Talk:Flowering plant

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 This article or section includes a list of references or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks in-text citations.
You can improve this article by introducing more precise citations.
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, now in the public domain.
Flowering plant is within the scope of WikiProject Plants, an attempt to better organize information in articles related to plants and botany. For more information, visit the project page.
B This article has been rated as b-class on the quality scale.
Top This article has been rated as top-importance on the importance scale.
To-do list for Flowering plant: edit · history · watch · refresh

Here are some tasks you can do:
  • Expand:
    • Expand lead
    • Add inline refs
Priority 1 (top) 

Old talk is at Talk:Magnoliophyta

Contents

[edit] Teleological style

I haven't had time to look through the whole article, but even the first few paragraphs are phrased as if evolutionary developments have a purpose, e.g. flowers have evolved to allow angiosperms to occupy more niches. This phrasing implies a purpose behind the evolution, rather than natural selection. I don't have time to rewrite this, so I am asking for someone else to do it.Hinakana (talk) 13:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit warring over style

Let's play by the rules, folks. This page was originally American English, so it remains. Fertilisation was originally British English, so it stays. The edit warring must stop. Pollinator 04:47, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Back links

I agree that having "back links" is a bad idea. There is no end to that, and most back links should be in the text anyway, so a redundancy that adds very little - Marshman 08:22, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Aren't links to prominent containing groups the reason behind the taxoboxes?

Not clear what the question is? Does this relate to the idea of "back links" or a separate issue? BTW, rewrite of "gymnosperms" place here is an improvement - Marshman 19:07, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

What I mean is that it seems to me back links should be inherently redundant, because the more important ones will be listed in the "scientific classification" section of the taxobox anyways. As I understood it, this was one of the main reasons we had the taxoboxes (which are frequently a nuisance, I think at least, so better serve some useful purpose). Thanks for the appreciation, btw. :)

Then my answer is yes. So it seems like we are generally in agreement with User:Maveric149 who removed the back links added by User:Glenn. - Marshman 19:59, 1 Oct 2003 (UTC)

ARG!!! This is the only page that I found that had WikiPedia and back links in it! how am I supposed to follow the schema that people have already made?

I gotta make it navagatable! LinuxQuestions.org's wiki...

[edit] Rosopsida

Jaknouse added an alternate division into three classes (Magnoliopsida - Liliopsida - Rosopsida) into the taxobox. I have taken it down for the moment, since the taxobox is a bad place for discussing different systems, and this change seemed to be based on the understanding that it was the phylogenetic system and included only monophyletic groups. However, the proposed scheme does have the advantage of placing most flowering plants in monophyletic groups, and I'd like to suggest we consider adopting it as the wikipedia standard. What it would mean for most flower pages is changing "Magnoliopsida" to "Rosopsida" in the taxobox. -- Josh

I disagree with this approach. I understand that the system is still in flux, but the three-class system is still far closer to accurate than the two-class system, and I feel that we should be revising taxoboxes to try to gradually get closer to reflecting reality. Thus, if I'd taken one system out of the taxobox, it would have been the Liliopsida-Magnoliopsida dichotomy, which is a false one. jaknouse 01:07, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's definitely not false. It represents real structures of the plants in question, and it does reflect their evolutionary relationships. The problem with it is that it includes a paraphyletic group, which many taxonomists object to. But others do not, and in any case, the palaeodicots are also paraphyletic so the three-class system would be just as false. In fact, I've done a close look at alternate class schemes, and there are none that reflect current phylogenies and eliminate paraphyly that I could find.

However, if you re-read what I wrote, you will see that I'm in favor of using the three-class system, or possibly one that splits the palaeodicots even further. I would have proposed it a long time ago, but it was hard enough to get people to stop using Cronquist, and in light of the above it didn't seem worth the effort. Since you've proposed it independently, it may be time to re-evaluate that. But it affects a lot of pages, and isn't something that should be changed without some concensus. -- Josh

A problem is that the APG (I and ) II system(s) don't use formal ranks between Division and Order; perhaps if you don't want to go straight to the full list of orders (perhaps listing the orders in the text, so that links to pages for the orders would be helpful; putting the full list in the taxobox would be infelictious formatting - alternatively link to the lists of orders and families are APWeb), you'd need to replace Classes with something like Subordinate Clades, with Amborellales, Nymphyales, Austrobaileyales, Chloranthales, Ceratophyllales, Magnoliids, Eudicots and Monocots (don't trust my spelling). This isn't a polytomy, the last five froming an euangiosperm node. I'm also not sure about subsuming palaeoherbs into magnoliiids. If you do something like this you'd probably want to worry about the Magnoliopsida and Liliopsida pages, which I see currently have lists of orders.
I note in passing that the Tilia page refers to a Judd system, presumably referring to Judd et al, Plant Systematics: A Phylogenetic Approach. I think this is actually APG I. Do you want to clear references to systems other than APG II (other than in historical discussion) from WikiPedia. You can find some info on various systems at http://www.malvaceae.info/Classification/overview.html. with references. Stewart R. Hinsley
Indeed it seems like a bad idea to list Magnoliopsida and Liliopsida. If the taxoboxes are supposed to follow APG II then this is definitely out. Even following Cronquist it is not all that good an idea. I am in favor of either a three way split, or for leaving this blank and including it in the text. Brya 16:33, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Flowering plants
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Classes and orders

Rosopsida (eudicots)
Liliopsida (monocots)
Basal groups ("palaeodicots")
   Amborellales
   Nymphaeales
   Austrobaileyales
   Chloranthales
   Ceratophyllales
   Magnoliid orders

|}Brya, what would you suggest for subordinate pages, like oak? I think it would be difficult to keep the classes blanked on all those pages, so we would probably have to use classes Rosopsida and Liliopsida, at least. In that case, maybe we should use a mixed list, something like at right? Josh

[edit] Why are we bolding class names, listed in the table and less stable than common names?)

1. Because they are very helpful for understanding the article;
2. They aren't all listed in the table;
3. Because one at least definitely is stable, as it includes the type genus of the whole set
PLEASE PUT THEM BACK! - MPF 00:31, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

They aren't all listed in the table because they aren't all part of the standard we are using. Some other systems add classes like the Piperopsida and Asteropsida which we haven't mentioned at all, and nobody has complained about their absence. The only stable one is the Liliopsida - the Magnoliopsida, which include the type genus, are in fact one of the least stable, because they vary from the entire dicots to a small group of four orders. There's nothing special about these classes.

I don't see how bolding the class names is helpful for understanding the article. To me, it's only distracting. This is especially true here, because the common names of the groups in question are by far more common, constant, universal, and useful. In short, the bolding is idiosyncratic, and appears to be based on false assumptions about how important mentioning these particular classes is. But if you think it's so mysteriously critical, I'm not going to waste my time trying to stop you from bolding them. - Josh

The text changes you made were an improvement over my copy edits and made the "need" for bolding less obvious. Still, I think it is generally a good idea to bold the major subdivisions (s.l.) of a taxon (and this is done elsewhere) as these are essentially technical terms (see Technical Terms) at this level. Whether they appear in the taxobox or not is immaterial; whether they are "stable" or not is immaterial. The bolding sets them out as both important and technical in this article; separate from older subdivision names which are technical but now unimportant in this article. Also the taxon should be repeated as part of the bolding - Marshman 16:49, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Problems with list of most speciose families

With regard to the list of most speciose families, according the Bayer & Kubitzki, Malvaceae, in Kubitzki et al, "The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants V" (2003), Malvaceae (sensu APG) has more than 4300 species, which would put it ahead of the 7th entry on the list; the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website (linked at the article) says 4225. I'm not editing the article, as species counts from different sources may not be comparable. Note also that if Apiaceae (Umbelliferae) and Araliaceae are merged (as has been proposed) the combined number of species in nearly 5000. Stewart R. Hinsley, http://www.malvaceae.info, http://www.meden.demon.co.uk PS: Lamiaceae, per Angiosperm Phylogeny Website, has 7173 species. The old Scrophulariaceae was speciose enough to qualify for the list, but it's been chopped into smaller pieces.

I see no problem with editing the Malvaceae in at this time. I think the point of that part of the Wikipedia article is not to have exact, comparable numbers (those can go in the family articles with proper citations and other notes), but to give the reader a sense of how plant diversity is distributed among the families. - Marshman 00:01, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
For what its worth, no family (other than perhaps the likes of Ginkgoaceae or Amborellaceae!) can ever have an exact number of species cited, as there will always be valid differences of opinion between different botanists as to whether various taxa are distinct at species rank or not; it is best to cite ranges from highest to lowest among reputable authors. A give-or-take of 10-15% difference between authors is quite normal (e.g. the 600-650 total I've cited at Pinophyta). - MPF 08:32, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)
You are right. Although I would accept such figures as we cite as always only approximate, we certainly could either state that fact or give a range as you suggest. The nice thing about a range is that edits will tend to be made to only one of the numbers at any given time. And yeh, you temperate-zoners would change that to Mallow family. The only mallow I've seen is a "False Mallow" ~ 8^)- Marshman 03:51, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I guess that just reflects the temperate origins of the 19th century botanists who named all the families - the family name is usually cited from the name of the type genus, in this case Malva, as this is the one genus that by definition can't be transferred to another family (or if it is, the old family name disappears, like Taxodiaceae). On the same grounds, I guess coffee family for Rubiaceae should be changed to madder (Rubia) family, against any possibility that any botanist ever decides that Coffea doesn't belong in the Rubiaceae. - MPF 11:28, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Common names are common names. I'm opposed to setting rules regarding common names (otherwise the cease to be "common" names). If other than the type Genus is used commonly for a common name, that is what we should go with (or include more that one). Otherwise we would have the poa family instead of grass and the cyperus family instead of sedge. What you are calling the "usual" practice is the rule for establishing the scientific family name. - Marshman 16:38, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
But equally, calling the Xaceae the 'y family' if y is no longer in the Xaceae is risky - whereas calling it the 'x family' remains safe. That's what I was thinking - MPF 17:25, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)
As said, there is no standard for vernacular names of families. If you were to go for x family you have to lose "daisy family" - daisy, unqualified, is Bellis, not Aster, Aster being Michaelmas daisy or just aster. In some cases you can use terms like legume family (Fabaceae), composite family (Asteraceae), umbellifer family (Apiaceae) or labiate family (Lamiaceae); but there are problems in that the family bounds could be changed, e.g. ISTR classifications in which composites were broken into more than one family. OTOH, dead-nettle family for Lamiaceae is less than ideal as well. Other possible usages include aroid, bromeliad, gesneriad and palm families, where we have vernacular names which correspond to the families as a whole. Stewart R. Hinsley

If they're any use, figures from The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening (but note they are Cronquist taxonomy):

  1. Asteraceae: 21,000 species
  2. Orchidaceae: 17,500
  3. Fabaceae: 16,400
  4. Poaceae: 9,000
  5. Rubiaceae: 10,400
  6. Euphorbiaceae: 7,950
  7. Malvaceae: 1,550
  8. Cyperaceae: 3,600
Also . . .
Lamiaceae: 5,600
Liliaceae: 4,640 (includes several other families now usually split off)
Scrophulariaceae: 4,450
Myrtaceae: 3,850
Ericaceae: 3,350
Apiaceae: 3,100
Rosaceae: 3,100

You give no date for this source, so I cannot see how we could use it reliably. - Marshman

Sorry, 1992, so it is 12 years old now and starting to show it :-) MPF 17:25, 16 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Addition of material from 1911 Encyclopedia

I guess, other than the perhaps considerable work it might take to update this massive amount of material in an article that need not be the center of all the various sub parts, my biggest problem is that expounding to this extent on the various subjects under "angiosperms" is a bit redundant with the articles that are intended to be where such expansion takes place. I do see value in having such an approach (I think it works quite nice in the article Hawaii, for example), so I'm not blanket opposed to it; but it will require some careful pruning to get readers to move on to the "main" articles if subheaded subjects are over-written here. - Marshman 01:52, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] fork?

Why are there two articles presenting essentially the same information, "Magnoliophyta" and "flowering plants"? Shouldn't the material be combined and one of them redirect?

Magnoliophyta is a Redirect page? - Marshman 19:14, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] accented greek characters in wikipedia

Actually, this is a browser issue. If you use Firefox those polytonic Greek characters show up correctly. See the discussion page under Talk:Greek language. It's unfortunate that Internet Exploder doesn't handle this better, but IMHO it would be a mistake to go through Wikipedia removing these characters.

[edit] Why is the basic description of Angiosperm so weird?

Flowers are not organs! Seed is not contained in flowers, but in fruits! I don't feel like cleaning up information this basic, but this looks wrong. Brya 16:33, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

You are right, it needs tightening up - Marshman 17:20, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Agreement! Wow! Brya 20:50, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
C'mon. I know there are some hard asses here, and I might even be one on occasion, but when you (Brya) are right, you are right ! %^) I just did a quick "correction" so feel free to advise or change as you see fit - Marshman
Thank you. We will see, I have 'met' only a few wikipedians. I made some changes (in the first few sentences). The rest of the page could do with some attention, but in good time. How is this so far? Brya 16:39, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Looks ok. Couple of minor grammatical things I will change (later), but the approach is just fine. - Marshman 17:47, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Thank you. Yes it is hard to get the grammar right, while keeping it short and simple: I suspect the wording can be improved. The law of diminishing returns applies: for every bit of extra readability achieved more effort is required.
I put in quite a bit of work in getting the errors out of the "Classification" part. This was rather bad, and in violation of the ICBN. I suspect here too wording may still be improved, but this is as much as I can do at one go, at the end of a long day. Brya 19:58, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Sorry to be a pain, but the 'classification' section still doesn't make sense - in fact it now contradicts itself! See below for more details. --213.8.87.25 07:50, 6 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Is this article the same as Broadleaf?

I was redirected here from Broadleaf, but the content of this article makes no indication that broadleaf is an alternative name for this topic. We must either break this redirect, or add broadleaf to the first sentence.

Well, broadleaf plants (really "broadleaf trees" are a reference to forest trees that are not conifers (=needle-leaf trees). While perhaps not the best place to redirect, it is correct in the sense that almost all broadleaf trees are flowering plants (but not all flowering plants are broadleaf trees). We can look for a better place to redirect to (like forest maybe?), but your suggestion assumes all redirects go to a subject containing your original search word, which is not the case, not necesary, and not desirable as a generality in my opinion. - Marshman 21:09, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
I've put it back to flowering plant, as 'broadleaf' is a term meaning a flowering plant with broad leaves, as opposed to conifers or grass, etc. Redirecting it to forest is wrong, as one can also have e.g. broadleaf weeds in a lawn or wheat crop. It might be better redirected to dicotyledon, as monocotyledons are not usually considered broadleaf plants (tho' some, e.g. aroids, probably would be). Or maybe better yet, a page of its own. Ideas welcome. - MPF 10:47, 10 May 2006 (UTC)
It would be a good idea to have a small paragraph in the article explaining this. Richard001 23:58, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
I know of two usages for broadleaf - as a term for dicotyledonous trees, contrasted with conifers, and as a term for dicotyledonous weeds, contrasted with monocots. Dicotyledon would seem the best redirection target, unless it's split between tree or forestry and weed, or given its own entry. Lavateraguy 19:39, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure about all of you people, but growing up around farming, broadleaf almost always refers to broadleaf weeds (which I think is what Lavateragyuy was referring to when he said 'dicotyledonous weeds'), something this is generally undesirable and is often killed with herbicide. It seems to me that a disambiguation page is the appropriate solution here. There are at least four things broadleaf can refer to and I think broadleaf weed could probably merit a page in its own right, considering the amount of herbicide used to address it. Any thoughts?--Mergi 20:11, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pictures

Could this picture be included in the artice?

--BorisFromStockdale 00:53, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

In general it is better to identify the plant and then include the picture in the article on that plant. This article is too generic to just include pictures of plants that have flowers beyond some very good representative examples. Also visit Wikimedia to see where your picture fits in there; that exposes to others that may be seeking what you have. - Marshman 20:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reason for angiosperm dominance?

It seems I remember from back in my school days that angiosperms became so prevalent because they reproduced sexually, perhaps giving them a better chance to evolve and adapt by mutation than hermaphrodite plants? Perhaps someone who has this knowledge can expand on it in the origin section, I'd love to know the reason behind it! --Fxer 16:06, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

They usually make fruit (dry like peanuts, or fleshy like apples,strawberrys etc.), so this helps to protect the seed. The seeds provide it with nutrients. The flowers attract insects and other animals to help with sexual reproduction, and they have pollen, which can be carried great distances on the wind to the next plant.

[edit] 1911 EB stuff (again!)

I've hidden (<!-- --> tags) the 1911 EB paragraphs titled "Internal structure", "Vegetative organs", "Fertilization", "Embryology" and "Fruit and seed" - since they were added a year and a half ago, no-one has made any significant attempt to clean up and update them (and barely even wikilink anything!). They are so out of date that I suspect they'd be better off deleted and re-written completely. Thoughts, anyone? - MPF 00:17, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

  • The language of the EB 1911 material is slighly esoteric - but there are definatley some things in there that are basic features of flowering plant biology that are not defined in the article otherwise. I will have a go at making the content more digestible, since this is a really basic concept that an encyclopedia should cover.--Peta 00:30, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
More than 'slightly'!! I'd agree there's content in it which is valuable, but I suspect editing/updating it is going to be more bother than re-writing afresh. But by all means have a go! - MPF 00:40, 17 May 2006 (UTC)
Trimmed. It really could use a pi to show the differences in the vascular anatomy - whicle the text is not hard to understand, it would be easier to understand with a diagram.--Peta 01:01, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Magnoliophytina

I don't understand the systematic relationship between magnoliophyta, magnoliophytina and their classes. Which are the flowering plants: magnoliophyta or magnoliophytina? Could someone please describe this in the article? Thanks very much. --Eleassar my talk 12:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge

I propose we merge the information in the Angiospermae article here: It has a lot of useful information explaining the multiple possible names for the division: This is good, and would be useful in the lead. I doubt this is particularly controversial, but it seemed polite to ask first.Adam Cuerden talk 08:55, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Agree (and remove POV suprageneric italics when doing so) - MPF 13:14, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and merge the monocots one into the monocotyledons article, while we're at it. KP Botany 23:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
I think they should be merged to Angiospermae —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.126.136.174 (talk) 07:03, 14 December 2006 (UTC).
agree, but there should be a section discussing the taxnonamic names and ranks that have been applied to this group (with authorities), so that the article doesn't continue to get questions like the one posted below. --EncycloPetey 22:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Magnolia as representative genus?

Is there any rationale as to why Takhtajan, Cronquist, Dahlgren, and Thorne use Magnolia as the base genus for the division/class name, as opposed to any other flowering plant genus? -- 15:33, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I assumed it was because their classification systems make the Magnolia their basal group (order?) of plants. However, assumptions aren't that useful. Anyone with a clear answer? As for EncycloPetey's comment about section on names, yes. KP Botany 22:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Magnoliophyta, angiosperms

Why is this article in both categories?! --Eleassar my talk 21:53, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Classification history garbled

From that time onwards, so long as these Gymnosperms were, as was usual, reckoned as dicotyledonous flowering plants, the term Angiosperm was used antithetically by botanical writers, but with varying limitation, as a group-name for other dicotyledonous plants

The above sentence makes little sense and completely contradicts the rest of what is said. Perhaps rather than "from that time onwards", the writer means "for a brief period thereafter"? "these Gymnosperms" is too unspecific for the conclusion of a paragraph discussing a succession of different uses for the word - which Gymnosperms?

Perhaps there should be a division between 'history of' and 'current' classification, or if not, then perhaps this paragraph needs to be rewritten more clearly? The chronological narrative needs to be much clearer. I would do it myself, but I'm not confident that I have understood the original intention well enough, and don't know enough to write a new history myself.

--213.8.87.25 07:59, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Magnoliophyta

I had never heard the term "Magnoliophyta" before, and when I was redirected to this article, after seeing no mention of it in the first paragraph, my eyes alighted on the infobox and the picture of the magnolia. I jumped to the (at the time) obvious conclusion that "Magnoliophyta" was some taxonomic term specific to magnolias, which it now seems is not the case.

I wonder if it would be better not to use magnolia as an example here, and/or explain "Magnoliophyta" in a few words in the opening paragraph for the benefit of people who have been redirected here? At the moment the term is not mentioned until some way down the page in the middle of a fairly dense passage. Matt 16:26, 22 April 2007 (UTC).

Don't they have anything about filament? This page is very informative and all, but what about filament? I don't see it.

Yes, I can certainly see how it would be confusing. If the image is to be used I'd suggest moving away from the lead/taxobox area. Richard001 09:13, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Broadleaf

I notice this term redirects here, but the page doesn't mention it at all. Is it a synonym for angiosperms? Richard001 09:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

This issue is already discussed further up this talk page. The problem is that broadleaf doesn't match well to taxonomic categories. Lavateraguy 09:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Various flower colors and shapes box

The box of flashing flower pictures is very distracting (and annoying) for anyone reading the text. It would be better removed and replaced by a single still photo, or maybe the individual photos could go in separately. --Graminophile 21:35, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I've moved it down to the diversity section - the top was flooded with images and the lower half had nothing. A collage picture of several different families may be a better idea. Richard001 06:34, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Edit Question

This paragraph seems to contain unneccecery information:

"In most taxonomies, the flowering plants are treated as a coherent group. Usually this takes the form of a taxonomic grouping, or taxon, which is assigned a rank. For taxa at a rank above the rank of family Article 16 of the ICBN allows either a descriptive name or a name formed from the name of an included family (that in turn is based on a generic name). The most popular descriptive name has been Angiospermae (Angiosperms), with Anthophyta ("flowering plants") a second choice. These names are not linked to any rank. The Wettstein system and the Engler system use the name Angiospermae, at the assigned rank of subdivision."

I would like to edit it to something like this:

"In most taxonomies, the flowering plants are treated as a coherent group, generally a taxon. The Wettstein system and the Engler system use the name Angiospermae, at the assigned rank of subdivision. The most popular descriptive name has been Angiospermae (Angiosperms), with Anthophyta ("flowering plants") a second choice. These names are not linked to any rank. "

but I'm not sure I understand the point of it enough to just go ahead and do it. Any feedback?

Helikophis 18:58, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the change.

Helikophis 21:38, 21 July 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Most Diverse Families

The most diverse families of flowering plants, in order of number of species, are:
  1. Asteraceae or Compositae (daisy family): 23,600 species
  2. Orchidaceae (orchid family): 21,950 species
  3. Fabaceae or Leguminosae (pea family): 19,400
  4. Rubiaceae (madder family): 13,183
  5. Poaceae or Gramineae (grass family): 10,035
  6. Lamiaceae or Labiatae (labiate family): 7,173
  7. Euphorbiaceae (spurge family): 5,735
  8. Cyperaceae (sedge family): 4,350
  9. Malvaceae (mallow family): 4,225
  10. Araceae (aroid family): 4,025

This has been mentioned before, but this is out of date. Orchids, as far as I know, are now considered the most diverse plant family. I was under the assumption that Poaceae was second, but I'm not as sure of that one. Anyways, I'm sure that Orchidaceae is first by most modern reckonings. Indeed, the Orchid article is in conflict with this list. Is there a better, newer source available, would synthesizing a list from the latest statistics violate Wikipedia:No original research, and if not, might it be a good idea to remove the list if it is obsolete?? --Vlmastra 02:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Estimates (that's all they are) of the number of species of orchid vary widely - see, for example http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2003/BiancaNicoletti.shtml One problem is disagreement on what's a species and what's an infraspecific taxon or less. Consequently figures from different sources are incomparable. (Another problem is disagreement on familial boundaries.)
I took the figures from the Angiosperm Phylogeny Website, which is the best single source I know and is a recent source, but even in this case the figures are likely to have been collated from multiple sources. It may be inaccurate, but out of date is not a correct characterisation. Lavateraguy 10:57, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
At any rate, that list should have a source cited as the order in which the families are placed and their respective numbers of species (not to mention family circumscriptions; I assume "Fabaceae" is s.l.) do vary widely from one reference to another. MrDarwin 13:52, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Yes, sources are very important when the same information can come from a wide variety of sources, and differ from source to source, such as even the taxonomy of the plants we discuss. Most current articles I've read placed the Orchidaceae first, but if you're using Stevens at MoBot, I'd go with him doing the latest research, but please do reference it. KP Botany 18:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)
Stevens is already in the references, so anyone who understands the mechanics of citations can link in the figures for 9 of the families thereto. The figure for Rubiaceae comes from Kew Scientist 30, in a short note on the World Rubiaceae Checklist Project, which references http:www.kew.org.uk/wcsp/rubiaceae (the Kew website seems to be down at the moment). Lavateraguy 18:33, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, I haven't figured out the mechanics of citations, so feel free to link. KP Botany 18:41, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I was implicitly saying that I hadn't figured it out either, so we need a 3rd party. Lavateraguy 18:52, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I was afraid of that, but thought I'd hope otherwise. Another botany editor will take care of it. KP Botany 19:14, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hyacinth tree

Is it a flowering plant? -- Carol 07:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Without 'interrupting' wikipedian style artists who are interested in flowering plants -- Hyacinth is a disambiguation and does not list a tree as an option. Another image of grape hyacinth. Only common names which make it difficult for categorization at commons -- where there are a lot of photographs of both flowering plants and of Magnoliophyta many of which are not 'Hyacinths' (quoting from the description of the grape hyacinth image). The ranking of 'important' to the plant project makes me wonder if it causes people both within the plant project and without to be more concerned about genus and species articles and not so much about these 'impotent' articles. Is it a case of reverse psychology and this ranking system accidentally reduces the value of the upper levels of the importance tree?
Just a few thoughts. No harm in thinking. -- Carol 08:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Heh. What does it mean to be in the category of To do, priority 1 (Top)? And sorry, every time I save this, I see something else which is completely incredible here. -- Carol 08:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Hyacinth tree doesn't seem to be a term in widespread use, or with a consistent designation. There's scarcely any hits from Google; one image appears to be a Laburnum, and another page gives it an alternative name for Thermopsis villosa or carolineana. I can't identify the plant on this page identified as a hyacinth tree, but it looks an odd plant to be given that name - a lilac (Syringa), for example, would make more sense, if one were to assume that a hyacinth tree is a tree with inflorescences similar in shape and size to those of a hyacinth. Lavateraguy (talk) 13:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
The placement of the Israeli wheat field under the heading of Economics is quite funny. Is it an accurate representation of the Plant Project? I ask this because (in my limited experience) that kind of economic often seems to tend to make more accurate or more funny (whichever the goal is) things, in this case articles. The images used for this article are not much of either funny or accurate (with the exception of that wheat field, perhaps). From what I gather from my last few days of experience here is that what the economics has done is to cause people, many from the Plant project, to be more interested in (metaphorically speaking) how clean my house is and not investigate their own house before expressing their opinion and their freedom to edit. So, more directly asked here, do you think the Jews wanted or intended to give their wheat field to such a situation? And feel free to use the phrase 'Encyclopedic value' or 'Encyclopedic content' whenever possible to explain the situation here at flowering plants, one of the important plant project articles. -- Carol 21:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by CarolSpears (talk • contribs)

[edit] Cleanup on Section Two

There seems to be a display problem in the "Evolution" section. The third sentence of the seventh paragraph currently reads,

“ "By the late Cretaceous, angiosperms appear to have become the predominant group of land plants, and many fossil plants recognizable as belonging to modern families (including beech, oak, maple, and magnolia) appearmayuank mayank maYAM O MKAHZXJNASY9UNXYDXY7HSDYHNDC8DGDCGHCNDCHGIKIICCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCdoi ”

| title = Biogeochemical evidence for the presence of the angiosperm molecular fossil oleanane in Paleozoic and Mesozoic non-angiospermous fossils | author = David Winship Taylor, Hongqi Li, Jeremy Dahl, Fred J. Fago, David Zinniker, and J. Michael Moldowan | journal = Paleobiology | pages = 179–190 | volume = 32 | issue = 2 | date = March 2006 }}</ref>"}}.

I assume that someone was attempting to create a link or something, and that it didn't go well. Could someone figure out what this person was trying to say and tidy it up a little?

That problem was fixed five minutes after it was introduced. That you observed it several hours later suggests that you may be getting your version from an out of date page cache somewhere. Lavateraguy (talk) 20:26, 11 May 2008 (UTC)