Talk:Pinophyta

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Contents 1 Oldest and largest living thing claims 2 '''''''''''''''taxonomy''''''''''''''' 3 Image:Taxaceae.png 4 Phylogeny

[edit] Oldest and largest living thing claims

This article claims that the oldest, largest and tallest living things are conifers. However, some claim that creosote bushes in the Mojave Desert are older and a type of fungus is larger. -- Kjkolb 08:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Those are clonal colonies, not individual organisms. Single individuals within those colonies are not old, large or tall. - MPF 23:59, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

==general question about == == ==

[edit] '''''''''''''''taxonomy'''''''''''''''

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schemes and specifically pinophyta==

There are a number of schemes on the web and other places with regard to the organization of the gymnoperms and the name of the division that includes the pines. This article has decided to use pinophyta, but there are a lot of sources that use Coniferophyta. My question is how is it decided to use one name instead of another and one scheme instead of another? —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

Botanical names used in Wikipedia must correspond to the ICBN, or the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature. Coniferophyta is the older, outdated name, but some sources may still be using it. Dilbert 21:15, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

The most widely used older name is actually Coniferae, which is listed by the ICBN as a valid alternative name to Pinophyta (ICBN Art. 16.1, Ex. 2); it doesn't mention Coniferophyta, which may not be a valid name - MPF 00:53, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Nevertheless, the fact remains that NCBI uses Coniferophyta (and also Coniferales.) NCBI (the National Center for Biotechnology Information) is the arm of the U.S. NIH (National Institutes of Science) that maintains the NIH standard for plant and animal taxonomy, so it appears that this issue is not all that clear-cut, even though there may be other important authorities that don't agree. For my work (I research dictionaries), I am pretty persuaded by the NIH standard. The whole issue is monumentally petty and silly and causes a lot of nuisance for the rest of us, and I suppose it is for this reason that the Tree of Life website (in line with the practice of APG, it appears) simply calls the groups "Conifers" and declines to make any further subdivisions until the family level. In any case, I think it is not accurate to present a monolithic view of the issue. NaySay 16:41, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Taxaceae.png

Shouldn't the following image contain Callitropsis and others? Or possibly lop off the genera?

Also, shouldn't the branching at the left have Taxaceae at the far left with the three lines emerging to the right? I may alter it if necessary. --Kalmia 20:16, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Callitropsis is in Cupressaceae, not Taxaceae, so it doesn't belong on this diagram (I can add it to Image:Cupressaceae.PNG, but that's easier said than done, given the current evidence, which suggests that Cupressus is probably paraphyletic with respect to Callitropsis and Juniperus (Little, D. P., Schwarzbach, A. E., Adams, R. P. & Hsieh, Chang-Fu. 2004. The circumscription and phylogenetic relationships of Callitropsis and the newly described genus Xanthocyparis (Cupressaceae). Amer. J. Bot. 91 (11): 1872–1881). Not sure what you mean in the second para; Cupressus and Sciadopitys are included as outgroups (basically, an 'anchor' for analysing the relationships within the Taxaceae s.l.), and the diagram is correctly formed - MPF 21:35, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Phylogeny

I see that the phylogeny included in the article does not include the Gnetophytes. I haven't had a chance to check the Farjon et al. reference, but most recent molecular analyses have included Gnetum, Ephedra, Welwitschia as a clade nested within a monophyletic gymnosperm clade, I believe as sister to the Pinophyta clade. MrDarwin 16:18, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

It seems to change daily, though. I'm not sure it's most, but rather some. KP Botany 17:06, 21 December 2006 (UTC)