Talk:Withania somnifera

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Withania somnifera article.
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Withania somnifera was a good article, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these are addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Delisted version: No date specified. To provide a date use: {{DelistedGA|insert date in any format here}}


[edit] Delisted GA

I delisted this article from GA status because:

  • First off, it appears to be a self-nomination, by User:BorgQueen
  • Lack of inline citations, which aren't a requirement, but still would be useful
  • Needs copyediting:

Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera), also known as Indian ginseng, Winter cherry, Ajagandha, Kanaje Hindi and Samm Al Ferakh, is a plant in Solanaceae or nightshade family. - needs the word "the" There are other instances of poor writing

  • Weak lead; one sentence paragraph?
  • poor 2-sentence history
  • weak, not thorough

AndyZ 20:07, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree, this article needs research citations, better references to herbal use and better editing. This is an important herb in the Ayurvedic materia medica, and is important as an herbal adaptogen that can readily grown as an annual (unlike ginseng or eleutherococcus).

Karen S Vaughan 18:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Constituents

I find no mention of pyralizodine alkaloids (saturated or unsaturated?- it makes a huge difference) in Duke's USDA database under Withania somnifera. There are no restrictions on use which would be found on an herb with dangerous PAs, as this is a well-researched rasayana herb. It is possible that the leaf or stem, which are not used medicinally, have toxic chemicals as this is a solanaceae, but the herb is considered safe for small children and the elderly in traditional Ayurvedic medicine. The article needs a substantial rewrite. Karen S Vaughan 16:11, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Photo

So, Image:With_somn.jpg is a nice photo apparently from the "Indian Institute of Science collection" (which I was unable to find information about from google, probably because "collection" and "Indian Institute of Science" are common terms). But there are too many things about it which I don't know how to handle, including whether the right permission is on file (commons:Template:no permission since) and the presence of a credit in the image (commons:Template:Watermark).

I note from commons:User_talk:Madhav_Gadgil that the uploader has had issues with other images more-or-less similarly uploaded, but I can't really tell what the resolution, if any, of all those other situations was.

If this image isn't suitable, we should add needs-photo=yes to the Plants box on this page. Kingdon (talk) 00:20, 19 November 2007 (UTC)