User talk:MPF/archive1

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Welcome
Hi there. I just see you do a lot of work on the oaks, and apparently you a quite a bit more knowledgeable about it than me. Maybe you can help me to confirm the species of the acorn picture I oploaded - I am not sure if I gave it the correct species name with Q. kerrii. That one was just the only quercus species google gave me in relation to the location where I made the photo (see Image:Acrons.jpg). andy 22:30, 20 Jan 2004 (UTC)

HI MPF- long ago on my user page I wrote I've decided that I'd like to start a wiki sub-project on Trees of Britain, maybe as a sub page of Trees of the world, I envisage this as being fairly long term, but to start with putting a frame work in place listing the names of the various tree species, with each species having sub-pages on say, uses of that tree, spiritual/traditional significance etc quercus robur 19:13 Oct 2, 2002 (UTC)

but have never really gotten it together to do anything about it. My knowledge isnt very extensive, but part of the idea (for me) was to increase my own knowledge in these areas by working on this project- does this interest you? Cheers quercus robur 15:56, 21 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Mediterranean and Alpine coniferous forests:
I was using the World Wildlife Fund/National Geographic listing of the 867 ecoregions, which can be found at the following link:

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/wildworld/profiles/terrestrial_pa.html

One of the areas of ambiguity is where to put mixed forests ecoregions; the WWF/National geographic convention is to put broadleaf and mixed forests together, with conifer forests separate. There is obviously some discretion involved here (Does gray go with black, or with white? how about light gray and dark gray? how light or dark?), and sometimes the WWF and National Geographic don't agree. One solution would be to list mixed forest ecoregions with significant conifer forests in both biome types, as you have done with the Valdivian temperate rain forests.Tom Radulovich 00:56, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Copyright tags
Could you put the right copyright tag on Image:TanoakLeaves.jpg. Photos with non-commercial tags will be deleted in the future (this process has already started). This would be a shame for this photo. Or you could request permission from the author, which would give the tag {{cc-by-2.0}} JoJan 14:44, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The image is not tagged. Instead you provide the text : "This copyrighted image may be freely used for any non-commercial purpose. For commercial use please contact J.S. Peterson". Non-commercial images are no longer allowed and are being banned; see : [[1]]. I know, it is a real nuisance, because most images are copyrighted or fall under the non-commercial use. Each time we want to use a rare or exclusive photo, we have first to ask permission to the author. I have done it frequently. Most of the time, the authors don't bother to reply or refuse flatly. But a few times I have been lucky, so that I could use the tags {{cc-by-2.0}} or the {{GFDL}}. As a matter of fact, I've just sent an email to Malaysia to ask permission for the use of a rare photo of Bubo kumquat (I'm working at the moment on the page of Bubo - the true toads). I'll find out soon enough if I'll get a reply, favourable or not. It's a inconvenience and a lot of work, but we must abide by the rules. JoJan 17:15, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
If you don't ask for authorisation, then you better have the image deleted. Beautiful picture, a real shame. But we are bound by strict rules. I found you another, but less interesting picture on the usda website [[2]]. This drawing is a tif picture. it should be converted to a jpeg picture in Photoshop. If you want that drawing, I can do the necessary for you. And if it is any comfort to you, I have uploaded lots of interesting photos of plants, all with non-commercial uses. They all have to go. Finding replacements is as good as impossible. By the way, I've had already a reply from that university professor in Malaysia. He is willin to cede one of his photos but with too many restrictions. I'm now negotiating with him. It has come to that, we must almost beg to obtain images. You could also put a request on the Village Pump for someone in the USA to make a picture of the tan oak. I've done this before and it worked ! Good luck. JoJan 18:27, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Plant categories
That's why I haven't created lots of subcats; it's just about guaranteed that things will have to change, but right now nobody even has a vague guess as to how many plant articles we have (I'm always surprised to follow a link and find a bunch more). Once everything is in (or under) Category:Plants, you can look at it and say "OK, we have a hundred to move into a Sapindales category" or whatever. By comparison, a troublesome alternative is to preemptively create cats for families, many of which will be small or empty for a long time; those will be get listed in CfD, and will end up being argued over. Stan 15:37, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Categories
You know, it's both possible and useful to have more than one category for an article. Even if you personally don't see any value in plant categorization that is not a slavish imitation of the ToL hierarchy, the least you could do is not to remove the useful Category:Plant families. There are many categories I don't see much value in, like the birth and death year cats in biods, but I don't go around trashing other people's work by deleting them everywhere I see them. Stan 16:36, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

OK, wires crossed from previous discussion, sorry - my idea is that Category:Plants is the "holding" category, a la Category:Ships or Category:People, which tend to accumulate miscellany until somebody figures out what to do with them. But as per Category talk:Plant families, the collection of families is well-defined, and worthwhile as a way to get to any the families in one jump, including ones that are obsolete and not connected into taxoboxes (I've gotten more enthused about the cat, it's turned up some junk to fix). I'm actually thinking that a Category:Plant orders would be worthwhile too, because there are a bunch of orphans for obsolete orders laying around. I've been reluctant to try to add further categorization myself, because for instance the orders don't have much meaning to non-experts (or to some experts, from what I read :-) ). Doesn't hurt to add them though, all part of the experimentation process. Stan 17:03, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Something like Category:Trees is kind of inevitable I think; unlike the "terrorist" cat, for which everybody has an opinion about whether it's meaningful, almost everybody thinks the concept of "tree" is better-defined than it really is, and will re-create the cat even if it's deleted. One could be "inclusionist" or "exclusionist", including a genus if even one species is tree-like, or only if all species are trees. I think the exclusionist approach works better; since categories are by nature binary and offer no opportunity to explain nuance, I tend to put things only in categories for which there is no plausible counterargument. The hierarchy means that there is always a valid supercategory to use instead, in fact Category:Woody plants would be perfect for that role. Stan 17:40, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Proper names take caps
Glad I came here. I see you have the "blanks" for the plant taxoboxes! Thanks. I'll help modernize the plant pages where old boxes are still in use. I noticed on Legume that you changed "Family Fabaceae" to "family Fabaceae". Taxonomic level designations, when used as part of the proper name, always take an upper case. If not part of the proper name, then lower case is the rule. Thus "The legumes are in the Family Fabaceae" and "Legumes are in the pea family: the Fabaceae" are both correct applications of the proper name rule. However, some would argue it should be "Pea Family", but I'm not sure that argument is very well settled. - Marshman 00:29, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I responded on my page.-Marshman

Bertholletia excelsa
For the record, I don't agree with the merge of Bertholletia excelsa and Brazil nut. The latter page is now a bit of a mess (at least in 1600.1200, my preferred resolution), and you've thrown away a reasonable amount of information from the Bertholletia excelsa article. I grant that that article could well have done with slightly more work, but I'm perplexed as to why you've done what you've done. Sacrificing a complete article and reducing the amount of information on the wiki, to slightly improve the text of another article whilst screwing up the format does not to me seem like an improvement. YMMV. :( --Tagishsimon (talk) 01:09, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hmm. Tree != Nut (cf. Conker, Aesculus). Equally, as you say, 1887 != contemporary. And it is indeed long past bedtime. --Tagishsimon (talk)
Well, suffice to say, on balance, I'm glad that you are putting effort into caring for tree articles. It's not beyond the bounds of probability that you're right & I'm just creating...(decides not to call Conifer cones in evidence ;) --Tagishsimon (talk)
Thanks & good call. "Brazil nuts are harvested almost entirely from wild trees during a five to six month period in the rainy season." [3] from [4]. I may update the article from the paper, but if you get around to it before me, that would be fine. (I'm trying to take a wikiholiday to get some real life work done...) --Tagishsimon (talk)
I've been nominated

I just wanted to drop you a quick note to say that I've been nominated for adminship. Since you've been unfortunate enough to have dealings with me, I thought you might want to see what was going on there: Wikipedia:Requests for adminship/ClockworkTroll.

Many thanks, ClockworkTroll 07:49, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Suggestions

(sent to User:ClockworkTroll) Thanks for the note; I'll be happy to support, with a couple of small suggestions arising from the Cunninghamia article; (1) when starting a new article, see if there is already a redlink with a name-in-waiting; if you'd gone to conifer and worked your way down the families, you'd have found a redlink Cunninghamia waiting for it at Cupressaceae, thus (a) avoiding a page move and (b) making it easier for others to find (I only found it by chance when looking at a 'what links here' page); (2) - the inevitable that nearly all Americans need to learn!! - that 95% of the world's population use metric measures for preference, and about 85-90% only use metric: i.e., metric is the one to use!

  • Hello, MPF! It is good to hear from you again.
    1. I'm sorry I missed the redlink. I chose to use that particular name because I found it listed under Request Science Articles: Biology, and didn't even consider alternatives. If I inadvertantly placed in an awkward place, I apologize.
    2. As a scientist, I agree that the United States should have converted to metric long ago, but this is not the case. Most Americans aren't familiar with SI units, and to exclude the only system that the world's 3rd most populous nation uses (in practice) seems presumptuous to me. I heartily (but respectfully) disagree with the elimination of parenthesized measurement equivalencies.

Regards, ClockworkTroll 03:01, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

  • Hi CWT - thanks; must admit, I'd missed the requested articles entry (I tend not to look in there very much, there's enough redlinks everywhere else to keep me busy!). Of measurements, I wasn't objecting to the inclusion of imperial units, so much as their being given primacy in a science article. MPF 01:24, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
    • Hmm, looking back at the article's history, it seems I did quote the Imperial units first. Usually I cite measurements in metric first with the Imperial conversion parenthesized, but occasionally I forget to switch them if the source information comes from the US. I'm as comfortable with SI units as I am Imperial, and I'm more more "multinationally minded" than the "American stereotype" holds. ClockworkTroll 01:38, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)
ecozone maps

Thank you for the ecozone maps; they are a great addition to the articles. However, the maps indicate the southern ends of the Baja California and Florida peninsulas are part of the the Nearctic, while the article places them in the Neotropic. It's not a huge difference, so if the maps are difficult to change, perhaps it isn't worth the bother, but if they can be changed without much trouble, I think it would be helpful. Tom Radulovich 18:01, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Category
Fabaceae

Thanks for the note. I am not an expert in this field at all. I was just categorizing from a species up from a State page... I am fixing State categories in the U.S. often though it brings me into strage territory. What I have been doing is using the taxo box for the categories, believing that many users would want to do the same. I didn't quite realize that Legumes and Fabacea were the same thing, I guess one is the Common name and one is the scientific? I would think that for an encyclopedia we are better off with the scientific, and redirect the common name to it? Either category is fine by me as I do not have the experience to make the determination. Thanks Sortior 00:19, Nov 22, 2004 (UTC)

Cercideae

Cercis was put into the wrong family it belongs in Caesalpiniaceae, and Cercideae is a tribe of that family. I'm going to change it now. Thanks for spotting it.--nixie 03:57, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To further anwser your question, the floral morphology of the Caesalpiniaceae is not a good character for thier taxonomy, they're grouped based on pollen morphology and absence of nodulation amongst other things. Genetic analysis has shown that the Cercideae is monophyletic and is sister to the remainder of the Leguminosae. Legume taxonomy is messy. --nixie 04:30, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Re
Balsam Fir at Spanish wiki

Thank you MPF, your help is very appreciated because I'm interested in plants and helping to translate and categorize botanic articles but I'm not a botanist so I may make a lot of mistakes. I'm going to move the articles you mention right now. Greetings --AnnaP 01:04, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Toyon

Thanks for your cleanup and additions to Toyon. I'm glad that there's a real botanist around here! On a separate issue, I noticed that the article for Quercus agrifolia is listed under California live oak. In my experience, "Coast live oak" is the far more frequently used common name. Perhaps that's because it makes a nice pair with the "Interior live oak". Are you aware of how common names are chosen for Wiki articles? Because of redirects, it's not a crucial issue, but I noticed it when someone changed a link. Willmcw 09:26, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oak species- lot of them not listed.

Many oak species are not listed in tho oaks article.. i have already listed two more species, but theres scarcely enough information for any of the candidates im trying to list to justify a full page on them. They may never even make it out of stubs because theres not that much info on 'em. Do you think all species should be listed, or should the the species that are local, very rare, or both stay unlisted?

(Gleditsia x texana - (Texas Honey locust) is now recognized as a hybrid between Honey locust and Water locust) - so i hear. I edited the Gleditsia page to note this, but how would i know for certain wether it is or not?

Iv also added a lot of info to the Kentucky coffeetree page.

Fledgeling 02:10, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Largest living thing

I don't particularly mind, but I don't think that there is a consensus about how to define the topic. I do notice that the article General Sherman tree simply claims that it is the largest tree, so I repeated that claim in the List of famous trees. I'm no expert, but I understand that scientists regard the fungi as single living organisms because they are clones and also because they are physically connected. Given the dispute, I'm not sure that the assertion needs to be included in that list. But I'll leave it to others to settle it. Willmcw 02:20, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Pine identification

Hi, need Your help with identification of this pine: pl:Grafika:Pinus-00-young-cones.jpg, it might be Pinus strobus or Pinus wallichiana, I suppose, thanks. pl:Wikipedysta:Nova 01/12/2004

Thanks a lot! Maybe the picture of a mature cone can help pl:Grafika:Pinus-00-open-cone.jpg. I've found this pine in a park. pl:Wikipedysta:Nova 02/12/2004
Categories
Botanists by various nationalities

Hi MPF, thanks for your message. I sympathise. The main reason I did this was to reduce the amount of articles at Category:Botanists but if you think it's unhelpful I will desist. In my defence I would say that I added a lot of the articles on botanists myself, and went through and methodically added every botanist article I could find to Category:Botanists, which is why it is so comprehensive compared to some (most) other categories. I didn't actually create any of these categories in the first place, as I have no idea how to (or how to delete them, otherwise I would have deleted the incredibly annoying Category:Birds). All the best Mwng 14:45, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Re my question titled "A good idea?"

Why did you remove my polite question, prompted by your own concern about the moving of these pictures? If "Neutrality" is moving every single picture, apparently there's thousands, from The Wikipedia to The Commons without asking any one of the other users, including the people that took the trouble to upload them, that is a matter for concern.

Why insult other users for no reason, when they're taking the trouble to ask you about the same thing you asked about? You know more about the situation,and the technicalities than me in this, so why be so insulting when I take the trouble to help?

Original question is available on my [talk page] so people can see that what I say is true. WikiUser 17:07, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer on my talk page MFP. If there's anything significant happening about photos that you can find out about please let me know. WikiUser 18:08, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Yet another common name scheme....

WP:TOL#Common_names is the new incarnation of how to title species articles. It specifically calls out problems in bird and plant namings. - UtherSRG 12:51, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Taxoboxes

right|thumb|taxobox image The padding is part of class "toccolours". You could force the padding to 0, but you can never have it tight on all sides as the caption is underneath it. You say frame in frame is ugly but every image frame using the image syntax uses the frame in frame system. User:Ed g2s • talk 15:22, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The padded is the same as the image box styling. The tight fit looks out of place with the rest of the Wikipedia. ed g2s • talk 15:58, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

MPF - Here's how the box looks to me when I view the page. The gap is minimized as much as I can shrink it, and the box border is correct. - UtherSRG 17:44, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Be bold on redirects

Hi MPF, I just noticed your un-bolding on turpentine. Its actually in the Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Sections that alternative names for an article should be in bold. I think there is a better reference somewhere, specifically relating to en-bolding words from REDIRECT links (but I can't find it just now). I put the bolds in after creating a bunch of redirects this afternoon, following a comment on the talk page. On the other hand, I'm conflicted, as I would also agree that it gives these less common names undue emphasis. -- Solipsist 20:30, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hi Solipsist - my feeling is make them bold if there's just one or two major alternative names, but when there's several similar ones as in this case (and all derivatives of the main name), then making them all bold clutters things up a bit too much. - MPF 21:10, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I'm tempted to agree - but lets move the winder discussion to Talk:Turpentine. -- Solipsist 21:27, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Pine edit

Pines are your area; mine is dogs. :-) But the reason I changed it to an open link is because it otherwise hides the fact that it *is* an open link--so when someone does create the article (which they might not, if all of the links were redirected to a page that existed), there'll be no easy way to tell where all of the "temporary" links are that should be pointing there that aren't currently. Unless you're keeping it all in your head. In which case we'd better put your head in a nice soft cushy place to be certain that it doesn't get knocked off by a falling pine cone before all of the temporary links are fixed. 192.150.10.200 21:42, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That was me--logged in immediately before this but then it signed me as anon! Dang. Elf | Talk 21:46, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Not my computer logging me out--I work from 2 different computers, 2 different operating systems (win, mac), 2 different browsers (netsc, IE), 2 different networks--the only common element is WP! Tis a puzzlement. Elf | Talk 22:25, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Pinyons

You're on a roll! Way to go! :-) Elf | Talk 20:22, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Conifers in Swedish

The success of the Wikipedia project is depending on being able to attract a large number of enthusiastic contributors. The primary concern is to keep Wikipedia a nice site to interact with. Comments like To be honest, you've made a real mess of the tallväxter. can be very effective in counteracting this. I am a great admirer of the tree descriptions in the English Wikipedia and after receiving this comment I have learnt that you played a great part in creating them. Thank you for this! Please consider the possibility that in the long run the negative effect of comments like the one above may be greater than the positive effect of the work you put into developing nice and informative descriptions. I agree that it is wrong to place a link from the Swedish description of Picea abies to the English description of Picea. I still think it was correct to change Gran from describing Picea to describing Picea abies. In everyday Swedish usage, the distinction between species and genus is not present. So a normal native Swedish speaker could use the word in any of the two senses. However, since Picea abies makes up between 30 and 50% of the biomass present in Sweden, the alternative concept is seldom called for. In order not to be bogged down by myriad subtle problems like these I have tried to consistently use the terminology of the Swedish National Museum of Natural History, Den Virtuella Floran. In this case they say "Gran" = Picea abies, "Granar" = Picea. I have fairly consistently placed a link to the pertinent NRM page into the Wikipedia articles. I agree that as long as the interwiki links are not changed to reflect this change of interpretation the work is incomplete. I do consider it an exaggeration to call this a real mess'. An above all, as already explained, it is counterproductive. The total corpus of Wikipedia contains an enormous amount of defects. Let's try to cooperate in keeping up the good spirit in the work of correcting them. In this particular case my strategy and hope has been that if I spell out the latin name of the taxon clearly, others will be able to correct the links. this strategy seems to have worked only half way: You spotted the defect, but didn't remove it. One of the may attractive aspects of Wikipedia is that we can all choose to to what we like best. Best regards, //Etxrge 09:48, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Humungous Image Tagging Project

Hi. You've helped with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Syntax, so I thought it worth alerting you to the latest and greatest of Wikipedia fixing project, User:Yann/Untagged Images, which is seeking to put copyright tags on all of the untagged images. There are probably, oh, thirty thousand or so to do (he said, reaching into the air for a large figure). But hey: they're images ... you'll get to see lots of random pretty pictures. That must be better than looking for at at and the the, non? You know you'll love it. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

I've tagged this image (Image:Cranberrymap.jpg) as {{GFDL}}. But since the original image used to create *that* image was public domain, I thought I would drop by and see if maybe you want to release Image:Cranberrymap.jpg into the public domain. Simply add {{PD}} if you desire. Anyway, keeping you in the loop ; ) --MaxPower 15:13, 2004 Dec 23 (UTC)
Lycopsid

Thanks for the compliment. If you know of any other plant articles that might fit into the fossil category, LMK. I love the more primative types of plants. I also recently wrote an article at Glossopteris. Give it a read and any comments appreciated. --DanielCD 04:30, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC) OK I see you've already been there. Yea the category of Pteridospermatophyta was giving me a bit of trouble. I wasn't sure if it was a fern or not. If you are interested, the plant categories could use a lot of organizing because they are enormous. --DanielCD 04:33, 23 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Unverified images

Hi. You uploaded Image:Comm broom.jpg but did not list any source and/or copyright information on the image description page. Please mark it either as GFDL or public domain. See Wikipedia:Image_copyright_tags for more info. Please note that images without copyright information may be deleted in the future. Thanks. RedWolf 23:16, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)
Also Image:Commonbroom.jpg RedWolf 23:35, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

Ipe

Great, that makes perfect sense. Thanks for the help. Smoddy | Talk 00:12, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Copy editing

Many thanks for the copy-edit changes to Marchalina hellenica. I am really glad somebedy else checked the taxonomy, because I derived it by doing detective work on a number of sources. Being a computer scientist and not a biologist, I had my doubts whether the end result was entirely correct. Diomidis Spinellis 22:14, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Talk
Common_Chimpanzee#Latin_name_citation

After a long (unintended) delay, I've replied on this. - UtherSRG 19:04, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)

Link tip

Thanks for the tip. Should stave off the RSI for a while :) I hope I'm not causing a nuisance infesting the plant articles with my creepy-crawlies! Do I need to be liaising with anyone regarding this?--Richard Barlow 15:03, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Plant/insect relationships does seem to be a gap. I was staggered there was no mention of it in the nettle article. Its something I'll expand when I've got a moment.--Richard Barlow 15:46, 18 Jan 2005 (UTC)
Mignonette

Thanks for the compliment! Hope you won't mind that I'm putting the line space back in below the taxobox, it's WP:TOL policy to have a line space there for clarity :-) - MPF 00:20, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Of course I won't mind, we have to adhere to policies... that line just shows up in the beginning of the page, so I thought of removing it. Strange policy, how they wont prefer something like "<!-- The Taxobox code ends here. The article starts below. Please edit it, not this box. -->" or something :p —kooo 00:52, Jan 27, 2005 (UTC)
Sumach

I have removed Rhus potaninii which had previously been listed and Rhus verniciflua from inclusion in Sumac which are both listed as Toxicodendron species. This seems sensible and simple I hope. Chilepine 12:44, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Scrub-jays

Hi. I noticed that you changed back most of my edits to Scrub jay. To start with the name, I put in the hyphens because that's the AOU's usage. Were you following some better authority?

The Wiki birds project uses the Lynx Handbook of the Birds of the World list, so as to get uniform international coverage; the AOU is very much out on a limb in using the peculiar grammatic form of hyphens followed by capitals ("-J" in this case), no other bird listing group does so. Generally, either form 'Scrub Jay' or 'Scrub-jay' would be regarded as acceptable, but not 'Scrub-Jay'.
I didn't know that. Do we have any idea which form HBW uses, or did they do the corvids before the scrub-jays were split?

I changed the " - " to "—" because that's Wikipedia policy (see the last bullet here). I also changed hyphens between numbers to en dashes for reasons given at the same page.

These things are an absolute pain in the @$$ when editing pages (as the codes for them are very 'brittle', the ampersand at the start of the code sticks to the previous word, and the semi-colon at the end sticks to the next word, thus disintegrating and leaving orphans behind unless edited very carefully); if you must use them, please put a space either side of them to avoid this problem.
Hm again. I've never had a problem. But as you probably noticed, I changed them to something we can probably both live with. By the way, if you hate those HTML escapes (if that's what they're called), the Official Dash Page does allow -- , with or without spaces.

I changed the range in the first paragraph to include Central America instead of just Mexico because the article says the range of the Unicolored Jay extends to Nicaragua. There seems to be some disagreement about the range of this species; [5] says "Mexico and Honduras" while [6] says "Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador". Maybe somebody who knows more than I do needs to straighten this out, but in any case, it looks like it's not just Mexico (at [7] it's described as "commonly sighted" on their tours in western Honduras). I changed a sentence of the form "...the most commonly heard call is X, or Y". There can be only one most commonly heard call. What was the problem with my version "the most commonly heard calls are X and Y"? If necessary, it can be changed to something "the most commonly heard call is X and the next most common is Y" or "Common calls include X and Y; for each species, one or the other of these is the most commonly heard" or whatever would be correct.

Agreed; I guess the form "Common calls include X and Y" would be best.
Done. I don't know what I was thinking when I changed it to something else.

I'd like to make these changes, but I think we should settle it so there won't be a revert war. There's another sentence that we can argue about later. —JerryFriedman 18:59, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Okay, now for that sentence, which is "Five species of scrub jay are now recognised, with two taxa until recently treated as races of A. coerulescens being split off as separate species". My first suggestions are to make it easy for the reader to see that A. coerulescens is now the Western Scrub-Jay and the two species that were split off are the other two with Scrub-Jay in their names. My second is to make the cause and effect absolutely explicit--there used to be three species, but A. coerulescens was split into three, so now there are five. What do you think? 198.176.219.153 21:39, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hey, that was me! JerryFriedman 21:57, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC) "Hi Jerry - not quite so simple, as A. coerulescens (the taxon in the genus first described) is actually Florida Scrub Jay (not surprising, as it was discovered before the West was even explored at all!);

I hate to be pedantic (not true), but the Western Scrub Jay's range includes central Mexico, which the Spanish occupied a few decades before they did Florida. These species weren't described till over 200 years later, though, so maybe the dates do reflect more ornithological activity in Florida than in current and former Mexico.

"Western Scrub Jay is A. californica. I'm in the middle of creating a page for Western Hemlock at the moment, but will hava a think about it when that's done in half an hour or so, and get back to you - MPF 22:10, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)"

Okay, thanks for the correction. I changed your wording a little; I think "since [something] was" shows the cause and effect more directly than "with [something] being". By the way, don't hurry on my account. I usually visit Wikipedia once or twice a day, when I can, so I won't notice if something takes longer than it could.
Since I see Western Scrub Jays all the time, I really should expand your stub, but first I have to check whether what I see holds true throughout the range. —JerryFriedman 21:40, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
A good edit

Thanks for bringing out the point you did on Dead tree edition. I wish more people understood the need for diversity. Most of our mixed forestland around here is rapidly being converted to monoculture loblolly pine. Pollinator 22:54, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

Cypress

Actually, it's probably best to include both the town and the riding (which I've just done). CJCurrie 01:54, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Wintergreen

I would be very happy to go along with your proposal. My propblem was that I knew the Pyrolas very well but had little knowldge of Gultheria other than knowing that there was more than just G. procumbens. I didn't want to swim against a great tide of American opinion if Wintergreen was the common name for Gaultheria procumbens whilst, in truth, Pyrola Wintergreens are not exactly the best known plants in Europe. There is already a re-direct page at Pyrola and another at Gaultheria procumbens. There's the fag of reverting all the odd links from Sasparilla, Root beer, etc. WormRunner was concerned to retain the histories through the moves, something that I signally failed to do but hopefully your editing skils are better than mine ! Velela 08:45, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC) Sorry, one other thing - if you are kind enough to fix up the links, the link from Ynys Llanddwyn should be to Pyrola or more specically Pyrola rotundifolia if that page should ever exist. Velela 08:58, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC) Hi MPF. There really isn't a great solution as far as I am concerned, since several but not all Gaultheria species are called Wintergreen more often than anything else (not just G. procumbens), and it is my understanding that wintergreen oil is derived primarily if not exclusively from Gaultheria. Also, I would say that US usage of wintergreen primarily refers to Gaultheria. As for moving it to Teaberry, I would say Checkerberry is at least as commonly used. That said, however, I would go along with your suggestion as the least of evils, as long as the "one-liner" specifically mentioned wintergreen oil as well as Gaultheria. I would suggest that G. humifusa and G. ovatifolia also get mentioned somewhere as normally being called wintergreen. WormRunner | Talk 00:59, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC) Excellent piece of work - and on a Saturday too. Much appreciated. Velela 20:50, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Archaeopteris

Hey, I'd like to invite you to check out Archaeopteris. I think you might be interested by this extinct plant, supposedly the first modern tree. I'm really pleased with the article, but could use some peer review. Thanks for your time. --DanielCD 20:49, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'll fix the units here in a bit. I'm having some problems with the taxobox at Cibotium. I put in species, but it still reads "plural_taxon". I might be missing something simple, but would appreciate if you could peek at it. --DanielCD 21:39, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
I sure won't shed any tears if you "shear" the Sythian Lamb from the article. Be my guest. --DanielCD 22:25, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Cotton flower pic

(from User:Pollinator) Hi Pollinator - in case you wonder where it's gone, I've moved Image:Cotton pollination 5892.JPG from cotton (about the fibre) to cotton plant (about the plant), as it is more appropriate there and I wanted to add another pic to the history section where it was - MPF 00:20, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC) Thanks for the note. I wonder if it wouldn't be more appropriate to also move the horicultural info to the plant page, or even on a page of its own. I could probably add some to it, since I'm in the middle of cotton country. I'm planning sometime soon to visit a museum which has a nineteenth century, home-made, wooden gin and I intend to take a lot of photos. Pollinator 03:28, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

Cyatheales

A merge was what I was thinking when I made the comments in the discussion. I think that would be a good idea. I need to read up a little though before I do it. Should be interesting though. --DanielCD 19:39, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC) Made a rough merge, but as I try to clean the sentences, I find it hard to define tree fern relative to Cyatheales. Might be a mistake, but if so, can always revert. --DanielCD 20:03, 14 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Tips

Thanks for the tips. As I learn more I'll make fewer of those mistakes. Lots of detail and I don't always take time to read the policy. I'll give it a read now though. --DanielCD 00:39, 18 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Interesting

Hi, Glad I found a wikipedian with unique interests. The Sikkim page has a lot of flora and fauna that you might want to check out. Nichalp 17:50, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for cleaning it up. Nichalp 18:57, Feb 18, 2005 (UTC)
Wild thyme (copied from User talk
Pollinator)

Hi Pollinator - I've not changed your details about its being important in Greece, but I don't think the Greek wild thyme honey will be from Thymus serpyllum, as that is (according to my books) a north European species of thyme. I guess the problem is that any thyme growing in the wild can be called wild thyme in a general sense, rather than specifically T. serpyllum which is the species called Wild Thyme in Britain. Maybe wild thyme should be made a redirect to thyme, with T. serpyllum described at Wild Thyme. Any thoughts? - MPF 15:02, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Certainly. I expected you, or someone in the area would fill out the details and make corrections. Someone from New Zealand added a number of monofloral honeys on the honey page (which is good, but makes the list somewhat unbalanced) and I wanted to note some of the rest of the world's famous monoflorals. I think these should be separated soon from the honey page, as it could make the page too big. BTW, I always ask folks who travel to bring me back a sample of the specialty honeys of the area. I was thus given a jar of Greek thyme honey, and it was very nice. There are others I wouldn't give two cents for. Pollinator 16:48, Feb 19, 2005 (UTC)
Monday Garden images.

I have a notice from Sue Sweeny that she releases these images under the GFDL. (When you release your images under the GFDL, you retain the copyright.) Unfortunately, I forgot to image-tag some of them. Sorry. I'll fix them. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 14:19, Feb 24, 2005 (UTC)

Alstonia

I used as source mainly IPNI, Flora of Australia and Flora of China. But the most important reference would be: Kade Sidiyasa. Taxonomy, phylogeny, and wood anatomy of Alstonia (Apocynaceae). 230 pp. Blumea, Suppl. 11 (1998). This Blumea journal is probably only available at university libraries. Unless you can consult it and see which 43 species are now the accepted names, we'll have to go along with the list of previously accepted names I've put together. While reviewing the article, I've added some additional text and removed the stub tag. JoJan 17:09, 24 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If you could consult the Blumea journal, then you just have to compare the lists of accepted names and make the necessary adjustments, marking previously accepted names as synonyms. JoJan 18:37, 25 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Sick article

Hey, I'm trying to nurse Passiflora caerulea back to health, but the pictures just won't behave. I tried several different things, and will try more, but thought I'd see if you might like to take a crack at it. Someone just dumped a block quote in for the description. I'll dissect it later. --DanielCD 16:03, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC) If you like that, you'll love this: Passiflora foetida. But if you're ready for a real carnivorous plant, try Meatflower. I emailed the "Carnivorous plant society" to get some ID help and info on this one. Can't find much on "Meatflower". Bundles of joy today. --DanielCD 16:52, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC) Nice work! I'm going to bookmark these so I can refer to them next time I need to fix a pic. I think I've got the taxobox down, now I'm working on learning the pic syntax. But nice job! --DanielCD 19:49, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Distributions

Thanks for your note. The articles looking a bit parochial is something that has been worrying me as well. I was half hoping someone would start editing some distribution data in but it looks like it might be down to me. Time to start digging! Richard Barlow 17:10, 3 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Plant families

Hey, do you know if there's a specific reason to have a category for plant families? I don't know if anyone would ever use this cat to find anything. I was just questioning its usefullness because it adds extra links at the bottom of some pages that are already cluttered with cats and stuff. Just wondering what you thought, cause I don't really think this cat is necessary. --DanielCD 19:56, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nootka

Hello, thanks for noticing my mistake regarding the Nootka -> Nuu-chah-nulth move. At the time I was under the impression that one could only move an article if nothing existed where it was going, but I see now that redirect articles with no history can be replaced by a move too. I've left a notice on Wikipedia:Requested moves, thanks again for showing me how to correct this mistake. Kurieeto 01:52, Mar 5, 2005 (UTC)

Thanks again

Thanks again, I've changed. You are very nice to take care for our Wiki, too. I'm theriologist, I make biiiig mistakes in botanics, sometimes. Shame on me! So thanks again for your attenion! But now we have a strong botanical teem on Polish Wikii: pl:Wikipedysta:Aki, pl:Wikipedysta:Aha and pl:Wikipedysta:Nova, so I may rest and "make mistakes" in other fields of knowledge. Kidding, of course ;). Thanks a lot! Dixi 06:36, 7 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Gallery revert

I'm quite happy you reverted my two galleries Eucalyptus and Tortoise. The "Latin" names do look odd if they're not in italics, thanks for letting me know, Best Wishes, Adrian - Adrian Pingstone 16:39, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Tannin's pic

Ah, well spotted. In that case - and now that I check the difference is obvious - I have a new tick in my book. Nice one! Tannin 21:47, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My cypresses

I've been hoping someone would tell me what species they are. Adam 18:52, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My pics

Hey, I uploaded some of my first pics at Dewberry, Fruit, and Bramble fruit. I almost thought they were too out-of-focus, but used them anyway because there are no others. Just wanted to get your comment; I always seem to learn something when I do. --DanielCD 15:33, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nipa

Hey, an article has appeared at Nipah palm that I think is the same as the one at Nipa. I was going to add a taxobox and merge the two, but I'm not sure whether it should be Nypa or Nipa. Internet searches give both. Just thought I'd LYK, since you like palms. --DanielCD 14:46, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC) I'm finding Zamia pumila a bit confusing. I think the one in Florida is Z. integrifolia, and I think a lot of sources are listing "Florida Arrowroot" as Z. pumila when it is actually Z. integrifolia, or (sigh) several possible others: Z. augustifolia, Z. debilis, Z. umbrosa, Z. silvicola, Z. portoricensis.... I wrote this article, but I may need to take it down while I find some refs that are more clear. Just thought I'd introduce some confusion into your day. --DanielCD 15:35, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank You

Hey, thanks for filling out and fixing up a few articles I started on, smoke tree, Zanthoxylum clava-herculis, etc. I have to say, I was rather surprised at how quickly that happened! (BTW I've just started to get interested in trees, so forgive me for making any silly mistakes) -Daniel11 21:29, 21 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Nootka

Hi MPF, I have done, as you wished (i.e. at the :da:Nutkacypres_(Callitropsis_nootkatensis) Danish article on Nootkacypres) Please allow me to thank you for the contribution to the article! Sten 15:18, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Meadow Foxtail

Thanks so much MPF for your identification of the Meadow Foxtail grass! Perhaps you can help me in the future with identification? Here are two images I'd like to know the name for: the fruit of some weed, flower of wild shrub (about 60cm tall) Thank you again!--Fir0002 22:45, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Cypress?

Thanks for editing the mummy article, I was starting to think I was on my own ;) Can you provide any link to where you found info about cypress coffins as oposed to cedar coffins in the mummy article? Also, I'd love some feedback on my peer review request. Mgm|(talk) 10:23, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)

  • I didn't write the bit about the Chinese mummy, but I guess whoever did, mixed up their woods. Thanks for the explanation. Mgm|(talk) 12:36, Mar 29, 2005 (UTC)
Capitalisation of plant vernacular names

I notice that you recently reverted mountain avens to Mountain Avens, with capitalised initials, after I had de-capitalised it. What was the reasoning behind this? I thought there was no reason to capitalise vernacular names (except the semi-official names given to birds) except where they already contain a proper noun (e.g. "little Japanese horseshoe bat"). You seem not to mind southern live oak, longhorn beetle, etc. being in lower case. --Stemonitis 08:03, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Ash and Beetles

Got my info from a former park ranger at Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon. He seemed pretty sure about the need for the seed to fall under some cover for UV protection, especially at the high altitudes where these trees grow, and that the ash provides enough. As for fire being sufficient to open cones, he said it may be the case on some low branches, but doubted the heat would be sufficient higher in the crown. He guessed at least half of the opened cones on the ground have the beetle holes, and this in areas with regular burns. I can ask him for published references. Eoghanacht 18:33, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC) Also, I have heard of sequoias being grown as Christmas trees on tree farms, but I had not read any serious plantings for timber. If you know of any, please feel free to add to the Use section. Eoghanacht 18:57, 2005 Apr 1 (UTC)

categories

Are you aware that by changing category "American botanists" to "botanists", you simply destroyed the nationality info that hundreds of editors have been trying to develop and maintain across all of WP, not just the botany section? At the very least you should have added "American people" etc. I didn't notice this before now because the software broke my watchlist until today, now you've created a huge mess to clean up after. Stan 02:47, 2 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. I merely restored :Category:botanists to how it used to be before 19 March, when it was broken up, almost entirely by one person (the anonymous user 82.35.37.118). I did not remove any other nationality categorisation. - MPF 17:37, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Categories for deletion/botanists by nationality lists a 4-4 vote, which is hardly a consensus to make the changes you did. Some of the categories you emptied have been around for six months at least, such as British botanists, so it wasn't just an anon (who was most likely User:Pcpcpc logged out, as the software is wont to do). Although I understand that you personally think nationality is unimportant, that is just your POV; for a high-school teacher in New Zealand or Brazil looking up homegrown botanists for the class to write about, that is quite relevant, and nearly impossible to find out without the subcategories. In any case, you're setting yourself against the hundreds of editors who have built :Category:Nationalities by occupation and :Category:People by nationality and their thousands of subcategories. Either botanists are fundamentally different from other kinds of people (which could be argued I suppose :-) ), or all these other editors are mistaken, in which case you should convince them of their wrongness first before unilaterally emptying out the category. But given that :Category:American actors alone has some 3,000 names, I don't think you're going to get much of a favorable hearing! If you want to argue that the botanists is still too small to be subdivided, that's plausible, but your argument seems to be that the category shouldn't be subdivided no matter how large it gets. Just as you expect other people to defer to your knowledge in matters arboreal, you should respect those who are more knowledgeable about information organization. Stan 18:29, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
The subdividing of occupational categories by nationality is a longstanding normal practice; I would not expect anyone to ask permission to do that. Anyway, Bill Thayer created the British botanists cat back in November 2004, and no one seems to have ever complained about that one. I can't quite believe you're seriously making an argument about botanists being somehow different; within WP as a whole, it's just another occupation. We can't be effective if each specialty comes along and says "we're more special than the others, so we have to do things differently". But then you change gears and say it's not a matter of principle, it's because the category is small. Aren't there about 35,000 people who have named plant species? That's going to be a pretty big single category. My own rule of thumb for category creation is that it should have a minimum of 10 members, so I'm with you on not creating singleton cats, but you emptied out both large and small nationalities, which is an action based on principle, not pragmatics. Finally, with respect to Schlechtendal, the right thing to do is to create the missing redir Schlechtendal, which can become a disambig if there comes to be more than one of them in WP. The lookup problem you're enunciating is far more severe for actors than for botanists, so if flattening categories is the answer, then you'd expect a tremendous push to make a single giant actors - but no one would suggest it seriously for actors. So if you want to argue that the flattening is a pragmatic measure due to current category smallness, I'm willing to let this slide until the category gets larger, then we'll revisit. If you want to argue that this is a matter of principle that will not change irrespective of category size, I think we will need to escalate to the general category discussion page, because the principle involved potentially affects nearly all of WP's biography articles. Stan 23:19, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Bigtooth Maple pic

Rats. You're right. I saw that it was on the USDA, but I didn't see the special copyright info. I'll try to find a replacement. – Quadell (talk) (sleuth) 02:53, Apr 2, 2005 (UTC)

Farming Sequoias

I made some wording changes to the ash and beetle statements under Giant Sequoia, as well as a vague intro to tree farming them in GB--something for you to expand on when you get more info. It did not occur to me that it had much timber use, as in the States you are generally better off planting Redwoods for the timber. I presume in GB it grows better than Redwoods. Where I live, I have a healthly redwood sapling that I planted a couple years ago, whereas of the dozens of Sequoia seedlings I grew (out of curiousity), only one has lasted more than two years, and that is pretty sickly. Noticed that someone added "Sierra Redwood" to the top of the article. The one common name not listed is plain "Sequoia" which is what most people I have spoken to call it--although confusing from a scientific point of view. I added a new article Georgia oak, my first for a species. Feel free to comment on a Wiki stylistic level. —Eoghanacht 17:28, 2005 Apr 4 (UTC)

Polypod Pics and Polypodiales

Hey, I just illustrated the article I wrote at Resurrection fern. It finally rained yesterday and the ferns opened up. Check it out. I'm just tooting my own horn here, so feel free to ignore this if you are doing something more important. I've also added an article at New Zealand Tree Fern if you are interested. --DanielCD 19:52, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

HI again MPF. I'm trying to distinguish the order Athyriales from Polypodiales and could use a second opinion about my breaking up of the families. I have't touched the Athyriales article as far as classification goes, but it seems to claim two families that Polypodiales also claims. I'm pretty sure of the breakup I have at the Polypodiales article, but am not 100% sure. Classification schemes can be hair-splitting. --DanielCD 15:16, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Wow, there's actually a Dryopteridales as well. All the polypod families seem to have their own orders. --DanielCD 15:20, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Those two seem to agree better with each other than with the one I'm using. I am going to make the changes because they seem to mesh better with what I've been seeing. Whew, it'll be a job, but the Polypodiales and other ferns will be much more clear when I'm done. Thanks for the help; it is much appreciated. --DanielCD 16:11, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Cacao

Since when is cacao moved from Sterculiaceae to Malvaceae? Can you provide a source for that? Thanks. Guettarda 23:43, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the information - after I posted to you I found my way to Gwimpey, and eventually to the APG web page. I need to look into it when I have the time (unfortunately I'm only an amatuer systematist - a consumer of systematics rather than a producer). Thanks for the info. Guettarda 13:13, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Poison ivy or poison-ivy?

Howdy, just wondering about the spelling. I haven't seen posion ivy hyphenated. I checked a couple of dictionaries as well as here and they all omit the hyphen. On the other hand, you seem an actual botanist (certainly more of one than I). Just curious about that hyphen. Thanks, -- Gyrofrog (talk) 16:42, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Pine

I'll give the articles you suggested a go. The common name "Pine Looper" is applied to a fair few geometrids worldwide - I'd guess the species you are referring to is Bupalus piniaria which is usually given the common name "Bordered White" in the literature. I'll try and sort the naming of the articles out. Richard Barlow 07:47, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

gl Aralia

Hi, in gl Aralia I describe aralia spinosa specie, not the genus Aralia. Galician names for the trees of this specie are not fixed, and I use, provisionally, aralia for aralia spinosa to appear thus in some galician dictionary.--Rocastelo 10:28, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Mahabodhi Temple

Thanks for copyediting Mahabodhi Temple - however, I have added the words Bo or Peepul tree, as the word Peepul has been used in Buddhist texts. From your user page, I understand that you are specialist of "trees" - the best person to translate Peepul. Thanks.--Bhadani 17:03, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

thanks for the idea - actually, I am an Indian, and I have realtives in Gaya Bodh Gaya - I am arranging to do that within a month. bye now.--Bhadani 18:26, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)
198.110.181.160

Ok, thanks for letting me know. It's kind of difficult to know whether it's the same individual, what with a month's difference and the possibility of it being a dynamically assigned address (Trees of Iran and Pancho Villa, now that's eclectic), but I'll keep an eye on his/her/its activities today. (Btw, leaving a note on the anon's talk page when you revert vandalism / accident / new user getting in a mess like that is a good idea -- it lets him know someone's watching, and it leaves a record for the future.) –Hajor 15:29, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)