![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | ← | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 | Archive 21 | Archive 22 | → | Archive 25 |
Several anonymous editors have been adding links to ticklemeplant.com in Mimosa pudica and inserting mentions of the name in several related articles like Houseplant, Thigmotropism, Rapid plant movement, and so forth. Tickleme Plant appears to be a trademark for a commercial product rather than a common name with significant precedent, i.e. [1] [2] [3] [4]. The name Tickleme Plant is not listed in plant databases that list common names, e.g. [5] [6] [7]. That it is a tradename or trademark is not in and of itself reason to remove the links and spam-like insertions in the body of these several articles, but that it is a name without significant precedence and that these editors are so aggressively reinserting the material attests to the fact that they are using Wikipedia as advertising space. I have dealt with spammers before, and my warnings are usually ignored, so I wonder if I could elicit help in fending of the spammers. The articles affected include Houseplant, Thigmotropism, Mimosa pudica, Mimosa, and Rapid plant movement. -- ♦♦♦Vlmastra♦♦♦ ( talk) 19:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Without (known) access to a flora database for South America, is this: http://bnhm.berkeley.edu/query/sa.php?uk=UCBGSouth+America50.0970&ic=UCBG a credible source of this kind of information? -- carol ( talk) 15:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Attention plant community! This article is embarassingly short and needs content. Also, do folks think this should be rated as "top" or "High" priority? The article isn't assessed at all right now, and I'm torn as to which level of importance it merits, in part because the article has so little information right now, but could have a lot. Opinions? Help? -- EncycloPetey ( talk) 22:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I have been working on SVG versions of the Ecozone map which should also be selectable by political division (kind of -- it is really funny to me that Luxemborg and Russia are equals in defined area for the purposes that I am highlighting areas for, which is its own essay on how humans are so unnatural to this world...); it has been kind of slow going -- I learned that inkscape only magnifies to +25000%, and that might be missing a 0, and it is still not big enough to select one island somewhere.... Needless to say, the maps I am working with are beautiful because of the detail yet, my mind wanders because of it.
My disappointment with the plant project -- I am not going to go into all of that except for a few details. In my mind, I was thinking it would be a source of resources as well as knowledgeable people. After the kick in the balls that informs a person that they are not ever to be welcomed to 'Featured things', looking at the 'featured things' becomes a task perhaps better for those who have achieved this; that is how my narrow mind works. So, the suggestion to look at those is not the best resource, in my opinion, and how the example is delivered as an example is not the best way to get people to look at them. In real life, I have been known for the ability (and willingness) to make an apology that hurts and probably isn't one, I can see this going there now, can you? </stopping that>
I have seen, hints or examples that I think should be here. I remembered seeing a bunch of urls for Flora of sites and wandered around user pages until I found them here. Snow White (someone -- I can't remember whom) had a hack for Firefox spell checking of botanical words. The maps I am working on -- I think they will be better (once completed) with input from others who are also using them to highlight the range in which their species can be found, and I would like to put them here when they are finished -- along with a few hints I have about how to select large areas of small islands more quickly. I am certain that there are other resources like this.
Then, about the commons. I want to cry every time I look at the Category called SVG plants range maps. Flora range maps is easier to look at without crying, but how useful are they? I have been putting mine in the same category with the species. They are not two separate wiki as much as they appear to be. Logical management of those plant specific categories there should start here? I am not much into the making of gallery there -- it is a soul sucking experience which can be undone in an instant and degrades more quickly than simply putting all of the images into logical categories. This is my opinion, please do not attempt to make me change it. What is a useful category? If you needed to find a range map for some species of plant, where would you look first? -- carol ( talk) 06:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Another thing I've been meaning to point out, since it doesn't get the attention it deserves, is WikiProject Resource Exchange. Requests for resources there are usually filled successfully. -- Rkitko ( talk) 13:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Can we put together some resources that would be useful for more than just plants and get together in Egypt? The maps are one thing like that -- but maybe there are other things? I should think that spell check hacks would be very useful and refreshingly generic, but these are the things that I have seen -- there has to be other things equally useful and able to become a Wikimedia project. There already was a certain amount of working together before I got here -- can that expand or at least continue?
This is also a little feeler to see if everyone else has that message on the wiki in their browser. -- carol ( talk) 08:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
People might be aware of this already, but my understanding of taxobox colors is: (a) it is not desirable to specify a color if it can be deduced from the kingdom (currently, correctly handled for archaeplastida or plantae or plantae based on looking at the source to Template:Taxobox_colour), and (b) Eubot is currently working on a mass remove of the unnecessary colors from plant articles: see User:Eubot/Removing colours from taxoboxen (specifically "I'm now starting on the plants" dated 15:35, 8 March). Kingdon ( talk) 18:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I've nominated Category:Endemic flora of Hawaii ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for renaming to Category:Flora of Hawaii ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs). Given that this category falls under the scope of this WikiProject, I thought I'd stop by and let everyone know that they should feel free to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 March 12#Category:Endemic flora of Hawaii. Thanks! -- jonny- m t 02:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
The alternative proposal was a suggestion that we could and perhaps should divide our flora by distribution categories into subcategories for naturalised, indigenous and endemic flora:
--Flora of Hawaii |--Indigenous flora of Hawaii / Native flora of Hawaii | |--Endemic flora of Hawaii | |--Naturalised flora of Hawaii
This is probably not something we have to act on immediately. I suggest it should be an aspirational guideline rather than a rule. However, I intend to try this out in the Flora of Australia categories pretty soon. So if anyone wants to talk me out of it, or anyone has any wise words to offer, I'm all ears. Hesperian 06:19, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
For months I've been considering the need to start WikiProject Trees as subproject to WikiProject Plants. I am gathering, and preparing a single page to start this sub, which I think should consider both botanical and cultural aspects of trees as living beings, important in both the natural aspects as well as human usage, folk and ethnic dimensions. The sub would deal and manage quality, improvements, etc of tree species, the main tree article, derivatives and cultural representations articles. It is a growing thing! I'm aware permission is not needed, but this is a community and as well as invite, I'd like to hear views, comments, suggestions and critics to the page about to be posted. And mainly: collaborators! I personally love those woody things that give me shadow, food and memories, so any other tree lovers willing to add to this... reply here. Thanks!! Abestrobi ( talk) 00:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
OK folks, I am buoyed as Polar bear was the first mammal collaboration and seems to be slowly ambling toward GAN or FAC or something of that nature. I figured, like mammals, there are a few big articles which would be a herculean task for one editor but may be doable as a collaboration, and the topic is broad enough that there are a few folks interested (though sadly, Circeus has just retired). Is anyone interested in voting or participating in a plant collaboration? If more than, say one or two folks are then I can set up a voting page and we can see what happens. Casliber ( talk · contribs) 10:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, I started it up, listing a bunch of articles which were there already, all mainly core ones. Ambitious but maybe a bit too much so for first off. A discrete species may be a better bet first off as it is more circumscribed and requires less botanical expertise. Anyway, please add your own nomnations or vote on ones already there. You can vote more than once but it does dilute your vote. Let's see where this takes us. Front runner on march 28th will be collaboration for a month. Casliber ( talk · contribs) 11:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
See below, but another possible collaboration would be to collect photographs and enter text descriptions of flowering plants blooming currently on the bloom clock keys. there are a lot of plants (esp. cultivars) for which we have no good images, descriptions, or even articles! -- SB_Johnny | talk 12:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
After noticing that the new data from England seems well into springtime plants flowering (though we need much more data from there... the chief contributor in Manchester is very much a "neophyte" when it comes to plant identification), I thought I'd drop a reminder here about the bloom clock and give some updates on its progress.
The Wikiversity Bloom Clock is now well into its fourth semi-annual cycle, with profiles of over 500 plants and counting, many of which now having multi-year and multi-regional logs. We're starting to develop the global keys for temperate regions as well, in the hopes of starting to solve the problem discussed here 2 years ago about the lack of any global standard for discussing bloom seasons. If anyone has the time, all we need is about 10 plants during a given month from a given region to start a key and have data to compare to (more is much better, of course). Data from regions outside of New England and the Mid-Atlantic region would be especially useful, and data from the Southern Hemisphere perhaps even more so.
Aside from the global keys, I've been fiddling a bit with creating horticultural lists, which are essentially plant selectors for people looking for plants that are native or non-invasive, good nectar sources, etc. The native vs. invasive lists in particular require some help from knowledgeable people from different regions, since these lists are of course geographically specific (e.g., Hesperis matronalis is a rather serious invasive here in Pennsylvania, but I'm sure it's considered a wonderful wildflower where native).
We're still working on the "wow, this is complicated!" problem. As a stop-gap measure, we are using a mentoring system... if you sign up as a contributor you will recieve a welcome message from one of the available mentors. An instruction manual is in the works, but the massive use of templates, subpages, and DynamicPageList will probably require mentorship to be a permanent institution in any case.
This year we will also be working on a "bug clock" and plant pathogen clock as well (a major aim of the bloom clock is to provide phenological data for use in Integrated Pest Management systems).
Finally, we're working on outreach flyers, which are intended to be printed out andd dropped off at arboretums, public gardens, etc. If anyone is good at writing these things (essentially proposals), please have a look at this page and edit for "professionalism" :).
One related question: a contributor asked yesterday about whether and how we could log for mosses. I know very little about them, but is there any promise in doing some sort of logs for mosses, ferns, and other primitive plants? I'm guessing it might need a different clock since the bloom clock templates wouldn't apply very well to them.
I'm going to make an additional announcement on the VP as well, since we've found that the clock works quite well for helping people who don't know plants to learn about them. Please feel free to suggest other online communities where we might find interested people. -- SB_Johnny | talk 11:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps there should be some sort of 'priority' requests for topics of high importance like, e.g. plant ecology. Anything that would be likely to be labeled high or top importance is what I'm talking about, though even mid importance articles are pretty urgent. This could be done perhaps by having a section on the main project page, linking to the requests page for the full details and just showing the most urgent requests. It could also be done simply by putting (high priority) or {top priority) after the most important requests. If represented on the project page it could come under a broader heading 'priority tasks', including other important tasks for the project such as expanding the lead section of the plant article. Richard001 ( talk) 23:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
On Talk:Strawberry#merge with garden strawberry I proposed moving Strawberry to Fragaria for the reasons described there. There has been no discussion since my proposal. I'd like to do this, and then tidy up the page to move material which should be at garden strawberry. However, because Fragaria is currently a redirect, I believe I need an admin to do this. Can one of our admins please do this (if you think it is sufficiently uncontroversial), or discuss further (if needed). Kingdon ( talk) 04:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I realise that the proposed move is in line with our naming policy, but I also think that it is inadvisable to act too hastily, if only because there will be a sizeable body of people who screech WTF?!
I think a far better approach would be to split the article into two articles:
I would like to see a bit of discussion on this leading to some consensus, before we tackle this, as this issue is much bigger than this one pair of articles. There are an awful lot of pairs of articles that this will impact eventually e.g. Cocos nucifera/ Coconut, Zea mays/ Maize, Malus domestica/ Apple, etcetera.
Hesperian 05:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Would appreciate inputs from other editors at Talk:Mimosa pudica regarding ongoing insertion of references to TickleMe Plant into this article-- Melburnian ( talk) 04:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Just before we nominate it as a collaboration, just wanted to clarify the following:
Talk:Ginkgo#Splitting_article.3F - is it time to split, and what do we call the pages....Cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 10:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
A proposal to make an inline version. Please see it there.-- Curtis Clark ( talk) 03:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Some editors have gotten something together on hapaxanthy at the article titled Hapaxanth. It, in part, states that the term is one used in bamboo literature. From what I could briefly gather there seems to be mentions of the word in bamboo and rattan journals but this seemed to be the case because of the rattan palms and not the bamboo. Thats to say, I cant confirm that pleonanthy and hapaxanthy are terms related to bamboo sexuality. If they are not, and they are only related to palms, I might have a go at rewriting hapaxanth and starting pleonanthy. Does anyone have an opinion about where the articles should be out of, say, hapaxanth, hapaxanthic, hapaxanthy? I would say hapaxanthy and pleonanthy as far as naming goes but would like to hear opinions. Perhaps there needn't be both with, instead, both conditions described at Palm sexuality or similar. Or are the terms too uncommon to warrant inclusion here and both should be shoved off to Wikitionary? Plant nerds, your thoughts.... Mmcknight4 ( talk) 07:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
The only times I have run across the term in relation to palms is in the classification of different groups, sometimes its used to speak only about a branch and not the entire plant. Do some palms have separate male and female plants? Hardyplants ( talk) 08:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC) This google search turns up a number of papers using the term: http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=1Ta&q=hapaxanthic+palms&btnG=Search Hardyplants ( talk) 08:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
To put it a little differently, Wikipedia's inclusive nature, especially with regard to the variety of plant life, will necessarily oblige it to eventually address the method of reproduction in palms. Sure, they are a sliver of plant life but a diverse and important one nonetheless. And I realize many editors are working on specific tasks of their own. I know for myself I couldn't possibly begin to edit with any efficacy by hopping from here to there, so Im not asking everybody to drop what they're doing to sort out this one issue. Usually, if I can get it close enough I'm not hesitant to fill a gap but I am not trained in plant sexuality and have no material on the subject so I cant fake it. One of the obstacles is the conflicting nature of online material. One page said rather explicitly that hapaxanthy is not particular to palms. Some sources say hapaxanthy is a form of monocarpy. Some say it isnt. Some say it is the condition where a stem of a plant dies rather the whole organism but even the palm guy Dransfield has published material explaining that hapaxanthic palms may be sympodial or monopodial. Incidentally, those two articles could benefit from a trained plant person. So without assuming you have nothing better to do, if any of you learned plant people can give any kind of guidance I would appreciate it, and I believe the project and its users would be benefited. Species, genus, and other various plant articles are easily written by interloping naturalists like myself, but the hair-splitting or otherwise complex material will likely rely in large part to those editors with both specific knowledge and access to relevant material, and help from any of you would, again, be appreciated. Mmcknight4 ( talk) 02:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
As regards at least the start of this argument, I have seen hapaxanthic used in combination with bamboos. For example, Mabberley's "The Plant Book" refers to some bamboo flowers as hapaxanthic in the entry for bamboo. The dominant usage does seem to be in reference to palms, but plenty of reliable sources confirm that that usage is not exclusive. DJLayton4 ( talk) 06:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
A new user has uploaded a large number of unknown plant requests at v:Bloom Clock/Unknown Plants. The logs are from somewhere in India, and I'm afraid we don't have anyone around who knows the flora of that region. If anyone coud venture some guesses, please do! -- SB_Johnny | talk 11:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 15 | ← | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 | Archive 21 | Archive 22 | → | Archive 25 |
Several anonymous editors have been adding links to ticklemeplant.com in Mimosa pudica and inserting mentions of the name in several related articles like Houseplant, Thigmotropism, Rapid plant movement, and so forth. Tickleme Plant appears to be a trademark for a commercial product rather than a common name with significant precedent, i.e. [1] [2] [3] [4]. The name Tickleme Plant is not listed in plant databases that list common names, e.g. [5] [6] [7]. That it is a tradename or trademark is not in and of itself reason to remove the links and spam-like insertions in the body of these several articles, but that it is a name without significant precedence and that these editors are so aggressively reinserting the material attests to the fact that they are using Wikipedia as advertising space. I have dealt with spammers before, and my warnings are usually ignored, so I wonder if I could elicit help in fending of the spammers. The articles affected include Houseplant, Thigmotropism, Mimosa pudica, Mimosa, and Rapid plant movement. -- ♦♦♦Vlmastra♦♦♦ ( talk) 19:10, 1 March 2008 (UTC)
Without (known) access to a flora database for South America, is this: http://bnhm.berkeley.edu/query/sa.php?uk=UCBGSouth+America50.0970&ic=UCBG a credible source of this kind of information? -- carol ( talk) 15:02, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Attention plant community! This article is embarassingly short and needs content. Also, do folks think this should be rated as "top" or "High" priority? The article isn't assessed at all right now, and I'm torn as to which level of importance it merits, in part because the article has so little information right now, but could have a lot. Opinions? Help? -- EncycloPetey ( talk) 22:59, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
I have been working on SVG versions of the Ecozone map which should also be selectable by political division (kind of -- it is really funny to me that Luxemborg and Russia are equals in defined area for the purposes that I am highlighting areas for, which is its own essay on how humans are so unnatural to this world...); it has been kind of slow going -- I learned that inkscape only magnifies to +25000%, and that might be missing a 0, and it is still not big enough to select one island somewhere.... Needless to say, the maps I am working with are beautiful because of the detail yet, my mind wanders because of it.
My disappointment with the plant project -- I am not going to go into all of that except for a few details. In my mind, I was thinking it would be a source of resources as well as knowledgeable people. After the kick in the balls that informs a person that they are not ever to be welcomed to 'Featured things', looking at the 'featured things' becomes a task perhaps better for those who have achieved this; that is how my narrow mind works. So, the suggestion to look at those is not the best resource, in my opinion, and how the example is delivered as an example is not the best way to get people to look at them. In real life, I have been known for the ability (and willingness) to make an apology that hurts and probably isn't one, I can see this going there now, can you? </stopping that>
I have seen, hints or examples that I think should be here. I remembered seeing a bunch of urls for Flora of sites and wandered around user pages until I found them here. Snow White (someone -- I can't remember whom) had a hack for Firefox spell checking of botanical words. The maps I am working on -- I think they will be better (once completed) with input from others who are also using them to highlight the range in which their species can be found, and I would like to put them here when they are finished -- along with a few hints I have about how to select large areas of small islands more quickly. I am certain that there are other resources like this.
Then, about the commons. I want to cry every time I look at the Category called SVG plants range maps. Flora range maps is easier to look at without crying, but how useful are they? I have been putting mine in the same category with the species. They are not two separate wiki as much as they appear to be. Logical management of those plant specific categories there should start here? I am not much into the making of gallery there -- it is a soul sucking experience which can be undone in an instant and degrades more quickly than simply putting all of the images into logical categories. This is my opinion, please do not attempt to make me change it. What is a useful category? If you needed to find a range map for some species of plant, where would you look first? -- carol ( talk) 06:42, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
Another thing I've been meaning to point out, since it doesn't get the attention it deserves, is WikiProject Resource Exchange. Requests for resources there are usually filled successfully. -- Rkitko ( talk) 13:04, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
Can we put together some resources that would be useful for more than just plants and get together in Egypt? The maps are one thing like that -- but maybe there are other things? I should think that spell check hacks would be very useful and refreshingly generic, but these are the things that I have seen -- there has to be other things equally useful and able to become a Wikimedia project. There already was a certain amount of working together before I got here -- can that expand or at least continue?
This is also a little feeler to see if everyone else has that message on the wiki in their browser. -- carol ( talk) 08:34, 8 March 2008 (UTC)
People might be aware of this already, but my understanding of taxobox colors is: (a) it is not desirable to specify a color if it can be deduced from the kingdom (currently, correctly handled for archaeplastida or plantae or plantae based on looking at the source to Template:Taxobox_colour), and (b) Eubot is currently working on a mass remove of the unnecessary colors from plant articles: see User:Eubot/Removing colours from taxoboxen (specifically "I'm now starting on the plants" dated 15:35, 8 March). Kingdon ( talk) 18:21, 9 March 2008 (UTC)
I've nominated Category:Endemic flora of Hawaii ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) for renaming to Category:Flora of Hawaii ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs). Given that this category falls under the scope of this WikiProject, I thought I'd stop by and let everyone know that they should feel free to comment on the discussion at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 March 12#Category:Endemic flora of Hawaii. Thanks! -- jonny- m t 02:12, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
The alternative proposal was a suggestion that we could and perhaps should divide our flora by distribution categories into subcategories for naturalised, indigenous and endemic flora:
--Flora of Hawaii |--Indigenous flora of Hawaii / Native flora of Hawaii | |--Endemic flora of Hawaii | |--Naturalised flora of Hawaii
This is probably not something we have to act on immediately. I suggest it should be an aspirational guideline rather than a rule. However, I intend to try this out in the Flora of Australia categories pretty soon. So if anyone wants to talk me out of it, or anyone has any wise words to offer, I'm all ears. Hesperian 06:19, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
For months I've been considering the need to start WikiProject Trees as subproject to WikiProject Plants. I am gathering, and preparing a single page to start this sub, which I think should consider both botanical and cultural aspects of trees as living beings, important in both the natural aspects as well as human usage, folk and ethnic dimensions. The sub would deal and manage quality, improvements, etc of tree species, the main tree article, derivatives and cultural representations articles. It is a growing thing! I'm aware permission is not needed, but this is a community and as well as invite, I'd like to hear views, comments, suggestions and critics to the page about to be posted. And mainly: collaborators! I personally love those woody things that give me shadow, food and memories, so any other tree lovers willing to add to this... reply here. Thanks!! Abestrobi ( talk) 00:45, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
OK folks, I am buoyed as Polar bear was the first mammal collaboration and seems to be slowly ambling toward GAN or FAC or something of that nature. I figured, like mammals, there are a few big articles which would be a herculean task for one editor but may be doable as a collaboration, and the topic is broad enough that there are a few folks interested (though sadly, Circeus has just retired). Is anyone interested in voting or participating in a plant collaboration? If more than, say one or two folks are then I can set up a voting page and we can see what happens. Casliber ( talk · contribs) 10:29, 13 March 2008 (UTC)
OK, I started it up, listing a bunch of articles which were there already, all mainly core ones. Ambitious but maybe a bit too much so for first off. A discrete species may be a better bet first off as it is more circumscribed and requires less botanical expertise. Anyway, please add your own nomnations or vote on ones already there. You can vote more than once but it does dilute your vote. Let's see where this takes us. Front runner on march 28th will be collaboration for a month. Casliber ( talk · contribs) 11:36, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
See below, but another possible collaboration would be to collect photographs and enter text descriptions of flowering plants blooming currently on the bloom clock keys. there are a lot of plants (esp. cultivars) for which we have no good images, descriptions, or even articles! -- SB_Johnny | talk 12:02, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
After noticing that the new data from England seems well into springtime plants flowering (though we need much more data from there... the chief contributor in Manchester is very much a "neophyte" when it comes to plant identification), I thought I'd drop a reminder here about the bloom clock and give some updates on its progress.
The Wikiversity Bloom Clock is now well into its fourth semi-annual cycle, with profiles of over 500 plants and counting, many of which now having multi-year and multi-regional logs. We're starting to develop the global keys for temperate regions as well, in the hopes of starting to solve the problem discussed here 2 years ago about the lack of any global standard for discussing bloom seasons. If anyone has the time, all we need is about 10 plants during a given month from a given region to start a key and have data to compare to (more is much better, of course). Data from regions outside of New England and the Mid-Atlantic region would be especially useful, and data from the Southern Hemisphere perhaps even more so.
Aside from the global keys, I've been fiddling a bit with creating horticultural lists, which are essentially plant selectors for people looking for plants that are native or non-invasive, good nectar sources, etc. The native vs. invasive lists in particular require some help from knowledgeable people from different regions, since these lists are of course geographically specific (e.g., Hesperis matronalis is a rather serious invasive here in Pennsylvania, but I'm sure it's considered a wonderful wildflower where native).
We're still working on the "wow, this is complicated!" problem. As a stop-gap measure, we are using a mentoring system... if you sign up as a contributor you will recieve a welcome message from one of the available mentors. An instruction manual is in the works, but the massive use of templates, subpages, and DynamicPageList will probably require mentorship to be a permanent institution in any case.
This year we will also be working on a "bug clock" and plant pathogen clock as well (a major aim of the bloom clock is to provide phenological data for use in Integrated Pest Management systems).
Finally, we're working on outreach flyers, which are intended to be printed out andd dropped off at arboretums, public gardens, etc. If anyone is good at writing these things (essentially proposals), please have a look at this page and edit for "professionalism" :).
One related question: a contributor asked yesterday about whether and how we could log for mosses. I know very little about them, but is there any promise in doing some sort of logs for mosses, ferns, and other primitive plants? I'm guessing it might need a different clock since the bloom clock templates wouldn't apply very well to them.
I'm going to make an additional announcement on the VP as well, since we've found that the clock works quite well for helping people who don't know plants to learn about them. Please feel free to suggest other online communities where we might find interested people. -- SB_Johnny | talk 11:51, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps there should be some sort of 'priority' requests for topics of high importance like, e.g. plant ecology. Anything that would be likely to be labeled high or top importance is what I'm talking about, though even mid importance articles are pretty urgent. This could be done perhaps by having a section on the main project page, linking to the requests page for the full details and just showing the most urgent requests. It could also be done simply by putting (high priority) or {top priority) after the most important requests. If represented on the project page it could come under a broader heading 'priority tasks', including other important tasks for the project such as expanding the lead section of the plant article. Richard001 ( talk) 23:42, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
On Talk:Strawberry#merge with garden strawberry I proposed moving Strawberry to Fragaria for the reasons described there. There has been no discussion since my proposal. I'd like to do this, and then tidy up the page to move material which should be at garden strawberry. However, because Fragaria is currently a redirect, I believe I need an admin to do this. Can one of our admins please do this (if you think it is sufficiently uncontroversial), or discuss further (if needed). Kingdon ( talk) 04:57, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
I realise that the proposed move is in line with our naming policy, but I also think that it is inadvisable to act too hastily, if only because there will be a sizeable body of people who screech WTF?!
I think a far better approach would be to split the article into two articles:
I would like to see a bit of discussion on this leading to some consensus, before we tackle this, as this issue is much bigger than this one pair of articles. There are an awful lot of pairs of articles that this will impact eventually e.g. Cocos nucifera/ Coconut, Zea mays/ Maize, Malus domestica/ Apple, etcetera.
Hesperian 05:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)
Would appreciate inputs from other editors at Talk:Mimosa pudica regarding ongoing insertion of references to TickleMe Plant into this article-- Melburnian ( talk) 04:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
Just before we nominate it as a collaboration, just wanted to clarify the following:
Talk:Ginkgo#Splitting_article.3F - is it time to split, and what do we call the pages....Cheers, Casliber ( talk · contribs) 10:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)
A proposal to make an inline version. Please see it there.-- Curtis Clark ( talk) 03:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)
Some editors have gotten something together on hapaxanthy at the article titled Hapaxanth. It, in part, states that the term is one used in bamboo literature. From what I could briefly gather there seems to be mentions of the word in bamboo and rattan journals but this seemed to be the case because of the rattan palms and not the bamboo. Thats to say, I cant confirm that pleonanthy and hapaxanthy are terms related to bamboo sexuality. If they are not, and they are only related to palms, I might have a go at rewriting hapaxanth and starting pleonanthy. Does anyone have an opinion about where the articles should be out of, say, hapaxanth, hapaxanthic, hapaxanthy? I would say hapaxanthy and pleonanthy as far as naming goes but would like to hear opinions. Perhaps there needn't be both with, instead, both conditions described at Palm sexuality or similar. Or are the terms too uncommon to warrant inclusion here and both should be shoved off to Wikitionary? Plant nerds, your thoughts.... Mmcknight4 ( talk) 07:17, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
The only times I have run across the term in relation to palms is in the classification of different groups, sometimes its used to speak only about a branch and not the entire plant. Do some palms have separate male and female plants? Hardyplants ( talk) 08:53, 31 March 2008 (UTC) This google search turns up a number of papers using the term: http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=1Ta&q=hapaxanthic+palms&btnG=Search Hardyplants ( talk) 08:58, 31 March 2008 (UTC)
To put it a little differently, Wikipedia's inclusive nature, especially with regard to the variety of plant life, will necessarily oblige it to eventually address the method of reproduction in palms. Sure, they are a sliver of plant life but a diverse and important one nonetheless. And I realize many editors are working on specific tasks of their own. I know for myself I couldn't possibly begin to edit with any efficacy by hopping from here to there, so Im not asking everybody to drop what they're doing to sort out this one issue. Usually, if I can get it close enough I'm not hesitant to fill a gap but I am not trained in plant sexuality and have no material on the subject so I cant fake it. One of the obstacles is the conflicting nature of online material. One page said rather explicitly that hapaxanthy is not particular to palms. Some sources say hapaxanthy is a form of monocarpy. Some say it isnt. Some say it is the condition where a stem of a plant dies rather the whole organism but even the palm guy Dransfield has published material explaining that hapaxanthic palms may be sympodial or monopodial. Incidentally, those two articles could benefit from a trained plant person. So without assuming you have nothing better to do, if any of you learned plant people can give any kind of guidance I would appreciate it, and I believe the project and its users would be benefited. Species, genus, and other various plant articles are easily written by interloping naturalists like myself, but the hair-splitting or otherwise complex material will likely rely in large part to those editors with both specific knowledge and access to relevant material, and help from any of you would, again, be appreciated. Mmcknight4 ( talk) 02:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
As regards at least the start of this argument, I have seen hapaxanthic used in combination with bamboos. For example, Mabberley's "The Plant Book" refers to some bamboo flowers as hapaxanthic in the entry for bamboo. The dominant usage does seem to be in reference to palms, but plenty of reliable sources confirm that that usage is not exclusive. DJLayton4 ( talk) 06:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
A new user has uploaded a large number of unknown plant requests at v:Bloom Clock/Unknown Plants. The logs are from somewhere in India, and I'm afraid we don't have anyone around who knows the flora of that region. If anyone coud venture some guesses, please do! -- SB_Johnny | talk 11:01, 31 March 2008 (UTC)