Talk:Glossary of botanical terms

Untitled

This glossary will be completed in the next few days Granitethighs (talk) 00:21, 2 July 2008 (UTC)

completedGranitethighs (talk) 04:45, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to merge

Agree with this proposal and could do it myself. Morphological terms are a subset of botanical terms so the Botanical Glossary would be the parent article.Granitethighs (talk) 01:18, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Can't arrange the topic separated with the pages in an alphabetic order...???

It's too long and wasting time to load the page--222.64.210.158 (talk) 07:18, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Click on the letters of the alphabet at the top of the page.Granitethighs 07:45, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Illustrations and pictures

Illustrations and pictures would be great. There cannot be too many. I prefer anatomical drawings of "ideal" or generalized forms over pictures. If you are an illustrator, it would be good practice to draw your favorite terms, and upload them at WP:Commons. PPdd (talk)

Botany vs. botanical

Moved from User talk:SMcCandlish § Page move

 – per Guettarda.

I'm not sure I agree with your move from "botanical" to "botany" terms. There's a subtle but important difference in meaning between the two, and I would much rather see this sort of a move discussed. Guettarda (talk) 14:51, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

What would this difference be in the context of this glossary, which is clearly full of botany terms? And why is it important? Using botany is in keeping with pretty much every glossary of scientific terms on the system, and with WP:AT generally (use the noun of the topic, redirect from modifications). Botanical is also ambiguous ("of plants", "derived from plants", "focused on plants", "having something to do with plants", "of the science of botany", etc. Botany has no such ambiguity. I have no bone to pick about this, just going for consistency and lack of confusability. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 15:13, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

"Botanical terminology" is generally used in discussions about plants - specifically, anatomical and morphological features of plants. While a list like this may or may not include chloroplast, it generally won't include thylakoid, Casparian strip, or the Calvin cycle. These are the kind of thing that would be core content in an introductory botany course, things you'd certainly see covered in a botany textbook...but they aren't normally called "botanical terms". Nor would you generally see terms related to life histories, pollination syndromes, evolution, development, seed dispersal, or anything from the world of vegetation ecology. Nor would you see purely fungal terminology, despite the fact that historically mycology and microbiology were outgrowths of botany (and are still covered in introductory botany courses and textbooks). Just take a look at the BSA's list of sections: Bryological and Lichenological, Developmental and Structural, Ecological, Economic, Genetic, Historical, Microbiological, Paleobotanical, Phycological, Physiological, Phytochemical, Pteridological, Systematic, Teaching and Tropical Biology Sections. All of these sections are able to attract substantial membership. Similarly, if you look at the January issue of the American Journal of Botany, you'll see the same structure illustrated in the papers they publish. The February issue is a special issue on next-generation sequencing, so it lacks the diversity, but still does a good job of illustrating the fact that "botany" is far, far broader than the content of this list. The list covers botanical terminology, a respectable field of knowledge. It doesn't cover "botany terminology" - if, indeed, there is such a thing. It's not a term that's familiar to me, despite the fact that I've spent more than half my life now (!!!) affiliated with "botany" or "plant biology" departments. Guettarda (talk) 18:27, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Guettarda. "Botanical terminology" (or "botanical term[s]") is a phrase that is encountered reasonably often; "botany terminology" just sounds like childspeak. It's like talking about a "science journal" instead of a "scientific journal", or "animal nomenclature" instead of "zoological nomenclature". Given that there is clear dissent, I think it would be reasonable to undo the move pending a fuller discussion, per WP:BRD. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:38, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

This is looking at it in all the wrong ways: Why is "term" in there? "Glossary of botany" does the trick fine. Circéus (talk) 18:57, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

No, that makes no more sense. A better form would be "botanical glossary", and I don't consider that to be an improvement, either. A decent choice for a redirect, though... --Stemonitis (talk) 21:14, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I also think that "botany terms" or "botany terminology" sounds like child speak. I'm sure a grammarian could explain why. I also trust Guettarda's expertise and opinion. But for those who don't, we should be looking at what Reliable Sources use when we are determining an article title. A GBooks search shows "botanical terms" used so overwhelmingly over "botany terms" that it's laughable. 85,700 vs. 294. Really.[1][2] Google Scholar gives similar results. This shouldn't even be up for discussion, based on how reliable sources phrase it. First Light (talk) 21:28, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Guettarda is a grammar and semantics expert, or a botany expert? — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:42, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Circéus' idea is not a bad one really, but that's not the article (or list) we have here. We could merge this with the glossary of plant morphology and call that a glossary of plant anatomy & morphology, make this a "list of lists" kind of page, and create glossaries for plant ecology and ethnobotany, and whatever other sub-fields we can come up with. Guettarda (talk) 21:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

We can't really compare number of hits, because they are skewed by piggyback versions of Wikipedia's own articles, but we can compare the quality of results. My search, 1 2 was similar. "Botanical" carries elite results such as The Cambridge Illustrated Glossary of Botanical Terms, Glossary of botanical terms used in the Poaceae from Harvard, Glossary of botanical terms for Compositae from Kew, and Glossary of botanical terms in French and English from Tropicos. The "botany" search though is limited to things like the Master Gardener training program, a "Glossary of Botany Terms Relevant to Pastures", and a site to help in high school biology homework. --Tom Hulse (talk) 21:49, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

We can when it's that overwhelming (at least I can, since I was too lazy to do what you did :-) ). First Light (talk) 21:52, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

I have undone the move given the discussion here, but that should not prejudice the outcome of any move request that might be filed. --Stemonitis (talk) 06:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Note "terms" being used consistently; the authors of those pieces clearly understood that glossaries can be of something other than terms, but of any units to which can be assigned definitive values. E.g. it would be easy (in the conceptual if not workload sense) to create a "glossary of mosses", a "glossary of commercial fertilizer pH levels", etc., which would not be about terms relating to those things, but about the characteristics of things in those classes. That's why WP glossaries have long tended toward including the word "terms". As for "botany" vs. "botanical", it's really a moot point since this will need to be addressed at a much more general level in a RfC so we arrive at a naming convention for these things. The existing article titles strongly suggest a consistent pattern of using the name of the field as a noun instead of the sometimes ambiguous adjective version. (Thus it is astronomy terms - the terms relate to astronomy; there's nothing intrinsically astronomical about the sounds and characters that make them up; the stars did not speak or write them, just as plants did not grown botanical terms.) The "child speak" jab works both ways. A very large number of topics don't have an adjectival term that's directly comparable to "botanical". Trying to invent one, as in "Glossary of climby terms" instead of "Glossary of climbing terms" of course sounds silly because they're not real words, but the experiment also highlights why the adjectival versions are not preferable; they imply an assignment of judged characteristics to the terms, instead of simply grouping them in a set defined by relevance. Botany/Botanical is not the clearest case of this being problematic, of course. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 13:57, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, because this is an encyclopedia of what the sources say, and not truth, my opinion as to what the title should be according to proper grammer is irrelevant, as is yours. We have no business telling Cambridge & Harvard & Kew that they're saying it wrong, that they should instead follow the pasture guy and other non-botanists. We only document and move on. So trying trying to impose one rigid naming convention on such diverse topics as botany and astronomy in a nonsensical language like English will never work. We're not here to make the world "proper", just to document what it already is. --Tom Hulse (talk) 19:22, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

MOS has nothing to do with "telling [anyone] they're...wrong" or "mak[ing] the world 'proper'", only about setting in-house style for editorial sanity and a consistent, unconfusing reader experience. All other style considerations border on worthless, including trying to match what reliable sources in a field do in publications in that field, which are not encyclopedias. It's an utterly quixotic thing to even attempt to do, because the jargonistic style preferences of virtually every specialty conflict with the preferences of multiple other specialties, leading to site-wide chaos. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

How Reliable Sources treat a subject certainly takes precedence over a quixotic desire to have grammatical uniformity in all "glossary of X terms" article titles. First Light (talk) 21:09, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Classic specialist style fallacy. Reliable sources on facts about plants are not reliable sources on English language writing style for a general audience, even if plants are involved. Reliable sources on modern English language usage in general prose are mainstream style guides like Chicago Manual of Style and Hart's Rules, dictionaries, other encyclopedias, and major non-specialist publications like newspapers. Otherwise, we'd simply delete the entire WP:MOS and let's every imaginable style, grammar and spelling quirk from specialist sources run rampant. MOS adopts whatever it can from specialist style for in-specialty articles, but where specialist style and general style conflict markedly, in ways that confuse readers or cause other problems, the long history of MOS's development is that specialist style loses those battles, pretty much every time. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm not a specialist. I'm just a gardener (amateur, in my little spare time). I've never published a paper or written a book. Like many home gardeners in my part of the world, I view the Sunset Western Garden Book as the bible for the most amateur of gardeners. It is sold at every Home Depot, Walmart, and hardware store in the west. It is probably the most popular gardening book ever sold, in the entire world. It is written for non-specialists—in fact for the person who has never put a plant in the ground before. In every place it uses the phrases, it only uses "botanical terminology" and "botanical terms". Never "botany terminology" or "botany terms." Even the person who has never put a plant in the ground before will recognize that as the correct term. First Light (talk) 15:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Those of you who commented above might want to keep an eye on the proposed guideline at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Glossaries. While I'm sure it is not intended as an "end-run" on this of issue, it would still have the same effect of nullifying your concerns above, and allow him make this type of move despite your objections. It is arguably a needed article, so it has a good chance of being accepted by the greater community, but the details of the Naming Conventions section could easily go unnoticed as causing these types of problems. --Tom Hulse (talk) 02:06, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

I and plenty of others would see it as resolving problems (especially chaotic, unpredictable naming that makes it hard for people to find articles, code consistent templates, etc.). Wikipedia doesn't care what specialist publishers do, style-wise, in specialist works for specialists. It has no bearing on what style and naming conventions make sense in the world's most general-purpose encyclopedia with the world's most general audience. Honestly, I don't think anyone could care less what this article is called as long as plausible redirects exist, but the clear site-wide pattern is to use the noun not adjective form, which is why MOS:GLOSS calls for this (and also based on WP:AT policy calling for the same thing, I might add - articles are almost always at the base noun, e.g. Botany, with redirects from modifications, e.g. Botanical, Botanist. If editors here want a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to do something different, have at it (though a handful of editors doesn't really make one). No need to go try to change a long-stable guideline proposal to use a new naming convention pattern that defies WP:AT and general usage (see Category:Glossaries of science – there's not one adjectival example other than botany). WP:IAR exists for a reason; call this page whatever you want. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 10:46, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

In referencing MOS:GLOSS you said "No need to go try to change a long-stable guideline proposal". You really said that?? MOS:GLOSS is irrelevant, as that is not an accepted guideline; it is merely your personal opinion written by you. It is no different than a personal sandbox page. At WP:AT the preference for nouns is only for titles not covered by the five principles, one of which says that "titles usually convey what the subject is actually called in English." Another principle is consistency, which is your goal, but since you can't follow both principles here the guideline says "It may be necessary to favor one or more of the principles behind these goals over the others. This is done by consensus". This is not WP:LOCALCONSENSUS as you claim, this is a solid WP policy. Additionally, in labeling us "specialists" with your link at Specialist style fallacy (another irrelevant opinion piece written by you, not a WP guideline), you are twisting the real intent of WP:AT, where specialists & specialized is used to contrast to common names, not to proper grammar as you propose. We are arguing for the common name usage in all of English, not just specialized to one one field. Your article title is not a common name in any respect. Your claim of no adjectival examples at Category:Glossaries of science is rather similar to a fib, since at least two of them have been changed this week away from their adjectival titles, Glossary of geological terms and Glossary of botanical terms, in this same mad rush by you and Allen to standardize glossary titles without consensus or discussion. Both of these terms highlight why it would be impractical to force a rigid glossary naming convention in this respect. --Tom Hulse (talk) 20:04, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:MOSGLOSS has been formally proposed by SMcCandlish for inclusion in Wikipedia as an accepted guideline at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Proposing MOS:GLOSS as an actual guideline. You can comment on it there. --Tom Hulse (talk) 21:22, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

[Outdent from all] Wow, way to blow things out of proportion, folks. There's so many weird things in those responses I'm going to have to respond with a numbered list just to keep track of it:

1. Have a cup of WP:TEA. Anyone whose blood pressure is raising about this non-issue needs to take a walk. I've already conceded that I don't (and probably hardly anyone but the handful of editors already in the discussion does) care what this article is called. No one is telling you to change it. You've already moved it back and no one's reverting you. WP:DONTPANIC. WP:NOONECARES.
2. WP:COMMONNAME was really the only argument anyone had to make. All this increasingly personalized and hostile invective, like calling me a liar, was and remains entirely unnecessary.
3. Anyone's welcome to believe/wish/propose that what reliable sources prefer with regards to style and naming trumps general usage and encyclopedic considerations, but that won't change the fact that in practice it doesn't. Heck, WP:COMMONNAME and WP:MOS pointedly eschew specialist practices all the time. Doing what most people expect instead of what specialists in this narrow field or that are used to is one of the principal reasons that naming policy and that style guide exist; it keeps WP from turning into Geekipedia. It's a mistake to confuse the reliance on reliable sources for facts about a topic, in which case specialist sources are often the most reliable, with reliance on them for style and naming, in which case they are secondary to more generalized reliable sources on English usage.
4. WP:AT is actually very, very specific about this: "The choice of article titles should put the interests of readers before those of editors, and those of a general audience before those of specialists...Th[e] practice of using specialized names is often controversial, and should not be adopted unless it produces clear benefits..." That doesn't really have any effect on the now-dead debate about the name of this article, just the general principle.
5. Citing what one popular source does is anecdotal, and orthogonal to the issue of how WP should name articles anyway. (And who says the Sunset book is the "gardening bible"? What about The A–Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants at 1094 pages on my bookshelf, sagging under the combined weight of it and the 1020-page Botanica: The Illustrated A–Z of Over 10,000 Garden Plants and How to Cultivate Them. Oh, I'm sorry, did anyone think I didn't know anything about plants and botany?  :-) Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I'm "anti-gardener" or "botany-hostile"; reasonable people can disagree, and knowing that a convention exists in one type of publication does not equate to supporting a blanket requirement for it in all other kinds of publication. People focusing on the work of a particular wikiproject need to remember that just because someone hasn't joined your little club doesn't mean they are clueless about the topic. Assumptions of non-project-member ignorance are a very, very poor idea.
6. Being a gardener expecting that WP will do what gardening books do in every way, any time WP happens to talk about plants, is precisely what WP:SSF addresses (it doesn't say "professional academic specialists", and applies even to stuff like Tolkien fans getting too fanwanky and in-universe about Lord of the Rings stuff, or skateboarders writing too much in skater jargon).
7. MOS:GLOSS wouldn't "nullify" any concern raised by anyone here. It doesn't say anything at all that contradicts this article's current name. Specifically, it says: "For a glossary list article that consists of a simple lead and a glossary, the form Glossary of subject terms is preferred, with redirects to it from [misc. plausible alternatives here]". It doesn't specify "subject in noun form"; that idea comes from WP:AT policy, so take your complaints there. The vindictive "oppose" !vote at WT:MOS should be retracted.
8. MOS:GLOSS is not irrelevant. Various glossary articles already have been following it to the letter for a long time. The fact that it doesn't say {{Guideline}} yet doesn't make it the logic in it worthless. It's not even entirely mine (The Transhumanist has worked on it a lot, too, from WikiProject Glossaries.) That I incidentally happen to be the primary author of it makes neither its reasoning nor my arguments magically weaker.
9. I never claimed anything in WP:AT is a local consensus; that's a straw man.
10. I never claimed WP:SSF was anything but an opinion piece (and again, it's not entirely mine; I just randomly happen to have been its initial drafter), so ranting at me as if I suggested it was a guideline is way off the map. The fact that its an opinion piece doesn't make the logic in it invalid. If that were the case, every {{essay}} on the system should be thrown away.
11. I never claimed that WP:SFF and WP:AT use "specialized" in the same way. They are different documents written for different purposes by different people (mostly), and I'm unaware of any policy or convention that says a word like "specialized" can only ever have one single meaning in many hundreds of "Wikipedia:" namespace pages. Then again, the more I re-read AT (see the direct quotes from it above) the more I think their wording is 100% compatible after all.
12. Other than undoing Alan Liefting's mass rename to remove " terms" from every glossary name, often resulting in grossly misleading article titles, I have paid nearly zero attention to what he's doing, which is thousands upon thousands of semi-automated edits of all sorts all over the place, that I doubt anyone could keep track of (most of them that I skimmed even looked productive). If I missed the fact that a whopping two comparable articles had similar names, then mea culpa, I made a mistake. That doesn't make me a liar. It also doesn't do anything to invalidate my broader point (probably moot, per COMMONNAME, with regard to this particular page, but valid as a more general observation of a de facto standard), that the vast majority of glossary articles do in fact naturally follow the "subject in noun form" convention (because it both follows WP:AT better and is less ambiguous). That doesn't mean anyone is on the warpath to rename this article, so WP:CHILL.

Unless someone summons me back here with a talkback, I have nothing further to say (and may still not even if you do; I grow weary of circular argumentation from biology project, and I say that as a member of biology projects). Congratulations on making a pointless, lava-spewing volcano out of a molehill. I'm so sorry I dared touch an article a handful of botany and gardening editors so clearly are entitled to control. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 09:06, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry I said your incorrect point was "similar to a fib". It seemed you were trying to slip one past us, and I see now you didn't intend to purposely do that; I apologize.

Don't you hate it when that guy makes a huge megapost with a ton of points then says he's leaving, lol? ;) I don't see anyone getting worked up here, other than perhaps you. Having a cup of WP:TEA is good advice. :) The most relevant of the (many) issues above is the meaning of "specialist" at WP:AT (you misunderstood before, I meant that WP:SSF was irrelevant since you penned it, not that I necessarily had any problem with its use of "specialist"). It is here that you are missing the intent/context of "specialist" from WP:AT. In context, it is advocating common names over specialist names, it is not advocating consistent conventions over specialist names. This is very important: we are advocating a common name, not a specialist name. While we did include some specific notable examples, we also looked at the whole range of all usage of "Glossary of botanical terms"; the evidence was overwhelming for a common name. But wouldn't it be great if WP:AT directly addressed this issue of a common name vs. a proposed convention? Wait, it does! Here is the context:

"Explicit conventions

Wikipedia has many naming conventions relating to specific subject domains (as listed in the box at the top of this page). Sometimes these recommend the use of titles that are not strictly the common name (as in the case of the conventions for flora and medicine). This practice of using specialized names is often controversial, and should not be adopted unless it produces clear benefits outweighing the use of common names"

Can you see from the context who is the specialist in our discussion? Per WP:AT it's you! :) The only specialist here is the glossary specialist that wants to rigidly impose non-common article names over the top of the way they are commonly said by common people.

Regarding your claim of entitled to control, I know you have done a lot of editing on MOS & guidelines, but perhaps a look in the mirror is in order when we start referring to our own sandbox pages as a "long-stable guideline proposal", and insinuating they are nearly de-facto policy as above and as here and here. No one else has edited the naming section of your proposed guideline, no one has discussed it or even commented on it... it's all you. While I disagree with your other points, I'll let you have the last word on them. --Tom Hulse (talk) 12:23, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Coming to this late, and thoroughly astonished. "Botanical terms": adjective noun. "Botany terms" noun noun. English is at one end of the continuum in Indo-European languages allowing nouns to modify other nouns. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with it, as long as it doesn't create ambiguity (and it certainly doesn't here), but I can't imagine (even after skimming the discussions above) why anyone would ever think it was better, especially when it goes against common usage.

Every time I start to think that SMcCandlish has useful ideas about stylistic issues, he comes up with something to dissuade me. If using adjectives to modify nouns is a specialist style, I think we're all doomed. Why not just change it to "plant biology terms" so everyone will be unhappy?--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:27, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

I was at a loss for words about this issue. Curtis has said everything I might have considered saying. Nadiatalent (talk) 15:54, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Glossary templates

Hallo. I reformatted this page to use {{term}} and {{defn}} templates. Their main benefits are structured markup (the content is semantically laden now, and a computer will be able to parse them as glossary entries), and they add anchor links (so every entry can now be linked, without adding any code. Just a # , eg Glossary of botanical terms#acicular). The drawbacks are increased page size, and increased editmode complexity. Hopefully you agree that the pros outweigh the cons!

The next level beyond this, for a large and full-featured page such as this, would be to create your own template similar to {{cuegloss}} (as used in Glossary of cue sports terms) to clarify when a bluelink is a within-the-page link, vs a link to another article. If you want that, it's up to you! (I haven't used them yet, but might be able to advise/assist).

HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 11:59, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Actually, {{cuegloss}}, and the meta-template, {{glossary link}}, for such templates (e.g. a {{botanygloss}} template) are for links to glossary terms regardless where they are located. They make it much easier to cite entries, and even convert case. The very best way to use them is to edit the glossary to have alternative forms of words as anchors (plurals, latinisms, abbreviations, synonyms covered at the same entry, whatever). Anyway, the benefit you get from such a template is being able to do this: {{botanygloss|Angiosperm}} size is a factor of ..., instead of [[Glossary of botanical terms#angiosperm|Angiosperm]] size is a factor of .... MOS:GLOSSARIES covers the formatting in detail. Pretty handy. See any article on pool or billiards, like Eight-ball, for extensive use of the corresponding {{cuegloss}} template to link to the detailed entries at Glossary of cue sports terms, one of the largest glossaries on the system. It saves a tremendous amount of time to centralize and reuse these entries, instead of re-explaining terms article after article. It also obviates the need to create lots of tiny stub articles on terms, which become targets for "Delete per WP:DICDEF" actions at WP:ANI.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:57, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Acaulescent Welwitschia

Nice! I was actually wondering whether to mention Welwitschia as an example. Thanks! JonRichfield (talk) 14:32, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I was a bit unsure because the top surface where the reproductive structures emerge is clearly the top of the stem, but did a web search and found the two words often together, so I think it is a good example. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 14:47, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

A photo, for each term, would be very helpful to anyone using this article.

A photo, for each term, would be very helpful to anyone using this article. FloraWilde (talk) 20:01, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Definitions needed

Pseudo-umbel, pseudo-umbellated --Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:33, 20 August 2014 (UTC)

It seems to be the same as an umbelliform cyme, i.e., a determinate version of an umbel. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 19:28, 23 August 2014 (UTC)

Definition conflict

the given definitions for induplicate and reduplicate and the associated illustration are the reverse of those given in the Kew Plant Glossary. Which is correct? Plantsurfer (talk) 11:41, 19 March 2015 (UTC)

What is "auct. s.lat."?

I encountered this in the following journal article title: Braun, Uwe; Shishkoff, Nina; Takamatsu, Susumu (2001). "Phylogeny of Podosphaera sect. Sphaerotheca subsect. Magnicellulatae (Sphaerotheca fuliginea auct. s.lat.) inferred from rDNA ITS sequences – a taxonomic interpretation". Schlechtendalia. 7: 45–52. Retrieved 10 August 2015. It's only used in the title and the abstract, and Googling for this string has produced nothing useful. I recognize the "auct." part as auctorum.

BTW, this glossary is missing entries for various things, especially these non-italicized interpolations and appendings of various sorts, from auctorum (auct), to subsection (subsectio, subsect.), and various others. only the obvious ones are in here yet. It would probably be of value to get out some botany and horticulture books with glossaries and just go down their lists and see what terms we're missing in ours.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:45, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

• s.lat = sensu lato. Sasata (talk) 20:04, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

feel free to add them. Plantsurfer 20:31, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Circular redirects

I noticed that some terms (e.g. isomerous, ortet, pistillate flower) link to titles that redirect back to this article. Is this intended, or an error? In general such self-redirects are avoided, but there are cases such as redirects "with possibilities" where linking – at least temporarily – might be a good idea. Cnilep (talk) 02:06, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

General clean-up

Just wanted to explain here my intention to perform a very broad clean-up of the numerous style and formatting inconsistencies in the glossary. Things like capitalization, alphabetization, and grammatical errors are abundant and I think correcting these things in any glossary is important for maintaining its function. I also hope to eventually develop a consistent style for the inclusion and placement of plurals, synonyms, "See [...]", "Compare [...]" and other suggestions and redirects within glossary entries; the best botany glossaries are consistent and easily interpretable when addressing these conventions, and this glossary, I think, should strive to emulate that quality to some degree. I do not intend to change the meaning of any entries unless it is to expand them for clarity. These changes will require multiple edits, and any comments or suggestions about how to approach the style and formatting issues are always welcome. Thanks! PJsg1011 (talk) 18:09, 23 June 2018 (UTC)

Cleaning up is long overdue!

Wikitext like {{term|term= glabrous |content= [[glabrous]] }}, which introduces a purely circular link from the word "glabrous" back to its entry, needs to be changed. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:24, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

widowed link

the dab at Coralloid links here, but the term is absent. Has it been move to another page, or never appeared here. cygnis insignis 14:56, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Which is why I linked it to the wiktionary site in the article and used Coralloid, which someone then kindly replaced by coralloid. MargaretRDonald MargaretRDonald (talk) 21:07, 17 November 2018 (UTC)

Puzzle

Hello, I have a puzzle I can't solve. I am looking for a term that describes a type of grass inflorescence or seed stem, which has the seeds attached one on top of the other with no common stem. In South Texas I have examples of grasses with panicles, Chloris sp., and 2 that do not, Andropogon sp., and Bothriochloa sp., in which the seeds are attached to each other. In Chloris, the panicles remain after the seeds have dropped; in the other 2, nothing remains above the point where the seeds were. Thanks for any help!SophoraDeceased (talk) 19:43, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi @SophoraDeceased:. Suggest you ask at WP:Plants, almost certain to get an answer in a day or so. cygnis insignis 19:52, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

@SophoraDeceased: I'm not quite sure what you mean by which has the seeds attached one on top of the other with no common stem. The seeds aren't attached to each other, although the spikelets are "sessile" (i.e. unstalked). See the images at commons:Category:Andropogon_virginicus, for example. This one shows clearly how the spikelets are arranged along a stem. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:16, 7 January 2019 (UTC)

Photos

One of the Photos is upside down. It's the Photo of Moehringia, which is showing a chasmophyte. I think, that it is no chasmophyte, but the picture was probably edited with GNU and thus maybe turned upside down.--2001:16B8:2888:AC00:DD2:26B3:44E1:4839 (talk) 10:49, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

If you don't believe me: the lighted rocks are showed beneath and the shady rocks above. Normally this is otherwise. Shady Rocks beneath, lighted rocks above. --2001:16B8:2888:AC00:DD2:26B3:44E1:4839 (talk) 10:49, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

If you look carefully, you'll see that the light is coming from the cave entrance to the right, so that the shadows of the rocks are to the left. The plant is growing on the roof of the cave, which is naturally darker than the wall of the cave below it. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:49, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

Referencing

I'm very unhappy about the referencing in this article. Every entry should have a clearly identifiable source. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:51, 3 August 2021 (UTC)

indusiumbiternateindusium?

Should this look like this? I don't know the term, but this looks strange to me.

{{term|term= indusiumbiternate[[indusium]] }}

– Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 18:39, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorted. Gderrin (talk) 23:52, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

Ahhh. Thank you, Gderrin. :) – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 01:01, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Proposal to remove lichen-related terms

The Glossary of lichen terms is being developed by the lichen task force and is now reasonably complete and fully cited. I propose to remove the lichen-related terms from this botanical glossary and instead add a link to lichen glossary in the lead. Specifically, I think these terms are candidates for removal:

• areolate
• areole (3rd definition)
• byssoid
• C, C-, C
• cortex: the current entry for cortex only has lichen-related meanings; I propose to remove these and replace with botanical definition
• endophloeodal
• endophloic
• epinecral
• hypothallus
• foliicolous
• glabrous – 2nd meaning
• hafter
• hapter
• isidium
• K, K , K-
• lacinia
• lecanorine
• lichenicolous
• medulla – remove 1st meaning
• mycobiont
• photobiont
• phycobiont
• placodioid
• primary species
• propagule
• resupinate – remove 2nd meaning
• rhizine
• secondary species
• soralia
• soredium
• squamule; squamulose – remove lichen meanings

The following are terms that might be candidates for removal, but I'm not sure if they are also used in a purely botanical sense, and request a plant expert to see if they should stay or go:

• laminal
• lax
• squamule; squamulose
• rimose
• saxicolous

additionally, these lichen-related images could also be removed (which will slightly alleviate the current too-many-images problem):

• image: "An epilithic lichen"
• image: "Crustose lichens on a wall"
• image: "The foliose thallus of the lichen Parmotrema tinctorum is leafy."
• image: "Letharia vulpina is a fruticose lichen."
• image: "These lecanorine apothecia of the lichen Lecanora muralis have raised, rippled rims of tissue similar to the tissue of the main thallus body."
• image: "This crustose lichen, Caloplaca thallincola, is placodioid, with radiating "arms" in its growth pattern."
• image: "This Caloplaca marina lichen is saxicolous because it grows on stone."

Esculenta (talk) 20:17, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

"lax", "squamule", "squamulose" and "rimose" are in a widely used glossary (Harris & Harris "Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary; it's already a source in the article), as is "lamina" (but not "laminal"). I don't think the adjective "laminal" is used much in botany, but it could be. "Saxicolous" isn't in Harris & Harris, but it is used sometimes in botany. "Propagule" is definitely used in botany, not sure why you are proposing to remove that. "Foliicolous" is used in botany; follicolous liverworts can be common in tropical rainforests. I think the others you've listed are OK to remove. Plantdrew (talk) 20:56, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Definitions in Harris & Harris (verbatim quotes of copyrighted material, so need rephrasing):

"Lax. Loose, with parts open and spreading, not compact."

"Rimose. With fissure or cracks, as in the bark of some trees."

"Squamule. The lodicule of a grass flower."

"Squamulose. With minute squamellae."

Oh, I see "propagule" is in here twice, with the botanical definition not in alphabetical order. OK to remove the lichen definition. Plantdrew (talk) 21:03, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

Bold hatnotes and bibliography/ref changes

Several references in the Bibliography section did not have citation templates, several had dead links, several have versions of out of copyright books online, several used the |ref= parameter when not needed, and maybe a few other things, so I implemented or fixed these issues.

Most citations (when there actually are any) are done using shortened footnotes, so I added that hatnote to the article. All dates I saw were implemented using dmy format, so I added that hatnote.

I merged some duplicate reference definitions (I saw at least one more that I'll get to unless someone beats me to it).

Anyone who doesn't understand shortened footnotes, it's actually pretty easy to understand just by following along in the code. Citation templates are pretty straightforward as well. The visual editor allows you to implement them (don't ask me how). But don't let these two requests discourage adding references to additions or modifications! I or someone can come along and implement a template and/or sfn.

My non-anonymous good deed for the day. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 02:07, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

The citation for "weed"

The citation for "weed" is a bare reference with no links coded as follows:

<ref>Carr, G.W., in Foreman & Walsh, 1993.</ref>

Does anyone know to what "Foreman & Walsh, 1993" is referring? I can take it from there. Tried a web search, but had no luck. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 10:26, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

I found that it is probably Flora of Victoria (Australia), but I don't know which volume or page. I did find it was added by Granitethighs on 2 July 2008 early in the life of the page (as in, on Day 2). Granitethighs or anyone else have a copy of this book or access to it and can find the volume, page, and whatever else might be needed for a present-day citation? Australian people, maybe? @Casliber, Hughesdarren, and Gderrin:, Others? (P.S. Thank you, Granitethighs, for getting this page going, and thanks to everyone who contributes!) – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 11:48, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't have easy access to any of the references cited. I'm doubtful about the sources of many of the definitions. The source I used for "indusium" is Flora of the Sydney region, but I did not change the definition, assuming it was the same as in the references listed. Gderrin (talk) 22:08, 16 December 2022 (UTC)

Okay, thanks, Gderrin. I'll add this citation for indusium because it does not currently have one. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 11:43, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

References

Pretty sure that will be flora of victoria Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:25, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

@Casliber: Do you have a copy of it? I need page numbers and whatnot. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 22:06, 19 December 2022 (UTC)

Nope, sorry Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 03:10, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Source citation for trichotomous

Shankar Raman, please add a citation to your source for the definition of trichotomous. – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 12:40, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi, Eewilson, Was not sure where I could insert the source in the template. Could you help please? Thanks. The definition is from page 135 of this source:

Beentje, Henk. 2020. The Kew Plant Glossary: An Illustrated Dictionary of Plant Terms. Kew Publishing, Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. 184 pages. ISBN: 9781842466049. Shankar Raman (talk) 12:48, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Hi, Shankar Raman, I can help. The citation should go inside the {{defn}} template. So, for trichotomous, I would put it right after 3-forked or branched into three. Do you know how to use shortened footnotes? If not, then that's okay. Using whatever you are familiar with is a good start, and I can format it. Thank you! – Elizabeth (Eewilson) (tag or ping me) (talk) 13:06, 18 January 2023 (UTC)

Template:Plantgloss

You can now use {{plantgloss|term}} to easily create a link instead of manually doing [[Glossary of botanical terms#term|term]]. This will of course primarily be of use for terms that are only in the glossary and don't have their own articles. The utility of this will be greatly improved by adding anchors for plurals and other alternative terms covered at the same entry, as I did for the "P" section here. That way, you can just do {{plantgloss|paleae}} instead of {{plantgloss|palea|paleae}} or {{plantgloss|palea}}e. PS: The template alias {{botanygloss}} also exists for it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:37, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

Great work, thanks. It'll save us some typing! It would be good to have the same kind of shortcut for the Glossary of leaf morphology

 Junglenut |Talk  06:06, 1 February 2024 (UTC)

ethelochoric, ethelochory

What's the origin and etymology of these words? In a Web search, they only appear on Wikipedia, in the Hemerochory article. Did a Wikipedian make them up? 2A00:23C5:FE1C:3701:F9AC:CC62:6541:2A8E (talk) 23:38, 9 December 2024 (UTC)

Searching via Google Scholar, I got 12 academic sources. The Greek ἐθέλω (ethelo) has the meaning of 'wish', 'want'. So ethelochory is the intentional movement of species by humans, as opposed to agochory and speirochory, which are different kinds of unintentional movement by humans. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:41, 10 December 2024 (UTC)