Talk:List of basil cultivars

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January 11, 2007 Featured list candidate Promoted
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[edit] FLC

  1. "This list of basil cultivars is a comprehensive list of cultivated basil varieties." is more explicitly stated as "This list of basil cultivars is a comprehensive list of cultivated varieties (cultivars) of basal.
  2. Don't title a table with the abbreviation of the scientific name. Should be Ocimum not O..
  3. This is all over the place, "The exact taxonomic classification of varieties of basil is particularly challenging. This is because basil cross-breeds easily, and drawing boundaries between species is particularly difficult. In fact, recent studies have led to reclassification of some portions of the genus.[4]" Are you talking about taxonomic difficulties with varieties, or hybrids, or species, or cultivars? Be explicit, this is a list of cultivars and a discussion of taxonomy should be restricted to any difficulties with the species used in the cultivars only.
  4. "Vary" and "varies" is overused, although since it is a list of cultivars, you might argue against me on this.
  5. "Visually, the size of the leaves varies greatly, from the lettuce-like leaves of the Mammoth basil and Lettuce leaf basil to the tiny leaves of the Dwarf bush basil." "Lettuce-like" isn't precisely and indicator of size, do you mean "lettuce-sized leaves" or "large lettuce-like leaves?"
  6. Tie the mention of the varying amount and type of fragrance directly into its usage as an herb.
  7. The quantity of essential oils is not particularly needed for this article, and this comment rather begs questions about what the percentage of essential oils in other plants is by comparison, is it high or low in basil? I would think it would be rather high.
  8. The pictures could be smaller, imo. Good choice, though.

It's a rather useful, nicely done, well commented list overall, and would make a respectable FL, imo.

KP Botany 02:47, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Latin name versus species versus scientific name

I think it should technically be scientific name, not Latin name, so I changed that column, but to Species and cultivars. I don't know think that cultivar names are actually covered by the ICBN, which is the code for scientific names for plants, so would they technically be scientific names, or is that limited to names covered by the code, or are cultivars, indeed, covered by the code? KP Botany 23:07, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Cultivars are covered by the ICNCP (International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants).
The RHS Plantfinder (http://www.rhs.org.uk/rhsplantfinder/plantfinder2.asp?crit=Ocimum&Genus=Ocimum) lists several cultivars not included in the list. According to this 'Siam Queen' is a cultivar of x citriodorum, and is not the same as 'Horapha' (I'm assuming that 'Horapa' is a variant transliteration). OTOH, the 1996/7 edition says that 'Licorice' and 'Glycorhiza' are the same as 'Horapha'. Lavateraguy 16:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)