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Requested move at Talk:Illicium verum#Requested move 18 November 2024

There is a requested move discussion at Talk:Illicium verum#Requested move 18 November 2024 that may be of interest to members of this WikiProject. Frost 09:48, 28 November 2024 (UTC)

How to treat Coelorachis (Poaceae)

I'm not sure what to do with Coelorachis. Taxonomic databases vary at present. The majority treat it as a synonym. GRIN, ITIS and the "Accepted Names" tab of Tropicos support treating it as a synonym of Mnesithea. POWO, GBIF and WFO support treating it as a synonym of Rottboellia. (See the links in the taxonbar at Coelorachis.)

Soreng et al. (2015) in their worldwide classification of Poaceae treated Coelorachis as a synonym of Mnesithea. Then their revision, Soreng et al. (2017), changed to treating it as a synonym of Rottboellia, but with the (to me) feeble statement "Kellogg (2015, p. 300) mentioned an unpublished DNA study where Coelorachis is placed in Rottboellia rather than Mnesithea as proposed by Veldkamp et al. (1986); and we now follow that here." Veldkamp et al. (2013) places Coelorachis in Rottboellia, and is cited in the PoWO entry for Rottboellia as supporting their use of this genus. However, Veldkamp et al.'s placement is based on morphology, which molecular phylogenetic studies suggest is not a good guide to finer relationships in Poaceae.

The later molecular phylogenetic study of Andropogoneae by Welker et al. (2020) supports Mnesithea. The four species they place in Mnesithea (Mn. formosa plus Mn. helferi = C. helferi, Mn. selloana = C. selloana, and Mn. lepidura = C. lepidura) fall into a clade they call Subtribe Ratzeburgiinae, whereas the one species of Rottboellia they included (R. cochinchinensis) falls into a different clade they call Subtribe Rottboelliinae. The PoWO approach puts the three Mnesithea species that are synonyms of Coelorachis in Rottboellia, leaving the other in Mnesithea, so is inconsistent with the cladogram in Welker et al. (2020).

Obviously all this taxonomy can be written up, but only one article title can be used for the species. I was initially inclined to go with treating Coelorachis as a synonym of Mnesithea, and so moved Coelorachis cylindrica to Mnesithea cylindrica, but now I'm less sure what is best.

Comments please. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Peter coxhead (talk • contribs) 05:56, 29 November 2024 (UTC)

Google Scholar finds some older material, which might give some context. One point that comes up is that the type of Coelor(h)achis is/was an Eremochloa, and Coelorachis has priority over Eremochloa. I found a couple of papers suggesting that the name Coelorachis should be conserved, but not as yet confirmation that it was. I think you need to resolve this issue. Lavateraguy (talk) 14:13, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

@Lavateraguy: yes, this seems to be a genus with a really tangled taxonomic history. A search of the ICNafp Appendices shows no proposals or decisions concerning Coelorachis. Tropicos considers Coelorachis to be legitimate and has the note "LT: Aegilops muricata Retz. LT designated by Koning & Sosef, Blumea 31: 293 (1986)". Actually, the authors appear to be Veldkamp, Koning & Sosef (1986). On p. 293, they say they have solved the problem of the type of Coelorachis, which is as per the note in Tropicos. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:02, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

In the absence of strong DNA evidence for associating Coelorachis with Rottboellia, I'd be tempted (I don't have the expertise in grass anatomy to evaluate the article properly) to follow Veldkamp, Koning & Sosef in placing its species in Mnesithea. I see that only one species has an article, and you have already dealt with that. But I am not convinced that the paper formally resolved the nomenclatural issues.

• I am not convinced that lectotypification of a specimen from Brongniart's figures is legitimate - they are not syntypes of Aegilops muricata Retz. syn. Rottboellia muricata (Retz.) Retz.
• Coelorachis auct. non. Brongn. is not a validly published name.
• The paper didn't plump for one or other resolution.

Tropicos's note seems to contradict the paper. (Coelorachis is legitimate; the problem is with its application rather than its legitimacy.)

I can see 5 alternatives (I prefer the second).

• formally lectotypify Coelorachis on a type other than the type of Aegiliops muricata, if this is compatible with the code.
• conserve Coelorachis with a conserved type
• conserve Eremochloa over Coelorachis
• reject Coelorachis
• move the species of Coelorachis to Mnesithea (or Rottboellia) and the species of Eremochloa to Coelorachis.

Turning back to Wikipedia redirecting Eremochloa to Coelorachis doesn't seem a good idea. One could rewrite Coelorachis to cover Coelorachis Brongn. (senior homotypic synonym of Eremochloa) and Coelorachis auct. non Brongn. (heterotypic synonym of Mnesithea). And should we contact Kew? Lavateraguy (talk) 13:15, 3 December 2024 (UTC)

@Lavateraguy: I would certainly like to know what Kew thinks, so if you are willing to contact them, I think it's a good idea.

In the meantime, it's still not entirely clear to me what to do with the Coelorachis article. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:17, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I've emailed Kew an enquiry.

It's not clear to me that you can describe the situation in the Coelorachis article without committing WP:OR/WP:SYN. You can cite Veldkamp, Koning & Sosef (1986) for Brongniart's error, and the subsequent general usage of Coelorachis as excluding Coelorachis muricata. But there's probably not a WP:V source for the status of Coelorachis and Eremochloa.

I've tweaked the synonym list at Mnesithea. Lavateraguy (talk) 16:53, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Kew agrees. Lavateraguy (talk) 17:19, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

References

Flowers name

Hello, Can somebody help recognize there flowers:

• File:Indian Independence day celebration 216th flower show 2024, Lalbagh, Bangalore 128.jpg
• File:Indian Independence day celebration 216th flower show 2024, Lalbagh, Bangalore 129.jpg
  --Gpkp (talk) 18:00, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Hibiscus, probably Hibiscus rosa-sinensis. Lavateraguy (talk) 18:56, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you @Lavateraguy: --Gpkp (talk) 07:52, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

New citation template: Cite MoBotPF for Missouri Botanical Garden Plant Finder

See {{Cite MoBotPF}} for details. Enjoy. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 23:53, 4 December 2024 (UTC)

Another LLM AI botany website

I just came across https://www.botanikks.com being cited for the "Uses" section of Galium circaezans. While more competent than the Selina Wamucii website, previously discussed, it appears to be another LLM AI generated series of pages. Certainly the dating of new pages shows the site is either lying about when it is posting things or is posting new articles every few seconds. Somehow I doubt they have that many people on staff. Plus the way it repeats the binomeal with the author abbreviation over and over in articles also makes me go, "This is not written by a human."

I did a search for botanikks usage in the mainspace and removed an external link from Margaret Sibella Brown to Entosthodon Neoscoticus M. S. Brown. No other instances of it being used yet, but I suspect there will be more. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 03:07, 5 December 2024 (UTC)

For example, under economic importance of Malvaceae it fails to mention cotton, cacao and cola. It does mention jute and kapok (but not kenaf). It does mention okra. Under ecological importance of Malvaceae it claims that the family is nitrogen-fixing. Lavateraguy (talk) 09:38, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

There's a new Template:AI-generated source that can be used to notify people. Abductive (reasoning) 12:35, 6 December 2024 (UTC)

Linking to Tropicos legacy website

As per Template talk:Tropicos#http "legacy" websites, the {{Tropicos}} template currently links to the legacy site (as indeed do the Tropicos links at Wikidata and in our taxonbar template). I can't see any good reason for this; the template can easily be changed to link to the new version. The presence or absence of "?projectid=0" seems to be the key; compare the pages reached by these two:

• https://www.tropicos.org/name/2701191
• https://www.tropicos.org/name/2701191?projectid=0

What do people think? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:23, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

What a complicated template, with all the projects. To fix the Tropicos links (project 0) it just needs suppression of the suffix, but is this suitable for the other projects. The template also uses wikidata if no taxonID, so wikidata should be updated (it links directly to the legacy site in the taxonbar).  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:53, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Correction. The template gets the ID from Wikidata, so that isn't changed. The Wikidata update is needed for {{taxonbar}}. I've asked if there is any reason to used the legacy site at the talk page of Tropicos ID (P960), but I see no reason for keeping the old link.  —  Jts1882 | talk  14:07, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

The other projects need the project ID. I've put a version in the sandbox that just removes the suffix for project 0 (the default):

{{Tropicos/sandbox | 2701191 | Rudbeckia hirta | L. | access-date=7 December 2024 }} → "Rudbeckia hirta L.". Tropicos. Missouri Botanical Garden. Retrieved 7 December 2024.

There are now test cases at Template:Tropicos/testcases, which seem ok. (I don't think that picking up the ID from Wikidata, which is unchanged, actually works.) Peter coxhead (talk) 17:01, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

I checked the other projects examples in the documentation page with the sandbox and they work as expected. You should use https: instead of http: in {{Tropicos/main}}.  —  Jts1882 | talk  17:21, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Both the release and sandbox versions now changed to use https:.

Unless there are objections in the next day or so, I'll make the release version match the sandbox. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:27, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Should the mode line be changed? I don't think it accepts |mode=cs2 at present, requiring it to be set globally for the page.

• Line 24 (current): | mode = {{#invoke:Citation mode|main|cs1}}
• Line 24 (updated): | mode = {{#invoke:Citation mode|main|{{{mode|cs1}}} }}

I'm not sure that check needs to be made. I don't think you can override the globally set value for the page, as that defeats the purpose of the global page value.  —  Jts1882 | talk  13:46, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Testing suggests it is needed. |mode=cs2 works in the second test case at Template:Tropicos/testcases. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

The check with Module:Citation_mode is to suppress a CS1 maintenance error when a template wraps {{citation}} and uses |mode=cs1. See Help_talk:Citation_Style_1/Archive_95#CS1_wrapper_templates_using_"mode"

However, I still don't understand why it works in the current form. It should return empty if {{CS1 config}} is set one the page (which it isn't on the testcases page) or return the value of mode passed to the check module (i.e. cs1). How is |mode=cs2 being detected in the testcase?  —  Jts1882 | talk  16:38, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

As I noted above, I don't think the template does pick up the taxon ID from Wikidata. As per the note at the third test case at Template:Tropicos/testcases, when the template is used on the page for the taxon without specifying the taxon ID, it should pick up the ID from Wikidata. When I tried adding that test case as an external link at Rudbeckia hirta, it produced a search in Tropicos, just as it does at the test cases page. I've no experience with interacting with Wikidata, so I'm not sure what the issue is (if any). Peter coxhead (talk) 14:20, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

That's an error in the template logic. The example has an empty {{{1}}} rather than no parameter. I've changed {{Tropicos/sandbox}} to test for the parameter and this works with the external link at Rudbeckia hirta (I've edited the article for now). There is one problem, it links to the legacy site as ?projectid= is appended. Your sandbox update tests for |projectID=0 while the example has an empty parameter.  —  Jts1882 | talk  16:14, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Solved. I've changed I've changed {{Tropicos/sandbox}} to pass |projectID=0 when empty.  —  Jts1882 | talk  16:17, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

@Jts1882: excellent, thanks. (I've been caught myself by the differences in the way the template language handles unnamed parameters when omitted, left completely empty, or passed with blank spaces.) Peter coxhead (talk) 16:46, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I have now updated the template to the sandbox version, and it no longer links to the legacy Tropicos website. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:59, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Requested move

To move Atropa belladonna to Atropa bella-donna, the correct hyphenation per POWO. I've added the reasons for the hyphen on the page (paragraph 2). Thanks! - MPF (talk) 21:57, 7 December 2024 (UTC)

Huh. I've just started chipping away at standardizing some Art. 60.11 epithets in correspondence with the IPNI team, but I confess that the interpretation of "stand independently" baffles me in cases that aren't homologous to the examples. Why would "bella donna" be treated as in Example 42 rather than Example 43? Choess (talk) 04:42, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

@Choess - you'd need to check with the people at POWO, I was just assuming they had it checked it and had it sorted out. IPNI also have it hyphenated. - MPF (talk) 10:13, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

@Choess: as ever with interpretation of the ICNafp, outsiders can only speculate. Linnaeus wrote "Bella donna", so treating this epithet as a noun phrase in apposition. In the original Italian, it's two words, so fits "the epithet is formed of words that usually stand independently". However, the epithet letestui, derived from the original "Le Testui", isn't hyphenated, I can only assume because of the latinization of the second word. This would be more convincing if the single word "Letestuus" were attested as the latinized form of Le Testu's name. Sigh... Peter coxhead (talk) 14:52, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

letestui would seem to fall under Recommendation 60C.4.c. The question is whether that overrides Article 60.11 in this context. Lavateraguy (talk) 22:23, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

I think the Latinization is a red herring. Under Art. 23.11 (I had to hunt for it), the two words in "le testui" must be "united or hyphenated". Vague as it is, I think we would agree that "le" can't "stand independently" here, hence the union, without hyphen. Looking at Ex. 40, Latin "adjective noun" phrases get united (so if the epithet were Latin, it would be "belladomina" without hyphen) but I'm not sure how to apply that to a non-Latin phrase. That said, IPNI has suppressed the "belladonna" record in favor of "bella donna", so I'm willing to just take that as a decree that they "stand independently" and move on. Choess (talk) 04:09, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: Looks like {{speciesbox}} doesn't automatically italicise the title when there is a hyphen in the speciesbox. Is the hyphen the problem or the mismatch of article title and species name?  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:46, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

@Jts1882: yes, it's the mismatch of article title and species name, and it's deliberate to deal with articles at vernacular names. The article title has to match either the species name or the genus (to deal with monospecific genera). Peter coxhead (talk) 13:17, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

International Fossil Plant Names Index (IFPNI)

Is the International Fossil Plant Names Index (IFPNI) (Home page About page Contribute) a reliable secondary source? Are there better sources for the information it provides? Example taxon page: Cephalanthus pusillus. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 04:02, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

From what I've seen, it's like IPNI; it's very good for showing that a taxon name exists and providing details about where it was published. It's not good for showing that a taxon is accepted, or its classification within higher taxa. There aren't any other sources that are consistently better; it is worth checking IRMNG and the Paleobiology Database along with IFPNI, but I wouldn't take any of them as gospel regarding acceptance or a parent taxon (though there is something to be said if all three of these databases are in agreement). Plantdrew (talk) 04:33, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Cephalotaxus harringtonii var. wilsoniana

An article on the Taiwan plum yew (exact classification disputed) was recently created by a WikiEd student editor. This article was not really ready for mainspace yet and prior research on naming does not appear to have been conducted. While infra-species articles are generally discouraged on Wikipedia unless the name is in wide-spread common use, this level of classification may not even be a recognized taxon to start with. Although the variety rank is recognised by WFO and the IUCN, it is synonymized to the parent species by PoWO. Even worse, another article at Cephalotaxus wilsoniana was already in existence, though that title does not appear to still be recognised by anyone. PoWO synonymizes that name with Cephalotaxus harringtonii, while the Gymnosperm Database, WFO and the IUCN classify it as a synonym of the variety wilsoniana.

Keeping the article may be appropriate as enough was written on it that it appears to be notable as a distinct taxon, particularly if it we was to be augmented and verified with information from the Gymnosperm Database entry. But leaving the article at the scientific name would be inconsistent with the parent taxon article which does not mention any accepted infraspecies for that species other than as synonyms. Merging it to the Cephalotaxus wilsoniana article would require a new article page title as that name is no longer recognised. While not commonly done for plant articles, it may be best to merge the two and place the resulting article at the common name. This would not run afoul of PoWO, and could still be linked from the parent species article without introducing any nomenclatural inconsistencies. At the very least, we can affirm that there is a "population" of yews on Taiwan that are referred to as "Taiwan plum yew". Regardless of the accepted scientific classification of this population, the common name referring to it is not in dispute. Loopy30 (talk) 17:56, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

This is not the only inconsistency around Cephalotaxus. There is a cluster of taxa around harringtonii (wilsoniana, koreana, sinensis, latifolia) where which are distinct species is disputed. Several of the taxa in the synonym list at Cephalotaxus harringtonii are actually synonyms of taxa with species articles in Wikipedia.

Flora of Taiwan recognised wilsoniana, Flora of China treated it as a subspecies of sinensis. The Gymnosperm Database sinks koreana into harringtonii, and might be interpreted to do the same with sinensis and latifolia. Lavateraguy (talk) 19:34, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Also the species must be harringtonia, this was already allowed implicitly in the Shenzhen code but in Madrid voted to be made explicit. Weepingraf (talk) 20:40, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Having reread article 60, I think it is to be corrected to harringtonii under article 60.8. Why do you think otherwise? Lavateraguy (talk) 22:11, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

A discussion occurred at Talk:Cephalotaxus harringtonii § Article title that began almost 9 years ago on this very topic. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 23:09, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

The Gymnosperm Database says Cephalotaxus should be treated as a feminine noun. This seems quite clear according to Article 62 (see Ex. 2 under 62.2 on Parasitaxus).  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:00, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

The gender of the genus is not at issue here. Gender agreement applies when the epithet is an adjective, but not when it is a noun in apposition or a genitive noun. (See Article 23.5.) I understand harringtonii as a genitive noun. For comparison see Pinus, which is also a feminine noun. The epithets include nigra (a feminine adjective), coulteri (a masculine genitive noun) and herrerae (a feminine genitive noun); for the genitive nouns the gender is that of the person or whatever referenced. Another example would be Pilosella with aurantiaca (feminine adjective) and officinarum (female plural genitive noun).

It's not completely cut and dried - one would expect Lagunaria patersonia to be correctable to patersonii, but IPNI interprets the basionym Hibiscus patersonius as an irregularly formed but not correctable adjective (-ius rather than -ianus). IPNI has Taxus harringtonia and discusses the etymology but not the grammar. One could imagine that it's another irregular adjectival formation, or a noun in apposition (coining Harringtonia as a vernacular name for the plant, and then applying it as an epithet), but looking at the original publication it looks to me as if a genitive noun was intended. (I've no idea how to get my hands on a copy of the underlying manuscript.)

Another issue is that the original publication says that Taxus harringtonia comes from (or a least was discovered in) Malaya, which is way outside the range of Cephalotaxus harringtonii agg. I expect that someone has looked at the type and confirmed that the type is the Japanese species, but this is the sort of thing I don't like to assume. (I wouldn't expect a Malayan Cephalotaxus to be hardy in Britain; I suspect that Forbes thought of all plum yews as a single species.) Lavateraguy (talk) 15:32, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Looking at IPNI, J. Knight appears to have published two botanical works - one on Proteaceae, and Syn. Conif. (published 11 years after Taxus harringtonia). On the hypothesis that this was based on the manuscript referred to in Pinetum Woburnense I had a look to see if it shed any light, but in this later work Knight treats with species as Cephalotaxus pedunculata, with Taxus harringtonia mentioned only as a synonym. FWIW, it gives Lord Harrington's Yew as the vernacular name. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:19, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Please read the proposal here [1]https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12261

which was accepted in Madrid, see here: [2]https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.13258

so it MUST be "harringtonia", there is now no more doubt about allowing such epithets. Weepingraf (talk) 19:01, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I'm going to do a quick compare of the genus Cephalotaxus among the taxonomic databases. I am inclined to go with POWO because it is a vascular plant genus. One thing WikiEd seems to do is bring up issues with articles and taxa we possibly hadn't noticed. I guess that's a silver lining. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 21:43, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps this is overkill, but the following table shows the current situation of the genus and species among POWO, WFO, and Wikipedia. The last column is my suggestion based on POWO, our standard practice of generally not having infraspecies articles, and what appears to be the likelihood that POWO is using an incorrect epithet for Cephalotaxus harringtonii. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 23:53, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Rank	Taxon	POWO	WFO	Wikipedia	Class	Suggested action
genus	Cephalotaxus	a	a	y	start	edit to represent current taxonomy
species	Cephalotaxus alpina (H.L.Li) L.K.Fu	a	s of Cephalotaxus fortunei var. alpina	no		create
species	Cephalotaxus fortunei Hook.	a	a	y	start	keep
variety	Cephalotaxus fortunei var. alpina H.L.Li	s of Cephalotaxus alpina	a	no	n/a	do not create
variety	Cephalotaxus fortunei var. fortunei	n/a	a	no	n/a	do not create
species	Cephalotaxus griffithii Hook.f.	a	s of Cephalotaxus oliveri	y	stub	keep
species	Cephalotaxus hainanensis H.L.Li	a	a	y	start	keep
species	Cephalotaxus harringtonii (Knight ex J.Forbes) K.Koch	a (as Cephalotaxus harringtonia)	a	y	start	keep
variety	Cephalotaxus harringtonia var. nana (Nakai) Rehder	s of Cephalotaxus nana	a (as Cephalotaxus harringtonii var. nana)	no	n/a	do not create
variety	Cephalotaxus harringtonii var. wilsoniana (Hayata) Kitam.	s of Cephalotaxus harringtonia	a	y	start	merge with and redirect to Cephalotaxus harringtonii
species	Cephalotaxus koreana Nakai	s of Cephalotaxus nana	s of Cephalotaxus harringtonii	y	stub	merge with and redirect to Cephalotaxus nana
species	Cephalotaxus lanceolata K.M.Feng ex C.Y.Cheng, W.C.Cheng & L.K.Fu	s of Cephalotaxus griffithii	a	y	stub	merge with and redirect to Cephalotaxus griffithii
species	Cephalotaxus latifolia W.C.Cheng & L.K.Fu ex L.K.Fu & R.R.Mill	s of Cephalotaxus nana	a	y	stub	merge with and redirect to Cephalotaxus nana
species	Cephalotaxus mannii Hook.f.	a	a	y	stub	keep
species	Cephalotaxus nana Nakai	a	s of Cephalotaxus harringtonii var. nana	no		create
species	Cephalotaxus oliveri Mast.	a	a	y	start	keep
species	Cephalotaxus sinensis (Rehder & E.H.Wilson) H.L.Li	s of Cephalotaxus harringtonia	a	y	stub	merge with and redirect to Cephalotaxus harringtonii
species	Cephalotaxus wilsoniana Hayata	s of Cephalotaxus harringtonia	s of Cephalotaxus harringtonii var. wilsoniana	y	stub	merge with and redirect to Cephalotaxus harringtonii

RFC Notability (species) re monotypic taxa

After some discussion at Wikipedia talk:Notability (species) § Monotypic taxons regarding adding something in the recently-accepted notability guideline for species, a request for comments on an addition to the guideline has been posted at Wikipedia talk:Notability (species) § RFC monotypic genera. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 21:35, 8 December 2024 (UTC)

Disagreements between databases

Okay, so I have Penstemon cerrosensis Kellogg which is listed as accepted and a priority date of 1863 by WFO. This is also the name used in iNaturalist and they redirect Penstemon cedrosensis to it as a synonym. Meanwhile POWO lists Penstemon cedrosensis Krautter as accepted with a priority date to 1908. Looking at Louis Krautter's paper from 1908, he says he's not describing a new species but for some reason giving the correct name but citing Albert Kellogg, if I understand what sub nomine means in a botanical context. POWO says that P. cerrosensis is an unplaced name. So am I right in understanding that POWO, saying they are agreeing with the modern botanist J.L. Villaseñor, is saying there was/is something wrong with the Kellogg description and naming of P. cerrosensis, and therefore even though Krautter did not know it at the time, he was making the correct description of the species? My second question is if I would be right to ignore POWO since most recent papers use P. cerrosensis with apparently no results for P. cedrosensis in papers post 2000 in JSTOR or Wiley. Though I will also note and rant that WFO lists both names as accepted just to make their position extra unclear. I think I will email them today saying something like, "fine to pick a side, but just pick one." 🌿MtBotany (talk) 20:04, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Kellogg's protolog is here. Scroll up a few pages, and we find that it's in a list of plants collected on Cerros Island, hence the name. This is more usually spelled "Cedros", as it is in Spanish, and Krautter seems to have changed the spelling of the epithet to match that. However, "Cerros" seems to me to be a legitimate alternative spelling of the location in English, so Krautter's correction isn't justified under the code. I would start by contacting the IPNI team to have P. cedrosensis marked as an orthographic variant of P. cerrosensis, the original spelling; once that's in, we can work on propagating it up to the taxonomic databases (POWO and WFO). Choess (talk) 20:25, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

You've pipped me at the post. I was writing much the same thing when Wikipedia informed me of the addition of your edit. (One might argue that Cerros was a solecism, since the name is a reference to cedars, but Cerros seems to have been at least frequent in American usage at the time of publication, so one can hardly justify treating it as an error by Kellogg.) Lavateraguy (talk) 20:37, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

I certainly agree that it was not a justified correction on the part of Krautter, but I'm also not sure if there might be something else going on here as well. There is a 1937 paper by Keck saying more or less exactly the same thing about the correction to P. cedrosensis. "Since Cedros Island was known on the earlier maps and to writers in English as Cerros Island, even though erroneously so, the spelling employed by Kellogg was intentional and is not subject to correction."

However, doing more searching I have since found a number of recent papers using the name Penstemon cedrosensis.

• Hamilton, Ashley M.; Wessinger, Carolyn A. (2022) Adaptation to lower latitudes and lower elevations precedes the evolution of hummingbird pollination in western North American Penstemon. American Journal of Botany 109 (6): 1050
• Riemann, Hugo; Ezcurra, Exequiel (2004) Plant endemism and natural protected areas in the peninsula of Baja California, Mexico Biological Conservation 122 (1): 147
• Villaseñor, José Luis (2016) Checklist of the native vascular plants of México Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad 87 (3): 837

The checklist compiled by Villaseñor also specifically cites Krautter.

Could it be that Kellogg failed to designate a type specimen that is why POWO lists P. cerrosensis as unplaced? But if that is the case there ought to be a paper somewhere post 1908 saying such. Or it could be simple confusion. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 20:27, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Per Article 40.1 explicit definition of a type was not required prior to 1958. There may be scope for lectotypification, if someone hasn't already done this, but the paper's reference to a gathering by Veatch identifies a type or set of syntypes. (See note below about Rhamnus insula.) If this was not sufficient all of Kellogg's names in Proc. Cal. Acad. Sci. would be equally invalid.

I would suspect that POWO lists cerroensis as unplaced because it relies on a source document that doesn't mention (ignores as an orthographic variant) that name for accepted species of Penstemon. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:26, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

A 3rd nomenclatural ambiguity (in addition Cephalotaxus and Penstemon)

In the same paper as Penstemon cerroensis Kellogg also described Rhamnus insulus, which Greene corrected to insularis in 1887. IPNI corrects insulus to insula which suggests that it is treating it the same as patersonius, i.e. as a non-correctable variant of insulanus (which can mean either 'islander' or 'of the island'). insularis is the usual form for 'of the island' in botanical Latin, but it seems that both insulanus and insularis are good Latin.

POWO treats insula as the correct name, but reduces it to subspecific rank.

IPNI says the type is from Santa Cruz. Kellogg mentioned specimens from Cedros and Santa Cruz, so I guess that someone lectotypified it on the Santa Cruz specimen. Lavateraguy (talk) 21:07, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Introducing Let's Connect

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Serine Ben Brahim Serine Ben Brahim (talk) 09:19, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

RfC at Talk:Catnip#Request for comment on catnip alternatives for cats

This RfC, which may interest editors of this WikiProject, concerns removing the long-term language about alternatives in the lede. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:49, 13 December 2024 (UTC)

Is World of Succulents a reliable source?

Hi, noticed some red links and am thinking of helping the project by creating new articles. Looked up the sources guide in the main part of the project page and didn't find anything under keyword searches for cactus, cacti, or succulents. Please provide pointers if I've overlooked something. One of the most readily available online references on the topic is the World of Succulents website. Would you regard it as an adequate source? Baresbran (talk) 02:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

I can't find authorship information for the articles there (and the first article I clicked seemed to have been lifted wholesale from gardeningknowhow.com, obligingly linked). I get the strong impression that this is some kind of content aggregation setup and probably not reliable for our purposes. The relevant project sources are probably floras of particular regions (i.e., South Africa), which may explain why your sources on particular groups of plants didn't turn up anything. Choess (talk) 02:45, 17 December 2024 (UTC)

Thank you. That's not unexpected. Appreciate your reply. Baresbran (talk) 04:52, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

If you're a cactus and succulent enthusiast, and you have printed books on the topic, adding material sourced to those would be extremely valuable to the encyclopedia—we all have a tendency to pick low-hanging fruit (e.g., online sources). A lot of it is old out-of-copyright material, but Biodiversity Heritage Library is also a good place to look for material of interest. Choess (talk) 05:03, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Biodiversity Heritage is great, but you are right that it is mostly old out of copyright stuff. I find getting an account at archive.org and searching their book catalog for species names to be a fairly useful technique. As a succulent example if I put in "Sedum lanceolatum" as a search in the book contents I get a lot of results. Government reports, old journals (the same ones from biodiversity heritage), and also many recent books. Wildflower guide books, gardening books, natural history books, etc. Here is an intersting one from my example search Sedum : Cultivated Stonecrops by Stephenson published Timber Press. Seems like a good reliable source. Hurm. And the article for that stonecrop is rather light... I might have the next thing to work on. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 16:59, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Much obliged for the suggestions. Baresbran (talk) 05:07, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Firstly, Baresbran, I see that you're new to Wikipedia: welcome!

I would concur with Choess - while I don't see any particularly problematic information, the lack of authorship information is a big red flag. Best to avoid using that site and, on articles where it used as a reference, replace it with a higher quality source.

For what it's worth, the excellent Illustated Handbook of Succulent Plants[3] series is accessible through WP:TWL - this requires a 6 month old account and at least 500 edits, though I believe you can apply to access specific materials before those milestones. If you'd like any help finding more sources on succulents I would be happy to assist :) Ethmostigmus 🌿 (talk | contribs) 09:01, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

Sounds good. Have been checking proposed edits by running keyword searches on Google Scholar, so far. Baresbran (talk) 05:08, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Submitted proposed article

Have started going through redlinks at List of Agave species, starting stub articles where reliable sources can be found. The first submission is waiting for review as Draft:Agave_abisaii. Baresbran (talk) 05:46, 19 December 2024 (UTC)

Category:Flora without expected TNC conservation status

My apologies if this is something dreadfully obvious - I'm a new editor, so I'm just double-checking

Once a TNC conservation status is added to an article in Category:Flora without expected TNC conservation status, is it acceptable to remove the category tag from the article? Cayuga3 (talk) 13:28, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes. And thanks for doing the work. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 18:03, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

World Flora Online

The December update has been made on WFO Plant List and I've noticed that the updates haven't appeared in main WFO site. I was comparing Dicranella as treated by Bryonames and WFO. Dicranella rufipes (Müll. Hal.) Kindb. is (still?) recognised as a species by WFO, but no longer by Bryonames or, with the December update, by WFO List which have it as a synonym of Aongstroemia campylophylla (Taylor) Müll.Hal..

I'm a little surprised by this as I'd have expected them to use the same database. While I assume this is temporary, I thought I'd mention it here so people are aware there may be different treatments on the two sites. The Wikidata ID item was changed to link to WFO List (by one of the WFO list team) and now the links in the {{taxonbar}} now go there rather than the more general site, which also has distributions and other biological information. The two sites have links to each other but the link from WFO Plant List to WFO is not obvious. I wonder if the taxonbar should be modified to show both links.  —  Jts1882 | talk  11:28, 23 December 2024 (UTC)