I support moving the page to Plinia cauliflora because "jaboticaba" is a term that is used for multiple species, like "fig", in the first place. 2600:100F:B1C5:C6B3:A113:6D12:8834:771C (talk) 17:59, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

The formal way to do this would be the proceedure I used on Talk:kishu mikan. You can renew/reopen the request for comments if you don't get much response. Entertainingly, there, the holder of a trademark name made serious and successful efforts to genericize their own trademark, and also released their logos under open licenses, which may put them in a difficult legal position if they ever seek to defend their trademarks! HLHJ (talk) 17:06, 27 October 2024 (UTC)

History of discovery and cultivation

Hello, fellow editors. I have been researching a few plant species that I am currently working on improving the Wikipedia articles for. I have found a large amount of information on the early cultivation and history of one of these species, and I would like to add this information somewhere to the Wikipedia article.

Under what section of the article (Description, Taxonomy etc.) should I include this information in? Would there also be any particular layout to include it under or just as regular sentences?

Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated. Thank you. Lord.of.the.Proterozoic (talk) 07:10, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

I like to include any information about the discovery and naming of a species and any taxonomic changes over time in a section titled "Taxonomy and history", and include information about cultivation and other human uses for a species in sections titled either "Uses" and/or "Cultivation" (you can use one or the other, or use both, depending on the information you have access to). I prefer include this information in prose, but depending on the situation a table may also be appropriate? If there's a particular article you had in mind and would like assistance with I am happy to give it a go :) Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 07:55, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Plants/Template is a useful guide. Gderrin (talk) 08:34, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. I would appreciate some help with the article for the newly-described species, Grevillea milleriana, as well as a page creation for Grevillea gilmourii, described in the same paper, so you can reuse citations from the G. milleriana article.

I am currently researching and taking notes from my books to add more information to the articles of grevilleas of Greater Sydney, mainly Grevillea buxifolia, G. caleyi, G. sphacelata, G. sericea and G. speciosa, so I would appreciate some help for those or any other grevillea articles really. I hope to get these articles in particular to Good Article status.

Thank you for your help, @Ethmostigmus and @Gderrin

Best regards,

Lord.of.the.Proterozoic (talk) 10:12, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like an excellent project, I'm in :) I've already got a few small improvements in mind for the G. milleriana article that I can get done this evening. If there's anything in particular you need help with or want to discuss feel free to ping me or reach out via my talk page. Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 10:48, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. Your help is greatly appreciated, and makes Wikipedia a better place. Lord.of.the.Proterozoic (talk) 03:19, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Notability of accepted nothospecies

An discussion to adopt a guideline regarding the notability of species has been opened at Wikipedia talk: Notability (species)#Proposal to add nothospecies. Ivan (talk) 14:13, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

Accepted names and synonyms

Do folks here think that Plants of the World Online –  World Checklist of Vascular Plants are definitive when it comes to accepted species names and synonyms?

If so (and feel free to explain why or why not), what ought we do with names and synonyms that aren't accepted by WCVP and/or POWO (Rughidia, Vatica latiffii, etc.)? Should they be always be deleted or merged? There may be a valid reason to keep such an article or redirect – POWO offers the disclaimer that "We aim to incorporate the latest published taxonomy but sometimes papers are overlooked"[1]. If such articles or redirects are kept here should they be consistently categorized (something like Category:Taxobox binomials not recognized by IUCN, but for POWO or WCVP)? I don't think Wikipedia benefits from having as many redirects as it does for misspelled or invalid taxa, since they invite more misspelling and ambiguity about names. And I know the process here makes it hard to delete questionable redirects. I'm curious what other folks think. Tom Radulovich (talk) 17:24, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

This may already be covered on one of the project pages. Try either the main page or the tax on template page. I would start on the main page 1st. I'm pretty sure it's covered there. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 18:38, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

My understanding has been that POWO/WCVP is not definitive, but rather is the best source available with worldwide coverage. Your question spurred me to look for a review about the reliability of POWO and I found a paper titled The big four of plant taxonomy – a comparison of global checklists of vascular plant names. It confirms there are major problems with POWO, but that the other three major sources also have major faults, though apparently not identical ones. Also, the fern fans here on Wikpedia largely prefer World Ferns/World Plants by Michael Hassler as POWO does a lot of lumping they disagree with.

My opinion is that here at Wikipedia we are free to ignore POWO/WCVP when it disagrees with many other reasonably current sources. In the particular case of Vatica latiffii, I looked into World Flora Online and World Plants and then did a search in JSTOR, BioOne, Wiley, and Springer. I only found one use of the name in one paper in Springer, and a passing reference at that. Since it is a stub with pretty much no information I'm inclined to just delete it until it actually shows up in at least one of World Flora Online, World Plants, or POWO. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 20:57, 4 October 2024 (UTC)

The article for Vatica latiffii appears to have been created by the person who described the species, and while I don't have any reason to doubt their integrity or the validity of the species, I agree that the article is very much premature in the absence of any real external coverage. Plant species should at minimum have an entry in IPNI, WFO, or World Plants to even be considered for an independent article. I'll WP:PROD it. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 06:51, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

In the case of Vatica latiffii I suspect that the journal was overlooked by IPNI because of obscurity (or possibly because they're now relying on authors informing them of new names); I've created an account, and filled in a form for Vatica latiffii. Whether this will propagate to POWO, I can't say. Lavateraguy (talk) 07:21, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I did the same a few years ago with a newly published Symphyotrichum species. It was updated fairly quickly. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 07:34, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I've brought several overlooked names to IPNI's attention over the years (plus my sole published name - an intragenic horticultural hybrid). Also at least one spurious name, and assorted inaccuracies in records. Lavateraguy (talk) 08:30, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Cheers for that, please let us know if you hear back! More than happy to withdraw the PROD if it makes its way to POWO. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 07:52, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

No source is definitive. An encyclopaedia has to consider alternative views. However, there needs to be consistency across different articles (we can't treat half a genus with one name and the other half with a synonym accepted elsewhere), so the different projects choose one favoured guideline source for decisions on article title and the taxonomy used in the taxoboxes (there usually isn't much choice; plants and birds being exceptions). So for what is considered an accepted name and which the synonym, we'd follow POWO (above ferns) for decisions on the page title and taxobox and discuss differences of opinion in the text. If another source has additional synonyms to those in POWO these can be added to the taxobox with a reference (there is no need to limit them to those given by POWO). However, this doesn't mean exceptions can't or shouldn't be made if reliable sources are available and consensus can be reached (e.g. for ferns, which follows World Ferns, which follows PPG, the fern equivalent of APG).  —  Jts1882 | talk  06:26, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

I think what you said here contradicts what the main page of the project says (not the part about POWO, but the part about using other sources for additional synonyms in the taxobox): "If another source has additional synonyms to those in POWO these can be added to the taxobox with a reference (there is no need to limit them to those given by POWO)." Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants#"Synonyms" of scientific names reads, in part, "... it is not appropriate to accumulate a list of 'synonyms' from multiple sources, since the separate sources may not be compatible with one another." – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 07:44, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

What would you do in the case of Peucedanum_cordatum, which as discussed above is accepted by POWO whereas others use Rughidia cordata? Searching POWO for Rughidia cordata or Rughidia finds nothing. I think the guideline is to prevent lists of synonyms gathered from many different sources, rather than prohibition of anything apart from POWO.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:26, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Completely agree with MtBotany and Jts1882. POWO is incredibly useful, but lags somewhat behind WFO, excludes non-vascular plants, and makes particular taxonomic choices that not everyone else agrees with. It's usually the first taxonomic source I check for (vascular) plants, but it's definitely not the best or only source. WP:PLANTS guidelines instruct us to (generally) follow the classification put forth by the Pteridophyte Phylogeny Group for ferns and lycophytes instead of the classification by the RBG. For synonyms I sometimes find WFO preferable to POWO, as WFO seems to be updated far more frequently and can be more comprehensive, but checking all of the major taxonomic databases is certainly a good practice - they all have their own strengths and weaknesses.

A name having no mention in POWO or IPNI is not necessarily a red flag (neither database includes non-vascular plants, sadly), but a name having no mention in IPNI, POWO, WFO, or World Plants is, in my opinion, an indicator that the species has not been scrutinised enough to be included in Wikipedia, at least not yet. It's textbook WP:TOOSOON.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean about "questionable redirects" but I'm quite curious - could you give some examples? Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 07:11, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Stub to Start drive

I've been mulling over the idea of improving the project's over 61,000 stubs one by one. It sounds daunting, and I likely many of us already do this on a regular basis. My idea is to do a (perhaps monthly) drive of improving Stub-class articles to Start-class articles.

Why only to Start-class? To keep it simple, fast, and uniform. With taxon and botanist articles, we can already provide a guide for what should be included for Start-class.

Participation would be based on how much you can contribute, and you could do as few or as many as you choose during each drive.

Anyone think this would be worthwhile? Thoughts? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 15:14, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

That's definitely a lot of stubs. I think it's a good idea that can help some of them get to start. Eucalyptusmint (talk) 15:34, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Certainly worthwhile. Not too difficult either. Ivan (talk) 03:12, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

This I can help with. I tend to head all the way to "C" on my own time, but I can probably turn it down for a month. (Mostly) 🌿MtBotany (talk) 03:30, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd absolutely be interested - I have been considering proposing something of this nature for a while, but held off on account of my lack of experience. There are certainly plenty of plant stubs that can be brought up to Start class with relatively little effort... I think a drive is an excellent way to get more editors involved in this area and provide them with motivation. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 03:34, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

Wonderful, Eucalyptusmint, Ivan, MtBotany, and Ethmostigmus! Thank you. For all who are interested, I'm working on a draft of a Stub-to-Start page that will be a subpage of the Plants project. Its intent will be to provide context and instructions. It is currently in my user namespace (in raw form and changing by the minute) at User:Eewilson/StubToStart. Feel free to take a look and comment on its talk page with your input, questions, etc. Thanks! – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 19:30, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Hi folks. I've got a good draft of the drive instructions going. I spent most of the day on this thing. Gah. Want to look at it now and give me some feedback? I have a few things marked that I have to finish, but I'm brain fried tonight. I really would appreciate the love. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 03:53, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Wow, that was fast! You're a bloody machine. Obviously it's not finished yet but what's there all looks good to me :) two things that came to mind as I read the draft:

• Under Step 1, you've only covered vascular plants - I would suggest both WFO and World Plants for verifying non-vascular plant names, I default to WFO but both are acceptable. I don't think orchids really need their own section and would generally recommend POWO and WFO as the "standard" resource for all vascular plants besides ferns and lycophytes. I think it may also be a good idea to suggest that editors check more than one resource to validate names before starting work on an article - sometimes name changes hit WFO/World Plants well before they reach POWO. We also may want to have a discussion about how to handle taxa that are treated differently by regional and international authorities (eg. the Australian Plant Census or Flora of China differing from POWO/WFO, as in the case of Glossodia major[2], which is listed as Caladenia major by POWO[3] and WFO[4])
• The section on conservation status under Step 5 somewhat implies that all species will have been assigned a conservation status, which might be confusing to people not experienced with species articles. I would change "oFill in at least the first set" to something like "Fill in at least one, if applicable" and include a list of possible systems to be used, eg. NatureServe for North America, EPBC for Australia, IUCN Red List and CITES worldwide, etc. The documentation doesn't give much explicit instruction on what each system is and I figure if we want to pull new editors into this space it's best to spell things out as plainly as possible :P

Thanks so much for working on this, I'm very excited to participate! Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 04:22, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Please be aware of WP:WikiProject Plants/Resources#Pteridophyte classification. PoWO is very much a "lumper" for ferns and allies and should not be used for article names and taxoboxes, although of course discussed in the text. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:18, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

WorldFerns is the recommended database for determining accepted names for those, correct? I don't have that filled in yet because I wanted to confirm. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 11:45, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, correct. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:43, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Okay! I need some proofreaders as well as any additional input. This thing can obviously change, but I'm feeling pretty good about where it stands right now. After 2 or 3 of you look at it and provide input, or say that it looks perfect, or ask questions, or say something isn't clear, or tell me what I left out, etc., then it can be "finalized", and I can figure out the next steps. Also, if anyone wants to help coordinate (don't ask me what that will entail, because I have no idea), please let me know. The draft is at User:Eewilson/StubToStart. You can comment here (probably best so we can get additional input while this topic is open). – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 03:30, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

This looks great, thanks for putting it together (so quick!), it looks like all the pieces are there to help anyone get started. Other things that come to mind- is there a way to track how many articles are being de-stubbed and if so, should we include something like that to help track the progress? And as far as the duration, is monthly too frequent to where some may not find it as motivating? On the other hand, if keep it at monthly, then should there be a monthly goal for # of articles for de-stubbing and this number could also vary each month? This could help the momentum going, but not sure and thought I'd ask to get everyone's thoughts. Eucalyptusmint (talk) 00:04, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Great idea! We can use the number of pages in Category:Stub-Class plant articles to track progress - currently, it includes 61,508 articles, so lots of room for improvement :P When I participated in WP:FEB24 earlier this year the organisers had a chart tracking the number of articles removed from the category each day, so perhaps we could do something similar? I like the idea of setting a goal to de-stub a certain amount of articles per month (tweaked to match the number of participants), as it gives us a specific, achievable number to aim for. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 07:04, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

Eucalyptusmint, Ethmostigmus, and Fritzmann2002, the three of you had suggested some way of keeping track of stats and/or progress. I have discussed possible ways of doing this and have some ideas. We can run into difficulty attempting to use our standard pull of articles (the one given on the draft Stub-to-Start page) because it shows all articles to present day and does not allow sorting. In the meantime, I have added a blank section on the page called "Appendix 4: the stats" (subject to change, if appropriate), and it can be filled in when a way of pulling this information can be found. We can each manually keep track of what we do and report our own numbers somewhere (perhaps a separate progress page that could be transcluded into the main page). The best case scenario would be the ability for anybody to pull information using the criteria we want. The variables would allow us to pull all species articles of Stub-class in existence on the start date, but I'm pretty sure there is no data stored that specifies something is a species article. Perhaps manually keeping track is the easiest way. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 08:23, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

There is no data on Wikipedia that specifies something is a species article. Wikidata queries could be used to find species articles, but that isn't something I know how to do. Use of Speciesbox is a good proxy for something being a species article; at this point, only 0.2% of plant taxa have a manual taxobox, and most of those are genera. Plantdrew (talk) 15:16, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

The speciesbox is a good approach as it will pick up articles on monotypic genera, as well as those with a species title.  —  Jts1882 | talk  16:36, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

This would unfortunately exclude any species articles not using Speciesbox. How would we pull that information? I know we can go to the page for the template and click on "What links here", but how would we get that into a query for our tracking purposes?

Using Wikidata is not a bad idea wrt determining taxonomic rank. It wouldn't give us the ability to pull the other information, so it would have to cross reference. It's got to be possible. It's just a matter of knowing how to build the query. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 22:45, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Yes, using {{speciesbox}} will exclude articles using a manual {{taxobox}}. However, as Plantdrew pointed out only 0.2% of plant taxa have manual taxoboxes and most of those are genera. For tracking progress, this shouldn't make much difference. You can get a list of the plant project articles not using automated taxoboxes with Petscan.  —  Jts1882 | talk  06:56, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I think we're getting off track. @Eewilson:, what exactly do you want? I gather you want a list of stubs of species articles (not higher taxa/cultivar/botanist/etc. stubs), and you would like to sort/filter for long-standing stubs (long-standing by either article creation date or the time since it was assessed as a stub). Is that right? Do you want a real-time list or a report that is updated on some regular (monthly?) basis? Are you interested in excluding stubs that are newly created today? Is there anything else you would like? (I'd be interested in seeing stubs sorted by page views).

I'm not sure what is actually achievable with the tools available, but I'm also not sure I understand exactly what you would like to have. Plantdrew (talk) 19:48, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

That doesn't surprise me – that we are getting off track, or at least sounding like it. Let's see if the following helps or makes it worse.

Several people have suggested we have some way of keeping track of the progress of the drive. To me, that would entail that we a) know where we began and b) know where we stand. I would like this as well.

Specs: return a filterable (good) or sortable (good) (or filterable and sortable (better)) list using the optional criteria of

• class (stub, start, etc.)
• priority (top, high, mid, etc.)
• type (species, botanist, etc. – beginning with species)
• creation date range
• assessment date range

A bonus would be to be able to filter by or at least sort on

• creation user
• assessment user

The list returned would show all of these fields, plus article title (with link). It's similar to the OpenZIM list but with headers, sortable, and likely with different code (https://wp1.openzim.org/#/project/Plant/articles?quality=Stub-Class).

This drive has a focus of species articles only. Future drives could be for genera, higher taxa, botanists, etc. This drive has a no set end date – is ongoing.

(It is not the purpose of the drive to get editors not to create new articles that are stubs. However, those paricipating in the drive are asked not to do that. So, we will have stubs created during the drive. Outside of scope would be to track those, but not needed here, although the criteria listed above would allow us to do that.) – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 20:40, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

Plantdrew, what do I need to do to get these drafts into the project space as subpages. Best way would be a move request to save history. If I shouldn't do that, I could just create the pages. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 22:49, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I have never had occasion to move a page from User space to Wikipedia space, but I assume it can be done. I'm not sure that it is very important to preserve history if the history is entirely edits by a single editor in their own user space. Plantdrew (talk) 19:36, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

For the most part it is. There are a few comments on the talk page, and people have signed up on the participants page already; thus, my enthusiasm. I'll keep the ones in my user space and just create the new ones. Fast and easy. Thanks! – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 19:44, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

I copied the text of the drive pages to subpages of the project, created an Events page that is now in the tabs at the top of the project pages and in the navbox, added this event to the Events page, created a shortcut WP:PLANTSEVENTS and for the drive, WP:PLANTSSTS. There is also an invitation you can use to invite other editors. It should be substituted. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 22:41, 13 October 2024 (UTC)

A user box has been created.

{{User WikiProject Plants STS}} – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 00:20, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Onion

Onion has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 16:33, 5 October 2024 (UTC)

Cirsium greimleri GA assessment

GA nomination might be overkill, but I am looking to improve an article as much as possible before publishing many similar articles in genus Cirsium and wondering if anyone is available. Thank you in advance. Ivan (talk) 03:15, 6 October 2024 (UTC)

To clarify, article Cirsium greimleri is currently a GAN, nominated by Ivan, with me as the reviewer. Ivan is seeking input on the article. You can add your input to the GA review page, if you wish. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 19:13, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Chloroplast article rework discussion

I've just started a discussion on the Chloroplast talk page about majorly reworking the article (and maybe reapplying for good article status when done) that people might be interested in (and I'd love people's input and thoughts on). Cyanochic (talk) 04:32, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

Agathyrsus

Agathyrsus is currrntly an unlabelled {{R from singular}} to Agathyrsi. However, it also appears to be a junior synonym of Cicerbita (Agathyrsus macrophyllus) and possibly also Lactuca (Agathyrsus floridanus, Agathyrsus pulchellus, Agathyrsus sibiricus). Readers who have come across this obsolete genus name won't be helped by finding tremselves looking at a page about an obscure extinct Scythian tribe. Does anyone here feel like sorting out this mess? Regrettably, I lack the stamina.

Other leads include species:Agathyrsus (which includes links to non-English wikis), D.Don, and Category:Taxa named by David Don. (The moth Alcides agathyrsus can be ignored; specific epithets are rarely if ever notable.) Narky Blert (talk) 18:17, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

It looks like Agathyrsus needs to be changed from a redirect to a disambiguation page, with the following two items:

• Agathyrsus, an ancestor of the Ancient people Agathyrsi of the Transylvanian Plateau
• Agathyrsus D.Don, a taxonomic synonym of the plant genus Cicerbita Wallr.

– Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 19:09, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

WP:ONEOTHER may apply. Narky Blert (talk) 19:47, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

True. Could change the redirect to point to Cicerbita and place a hatnote that says "Agathyrsus" redirects here. For the ancestor of Scythian peoples, see Agathyrsi. Or something like that. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 19:56, 7 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree. Thar would surely be the best immediate solution, and I endorse it. Nevertheless, I still have the feeling that an article might be warranted - a distinguished namegiver, and several species now placed within another genus. Experience tells me to place little or no weight on what other wikis might say without further research. Are Don's papers in Biodiversity Heritage Library? Who reclassified the genus and those species? Narky Blert (talk) 17:33, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

Bumping to avoid archive for a bit until I get to this. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 12:00, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Bumping again. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 21:15, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Change completed. @Narky Blert, thank you for bringing this up. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:45, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Basic project question

After four years editing plant articles and being a part of the project, I still am unclear on a basic concept. Does the Plants project cover only what is in kingdom Plantae, no more and no less? It kind of says so in the introductory sentence ("Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to plants.") The Wikilink for "plants" goes to the page on the kingdom. Note: this question will have a follow-up question. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 21:17, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

Well, it does cover humans who study plants (primarily taxonomists, not necessarily molecular biologists). Red algae (included in "plants" if that is defined as Archaeplastida) and green algae (included if defined as Viridiplantae) are tagged for WikiProject Algae, not this project (but some Charophytes are tagged for Plants (13 articles)). A smattering of diseases of plants caused by non-plant organisms are tagged for this project (~312 articles, but quite a few are lists of diseases infecting a particular genus/species). Several animals in Category:Nepenthes infauna had once been tagged for WikiProject Carnivorous plants, but it seems that the only one left now is Phyllocnistis nepenthae.

I am responsible for removing plant tags from some red and green algae taxa, but there were never very many algae articles tagged for plants. Plantdrew (talk) 22:06, 9 October 2024 (UTC)

You can get an idea where people are having trouble deciding edge cases by looking in the Unassesed articles list here. Some examples; botanical illustrators, legendary plants, ecosystems/habitats/ecological communities, drugs and other products derived from plants, websites and organizations related to plants, emergent effects of plants, and various cultural items. Abductive (reasoning) 10:02, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I'd would have said that the taxonomic scope is Embryophyta (land plants, though that term encompasses sea-grasses and various other aquatic plants) aka Plantae sensu strictissimo. Charophyceae/Charales are a bit of an edge case, as they have been treated as honorary land plants, and studied by phytologists rather than phycologists. (The BSBI's scope is Tracheophyta + Charales (there's a British Bryological Society that covers non-vascular plants), but Bing Copilot - as a proxy for the consensus of material online - places charology within phycology rather than phytology. I suspect that "stoneworts" as plants is now mostly historical, but their habit and habitat makes them potentially a fit for the attention of a field botanist.) Lavateraguy (talk) 13:17, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Is this an example of De-extinction or a Lazarus taxon?

Recently, the same institute behind revival the formerly extinct Judean date palm through 2000-year-old seeds found in Herad the Great's palace in Masada grew another ancient seed into a never-before-seen tree. Is this an example of a de-extinction in the same way as their previous revived plant through germination of ancient seeds, or is this a Lazarus taxon in the same way as the coelacanth being rediscovered off the coast of South Africa after being presumed extinct for 66 million years?

Source: Mystery Tree Grown From 1,000-Year-Old Seed (msn.com) Edelgardvonhresvelg (talk) 00:08, 10 October 2024 (UTC)

In case someone else is interested, the findings have been detailed in a scientific paper. The case is a little different to the Judean date palm, since the latter does not seem to be a distinct species but merely a cultivar of the common date palm, Phoenix dactylifera. On the other hand, initial phylogenetic analysis suggests that the newly discovered 1,000-year old Commiphora is actually a species new to science. The reason it is not formally described as of yet is that the specimen they have grown has not flowered, as flowers are key diagnostic criteria of Commiphora species. Felix QW (talk) 10:13, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

So, this is an entirely new species discovered as opposed to a Lazarus taxon like the coelacanth which was known from fossils prior to its rediscovery in the 1930s? I think that I will list it under the successful de-extinctions section on the de-extinction page for now. I do not have enough knowledge on the subject to create a new page for this alleged tsori plant. Edelgardvonhresvelg (talk) 13:31, 11 October 2024 (UTC)

I hopped over from your Teahouse post! I'd also classify it separate from those 2 phenomena, maybe: List_of_longest-living_organisms#Revived_into_activity_after_stasis. My initial thoughts were of the new species described from melted permafrost alive. Specifically I'm thinking of that one bdelloid rotifer and the nematode Panagrolaimus_kolymaensis. (Maybe a new list one day for species first described when revived by humans :P) Cyanochic (talk) 05:03, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

I put it on the de-extinction and endling articles as part of the successful de-extinction section and plant endling section. Since Sheba is technically an endling right now similar to Fernanda the Fernandina Island tortoise despite recent discovery and rediscovery, and I put it under successful de-extinctions due to Sheba's species being presumed extinct. I will list it on the longest living organisms and list of resurrected species article as well, thank you for the suggestions! I think that list of species first described when revived by humans list also may be necessary for if Colossal Biosciences is successful in reviving the woolly mammoth, because its behaviour was never formerly studied or described to my knowledge. Edelgardvonhresvelg (talk) 17:19, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

Oh sweet! I mostly wanted to throw in my two cents, but since plants (and taxonomy) are not really my thing I definitely wasn't expecting it to have an impact on where it goes. If that list ever gets made, I'd definitely be down to help on the microbe/protist side of it! Cyanochic (talk) 22:15, 12 October 2024 (UTC)

References

Invitation to join the WikiProject Plants Stub-to-Start Drive

It's official!

New article Cyathea principes

This article, created 10 October 2024 by user Treeenthusiast, is not in POWO, World Ferns, World Plants, COL, or WFO. The sole citation in text form "Dr. Paul Standley, Trees of Mexico, page 41" is given. It is currently an orphan article (other than category and assessment pages). I think this may qualify for deletion. Thought I'd throw it out here. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 00:23, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

It is a synonym of Sphaeropteris horrida. Plantdrew (talk) 00:47, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

I think that you are correct. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 00:57, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

If that's the case, then it was supposed to be Cyathea princeps (W.Bull ex J.Dix) E.Mayer, so it was spelled incorrectly.

Cyathea principes

Cyathea princeps

– Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 01:00, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Requested the move. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 06:29, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

An editor has requested that Cyathea principes be moved to Sphaeropteris horrida, which may be of interest to this WikiProject. You are invited to participate in the move discussion.

Move completed. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 06:40, 14 October 2024 (UTC)

Nomocharis

Hi all, I am mostly active in the German Wikipedia, where I have been taking care of all the articles around the Lilieae for a long time now. Having a look into the English articles on the matter (there is always something to learn ;) ) I was pretty surprised to see, that Nomocharis still exists here, which has been moved to Lilium more than a decade ago. The article refers to a single reference (World Checklist of Selected Plant Families) that in 2014 still stuck to the classical view, but which changed their view meanwhile too.

I am not sure what is the correct way to handle this here at EN (redirect, delete, keep?), thus I wanted to bring it to your attention to handle this as you see fit. Best regards, Denis Barthel (talk) 12:24, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

@Denis Barthel I put in a technical request to move the one species article that exists here from Nomocharis aperta to Lilium apertum. Once that is done I'll just turn Nomocharis into a redirect unless you get to it first, it does not seem to be one of the ones to keep for historical reasons. Going to update List of Lilium species to follow the current list of species at POWO to make sure it is accurate and also check the Lilium genus page. Thanks for the notice. I've already updated the text of N. apertum to the correct name, but it is only a stub. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 19:40, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Probably a merge (partly to List of Lilium species, which doesn't have at least Nomocharis aperta (at least under that epithet). Alternately redo List of Lilium species using POWO, but there's probably still material suitable for merging into Lilium. (But on looking, de:Nomocharis still exists. I'm confused.)

I wondered whether the Nomocharis article could be redirected to an article on an infrageneric taxon (Google Scholar finds 3 papers referring to Lilium section Nomocharis; I haven't checked whether the combination has been formally published.)

A quick perusal of Google Scholar finds inconsistent phylogenies for Lilium+Nomocharis, but with most finding Nomocharis nested in Lilium. There seems to be rampant polyphyly among Lilium sections. There are species (e.g. L. liangeae, L. gongshangense) which go with the species of Nomocharis, but don't have combinations in that genus, so a merge looks the best bet. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:50, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Thank you, @MtBotany and @Lavateraguy for taking care about this matter.

When it came to the correct infrageneric placement of Nomocharis-species in Lilium, I have treated them in the German article as incertae sedis and put them in a separate paragraph with an explanatory phrase below the list of the other Lilium-species. Maybe that's a way that might work here too?

Oh and by the way, Lavateraguy - the reason for the existing article in the German Wikipedia is, that we do neither delete nor merge articles on taxa that later turn out to be outdated (or do not fit into the currently used systematics at DE). We put a short sentence about the change in it and mark them with a box and a category as an "Alternative taxon" instead, the box then says

"The classification of living organisms into systems is an ongoing subject of research. Different systematic classifications exist side by side and one after the other. The taxon discussed here has become obsolete due to new research or is not part of the systematics presented in the German-language Wikipedia for other reasons."

We have decided to do so many years ago as these taxa can be considered to be of historical value and sometimes they even get reinstated later.

Sorry for the long reply, I appreciate your patience. Denis Barthel (talk) 21:57, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

Long reply appreciated and informative. That's a much better approach than deleting articles on obsolete taxa. Wikipedia offers a unique opportunity to preserve information on historical taxa, so it's a waste to delete such content. It would also mean that taxonomy sections for recognised taxa can be more succinct and only deal with important historical taxa.  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:36, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

@Jts1882 @Denis Barthel @Lavateraguy When a page is turned into a redirect, the information is not lost, it is simply hidden and easy to put back if needed. I think a merge of information into Lilium is appropriate as the information on the page is quite limited, though if another editor prefers to update it as a former/occasionally used genus I think that would be equally valid, I'll hold off on turning it into a redirect for a couple days. I updated the List of Lilium species using POWO and used World Plants for the ranges since it has more detail about province level distributions in China. If I run out of things to do in the stub to start drive I'll do Lilium stubs. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 16:54, 17 October 2024 (UTC)

I realise the information can usually be recovered from the edit history (unless there is some overwriting to retain the edit history of the main page). However the information is only available to those who know what and where to look, and is lost to search engines. Another approach would be to leave the old article on the redirect page, just adding the redirect at the top. This is probably not allowed and might still be invisible to search engines.  —  Jts1882 | talk  15:17, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Whatever the view taken by taxonomists now or in the future, Nomocharis has long been recognized as distinct in horticulture. Thus all the bulb books on my shelf that I've looked at note the similarity to Lilium but say that the genus needs moister growing conditions; British texts regularly say that for this reason Nomocharis are easier to grow in Scotland than much of England. So if there's no consensus taxonomic classification, it should be treated as a historically recognized genus, and not just as a redirect. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:06, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

I agree with this, the taxonomic aspects should not trump the cultural ones. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:10, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback. I've done a first edit to indicate that it is no longer used as a taxonomic name. Hopefully someone with the right books or webpages will come along to add the horticultural information to the page. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 00:46, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

APG website?

There is the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website published on mobot by Peter F. Stevens, but is there an official website by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group where the APG IV is given (with any updates since it was published in 2016)? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 14:23, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Not that I know of, and the obvious searches find nothing. It would also be nice to know if there is a APG V in the pipeline.  —  Jts1882 | talk  14:28, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Looks like it, as there was a call for a symposium on the topic in Madrid in July at the International Botanical Conference: APG V AND THE CHALLENGE OF TRANSLATING PHYLOGENY INTO CLASSIFICATION WHEN GENE TREES CONFLICT.

Session information: Symposia Session 13.

– Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 15:41, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

Good find. That suggests that APG V already exists and was discussed at that July meeting. The entry on the symposium says pending (as if a proposal) but they all say that and the program suggests that Symposium 13 took place on July 26. Perhaps it is in press or undergoing review.  —  Jts1882 | talk  17:07, 19 October 2024 (UTC)

There is no official APG website. Peter Stevens is a co-author on the APG publications, but APWeb is his own website, and not a product of the group. I was at a talk Stevens gave a couple of years ago where he mentioned APG V being in progress. I'm sure APG V will be easy to find once it has been published. Plantdrew (talk) 22:26, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

While APweb is Stevens' personal website, it might give clues about what to expect in APG V, as I wouldn't expect him to deviate from the APG system. His recognition of Huales (split from Oxalidales), Oncothecales (split from Icacinales), and Cardiopteridales (split from Aquifoliales) may be a sign of changes to come. The Symposium abstracts suggest that such findings from nuclear analysis will be incorporated in APG V. I could be wrong, though; he might just follow whichever phylogeny he thinks is best.  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:54, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Candelabra primula

Shall Candelabra primula be moved from this common name to its scientific name Primula sect. Proliferae? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 11:56, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

There aren't very many articles on infrageneric taxa, but they are far more often titled by vernacular names than are articles for genera and species.

One consideration is that it's hard to know what readers might search for: vernacular name, scientific name with genus and abbreviated rank (Primula sect. Proliferae), scientific name with genus and unabbreviated rank (Primula section Proliferae), scientific name without genus (sect(ion) Proliferae). Articles on infrageneric taxa that don't use the vernacular name for the title are consistently titled with genus and abbreviated rank, but that seems kind of messy to me and not necessarily what readers are going to search for.

There other consideration is how precisely vernacular names for infrageneric taxa correspond to the scientific taxon. And I am not at all sure that they correspond very well. Rhododendron subsect. Pentanthera redirects to North American azaleas, but the subsection includes a species (Rhododendron luteum) that isn't native to North America (and are there other "azaleas" from North American that aren't in the subsection? I don't know).

Other articles ostensibly about infrageneric taxa with vernacular name titles are: snakebark maple, banyan, tree peony, bristlecone pine, pinyon pine, apricot, blackberry, bush lawyer (plant), rowan, blueberry, cranberry, mayhaw and Louisiana iris. Plantdrew (talk) 22:12, 20 October 2024 (UTC)

Sectional names are not unique. (IPNI doesn't have Primula sect. Proliferae, but does have two sections of that name in other genera, plus a subsection and 4 series. Using the section name with the genus is like using a species epithet without the genus.)

As a point of pedantry, Wikipedia now restricts Sorbus to the rowans, with commentary on the former wider circumscription, so rowan no longer represents an infrageneric taxon. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:08, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Lavateraguy, true, a sectional name wouldn't be identifiable if it were written simply as "sect. Proliferae", but this is Primula sect. Proliferae, including the genus, and the Automatic taxobox in the article Candelabra primula has the parameter |taxon= set to Primula sect. Proliferae.

Plantdrew, I see this as an instance of a plant article having as its name the vernacular, and usually we don't do that. I came across this article and it occured to me that we should apply our standard protocol of naming taxa articles to this one, with a redirect from the common name "Candelabra primula" to "Primula sect. Proliferae". – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 17:09, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Plantdrew, that Rowan article needs some cleanup! First thing I see is that the taxobox does not give the scientific name of the subgenus as the taxon but the entire genus of Sorbus. That simply looks like an easily-fixable error. Everything else could work around that. I haven't read (or even skimmed) that article, but someone missed something. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 17:16, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

I'll defer to the elders on this one. I don't know the taxon nor what would be best here. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:49, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Is there a list of all edible plants or subsets?

Hi all

I'm working with an organisation who might be interested in investing a lot of time to create articles on edible plants. I've seen a lot of estimates in different sources on the number of edible plants, eg I've seen 300,000 written in many news sources.

Is there somewhere that provides a breakdown of the list of edible plant species, even just a subset by type or by parts of the plant which can be eaten eg edible root vegitables, potato tubers can be eaten but leaves are poisonous. I'm aware of Edible_plants but I think I'm safe in assuming that these articles only list a subset of the edible species for each type.

Thanks for any leads

John Cummings (talk) 15:01, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

The only source I have ever come across that seems to be what you are looking for is the website Plants for a Future. It is mildly idiosyncratic, but mostly correct and well sourced when it comes to food. The herbalism stuff is mostly junk as is typical for that kind of information.

I'm not sure where the 300,000 edible plants in news sources number might come from. The total number of plant species known to science according to Kew was 391,000 in 2016 (In Mongabay). I've seen articles claiming that half of these may be in some fashion edible (In World Economic Forum). But those are just estimates and highly speculative. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 16:00, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Category:Edible plants is also extremely incomplete. Since some widely-eaten plants are edible only if carefully prepared, we might need some cats for that. HLHJ (talk) 00:01, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Depreciating Selina Wamucii as a source

Is it time to add Selina Wamucii plants to the list of deprecated sources because new editors are starting to regularly cite it? The last time this was discussed back in March 2024 it was more of a theoretical problem. In the last week I have removed three citations by two different editors and I'm wondering if other editors have started to see this.

Some examples of obviously erroneous information:

• Elodea bifoliata "small, aquatic plant native to Southeast Asia" later on the same page it lists the native range as "North America". It also says that it can be found in "North America, Europe, and Asia," but POWO does not list it as living outside N. America.
• Penstemon albomarginatus "native to western North America, from British Columbia to California, and grows in moist meadows and open woods." Actually a desert plant confined to the Mojave. Later contradicts itself saying, "drought-tolerant and can thrive in poor soils."
• Carnegiea gigantea "characterized by its large, barrel-shaped stems and white flowers," then later, "large, yellow flowers with five petals and a yellow center." Correctly states that the saguaro is, "native to the southwestern United States and northwestern Mexico," but later says, "native to India, Sri Lanka, and parts of Southeast Asia. It can be found in tropical and subtropical forests, as well as in disturbed areas."

Regardless of how S-W created their database it is stuffed with errors and contradicts itself even on the same page. Because it is unfortunately highly ranked by search engines for less well known plants it is natural for newer editors to mistakenly use it as a source and it is likely there are subtle errors that would not jump out like the glaring ones I have used as examples. There is no bad faith efforts to use S-W, but the edit filter would be a good way to let editors know that it should not be used. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 19:07, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

My 2¢:

1. I didn't know Wikipedia had a list of deprecated sources.
2. If it's not reliable (or even relevant), we should not be using it.

– Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 19:25, 21 October 2024 (UTC)

Cheers for bringing this up MtBotany. I don't believe we should be using sources with direct commercial links like this (Selina Wamucii is a company that connects farmers to produce procesors/retailers) in the first place - the only website I would trust to provide both information and sell plants is perhaps the Royal Horticultural Society website. I find that information provided by sellers of plants tends to be unreliable, and I find it questionable to provide links to purchasable products on Wikipedia. I would support placing Selina Wamucii on the "caution" list at the very least. Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 08:10, 22 October 2024 (UTC)

Following up so it doesn't get dropped in an archive. Did this get dealt with? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:50, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Stub-to-Start Drive articles upgraded: Day 14

Hi, everyone! I'd like to excitedly announce that as of today so far, the Stub-to-Start drive participants have reported a count of 61 species article upgrades! The list of articles upgraded is manually tracked at Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Stub to Start drive/Statistics. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 21:12, 26 October 2024 (UTC)

Wow. That is a great initiative, a lot of Wikiprojects need stub-to-start drives. Well done everyone! HLHJ (talk) 00:04, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Good article reassessment for Carrot

Carrot has been nominated for a good article reassessment. If you are interested in the discussion, please participate by adding your comments to the reassessment page. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status may be removed from the article. Z1720 (talk) 21:08, 28 October 2024 (UTC)

Article Little leaf of brinjal

The article Little leaf of brinjal was created in 2015. It appears to be attempting to describe a (possibly significant) disease of Solanum melongena (eggplant). "Brinjal" is a common name for eggplant in some areas of Africa and South Asia. I am suspecting that this could be made a redirect to an existing article for the pathogen that causes the disease that appears to be called "little leaf", "brinjal little leaf", or "little leaf of brinjal" OR that it could be added to the eggplant article. Eggplant § Cultivation and pests, last paragraph, looks suspiciously like it could be referring to the same disease. I have not investigated further. Does anyone have the time to take a look at this? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 05:21, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

The last paragraph of Eggplant § Cultivation and pests does not appear to be referring to the same disease. It refers to a phytophagous moth (I wouldn't call it a disease), while little leaf is caused by a bacterium, and transmitted by a leafhopper (true bug). Lavateraguy (talk) 13:10, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Little leaf of brinjal is associated with several different Phytoplasma groups, but the commonest is Ca. Phytoplasma trifolii. Wikipedia does not appear to have an article for this. But a 2023 paper identifies that causal agent as a new species, distinct from Ph. trifolii; the paper is paywalled and I can't tell whether it gives the agent a binomial name. Lavateraguy (talk) 13:26, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

The 2023 paper (and the 2021 one) are available through the Wikipedia Library (Snehi & Raj, 2023). Based on a quick skim,it looks like it is still a Candidatus species.  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:49, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

On a quick scan, they didn't give it a binomial. Also the abstract is misleading - it should be "A phytoplasma associated with brinjal little leaf" rather than "The phytoplasma associated with brinjal little leaf". The text confirms that several different Ca. Phytoplasma species are associated with brinjal little leaf, including Ca. Ph. trifolii and Ca. Ph. asteris. Lavateraguy (talk) 14:21, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Thank you Jts1882 and Lavateraguy for looking at this while I caught some sleep. Thank you Lavateraguy for at least making the article look encyclopedic. That really helps. So what do you folks think? Maybe further study of those sources, including the new ones? Maybe this could (eventually) be referred to in eggplant, and this article could refer and link to the several phytoplasma that cause it and the insects that transmit those phytoplasma? – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 16:55, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

I've just added a paragraph to eggplant thereby deorphaning the article.

On the previous cursory look on the web, the disease is notable and has enough sources to support an article. The article is extendable. The material on control measures in particular could do with some further clean up.

It appears that multiple Phytoplasmas cause particular diseases, and individual phytoplasmas cause multiple diseases (see Phytoplasma solani for example). I think that the diseases are more notable than the species, and references to the various species involved with little leaf of brinjal are liable to remain redlinks. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:28, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Excellent. Thank you for looking into this, Lavateraguy. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 22:30, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

Newly created category: Lithophytes

Just wanted to announce that I've gone ahead and created a category for lithophytes, similar to the existing Category:Epiphytes, as I realised there was only a category for lithophytic orchids and nothing for all the other lithophytic plants. I've already added a handful of articles, but would very much appreciate it if you all could add any other lithophytic plants that you come across in your editing :) Cheers, Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 08:08, 2 November 2024 (UTC)

USDA changed its PLANTS database web links – again

It appears that the the USDA has changed its PLANTS database web link without a redirect – again.

This affects citation templates: {{PLANTS}} (aka {{Cite PLANTS}}) (used on over 4,000 pages), {{Cite usda plants}} (used on 88 pages), {{Taxid}} (used on 2 whole article pages), as well as the {{Taxonbar}} when the PLANTS identifier is on a Wikidata record for a taxon (USDA PLANTS ID (P1772) which is set to the identifier for the taxon on that website (e.g., "PHUR" for Phyllanthus urinaria (Q1131974)) (used on I don't want to even think of how many pages).

I thought I'd post this here to let people who use this website know, because it is likely that someone(s) in the Plants project maintains those templates, and posting it here is efficient (for me).

Clicking directly on the identifier value (the "PHUR") from Wikidata also goes to a "bad" page.

The following take you to a page that shows the quote I have given in smaller font, below.

• Wikidata  : https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=PHUR
• Taxonbar  : https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=PHUR
• PLANTS template  : https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=PHUR

Page not found

We’re sorry, we can’t find the page you're looking for. The site administrator may have removed it, changed its location, or made it otherwise unavailable.

The link built by Cite usda plants and Taxid seems to go into a search that would probably eventually time out.

• Cite usda plants : https://plants.usda.gov/plant-profile?symbol=PHUR
• Taxid  : https://plants.usda.gov/plant-profile?symbol=PHUR

Once you are on the USDA PLANTS DB website, typing in the scientific name in the search box on the website will then take you to a URL formatted like the following (same species I have been using – Phyllanthus urinaria).

• Search from page: https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/plant-profile/PHUR

The change from old to new is shown here. A prettier link.

Old: https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/home/plantProfile?symbol=PHUR
New: https://plants.sc.egov.usda.gov/plant-profile/PHUR

I didn't run all the tests for all (or more) species.

Who is best suited to make the changes?

On a related note (possibly worthy of a different post and something that, if possible, could be done after the links are changed), it looks like Cite usda plants is a CS2 template based on Citation. PLANTS (and Cite PLANTS) are based on Cite web. Do you think it's possible to combine the two templates (creating a wrapper or redirect out of Cite usda plants) for easier maintenance and allowing the user to just specify the citation style needed (CS1 or CS2)? Is that already built in to the PLANTS template? I think Cite web allows that. And then there's this Taxid template... – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 23:28, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

I've update the url at {{PLANTS}}, {{Cite usda plants}} and {{Taxid}}. I've changed the URL formatter on Wikidata so {{Taxonbar}} shouldbe fixed (perhaps with a cashing delay). Any other changes needed?  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:53, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

You're amazing! I've been manually searching for any cite web and bare URLs going to any of the invalid links and changing them to use the PLANTS template. I don't think there are any templates other than the ones I have listed. Thank you so much. I will comment here if I find something else. Maybe someone else knows of other places this might crop up. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 08:00, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

{{PLANTS}} is already a wrapper for {{cite web}} so takes |mode=c2 and other cite web parameters. Are the other templates needed or should they be merged into {{PLANTS}}? With two uses is {{Taxid}} even needed?  —  Jts1882 | talk  08:02, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I would think both could be done away with and any unique functionality combined with the current PLANTS template. But I'm just one person. Maybe asking the editor(s) who use them. I can track down some usernames if you wish. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 08:09, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

The outputs of {{PLANTS}} and {{Cite usda plants}} are very different and neither is close to the format suggested at the Plant Database.

• {{PLANTS}} outputs:

USDA, NRCS (n.d.). "​Oenothera arizonica​". The PLANTS Database (plants.usda.gov). Greensboro, North Carolina: National Plant Data Team. Retrieved 4 November 2024.

• {{Cite usda plants}} outputs:

Oenothera arizonica, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service PLANTS Profile, December 7, 2011

• The Plant Database suggests:

Natural Resources Conservation Service. PLANTS Database. United States Department of Agriculture. Accessed November 4, 2024, from https://plants.usda.gov.

• I think something like this would be best for a unified template

NRCS. "Oenothera arizonica". PLANTS Database. United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Retrieved 4 November 2024.

The latter is closer to the suggested citation and more similar to other citation templates. {{PLANTS}} is a bit odd within its use of |author=USDA, NRCS and |publisher=National Plant Data Team. Alternatively leave {{PLANTS}} with the corrected URL and add a wrapper for {{Cite usda plants}}. Thoughts?  —  Jts1882 | talk  17:19, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

I converted most instances of {{Cite usda plants}} to {{PLANTS}} several years ago; I didn't realize they were using different citation styles. {{Cite usda plants}} had less than 10 uses (maybe even as few as 2 or 3) last time I looked at it (which was awhile ago). If I recall correctly the only articles using it when I last looked called it multiple times; I think they were genus articles that called it for each species. It's possible that I replaced it in those articles as well and forgot about it. It looks like MtBotany has been introducing it to more articles recently.

I support Jts1882's suggestion about changing the citation for USDA PLANTS. With only 88 uses, I'd just suggest changing all of the {{Cite usda plants}} over to {{PLANTS}}. And I think {{Taxid}} should just be deleted. I think that template name is misleading; to me it suggests something along the lines of {{Taxonbar}} that supports different IDs for multiple websites, when it really only supports one ID that is shared by two websites. Plantdrew (talk) 17:32, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

A few years ago, we changed the output of PLANTS so it looks like it does now, which was consistent with what I remember the USDA wanted then. I noticed last night they have changed it (again). I agree with deleting Taxid, actually would just like to see Cite usda plants deleted as well, and changing the output format of PLANTS as you suggested, Jts1882. I think it is possible that Taxid was created to generate a really short external link section output string, and anything that avoids bare URLs within an article is great. But I think it's something that should be done, if it needs to be done, through PLANTS. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 18:33, 4 November 2024 (UTC)

When using {{PLANTS}}, there is code out there that sets the value of |last1=((USDA, NRCS)) (in articles) because for some reason, the template was not working with shortened footnotes, even though |last1= is set to that value. (The double parens were to avoid the error created because of using punctuation in the last name parameter. I found that in the Wiki documentation somewhere.)

So when I would use the code {{Sfnp|USDA, NRCS|2014}} (or Sfn) having defined the reference like this (without setting the |last1= parameter)

{{Cite PLANTS | date = 2014 | id = SYEU | taxon = Symphyotrichum eulae | access-date = 27 October 2022 }}

I would get the cite error sfnp error: no target: CITEREFUSDA,_NRCS2014. It can be replicated. Thus, I had to set |last1=((USDA, NRCS)) even though it was set that way in the template! If you change it to |last1=NRCS, then existing code out there that sets last1 should still work, but in the future, hopefully I won't have to overwrite the value.

Testing {{Sfnp|NRCS|2014}}, {{Sfnp|NRCS|n.d.}}, etc., would be important. The test cases, or some of them, might already be in the test cases subpage of the template. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 23:10, 4 November 2024 (UTC)