Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Telopea truncata/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose via FACBot (talk) 23:15, 30 December 2015 [1].

Telopea truncata[edit]

Nominator(s): Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:44, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have been buffing this article over some years and was pleased to take some more photos that could be useful when I was in Tasmania recently. I've scraped just about everywhere for sources and am satisfied it's comprehensive and engaging....and has some pretty flowers. Let me know what you think and if there is anything I can do to make it more betterer. Cheers, Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:44, 15 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Some quick comments: Josh Milburn (talk) 21:56, 20 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • You're inconsistent on whether your provide publisher locations: they're lacking in Crisp and Weston 1995, Crisp and Weston 1987 and Mackenzie 1987, but present in other book sources. You also provide publisher/location for one "journal" (Willis 1959) but no others.
a hangover from editing this article a loooong time ago. aligned now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:47, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
yeah, strikes me as overkill...removed Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Are those really the only two cultivars out there?
this species is much harder to grow than the others, so little has been done with it WRT horticulture. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:40, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I assume yes, but is this describing one of the cultivars talked about in the article? Josh Milburn (talk) 12:35, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Yes - this 'mellow yellow' is 'champagne' and/or 'golden globe'. At this stage it was not named (yes I know the other two were registered in 2006 but they weren't widely advertised till later). Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:49, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I had my say at GAC. If I was going to quibble, I'd probably find some nitpicks in reference formatting (perhaps there are some unwarranted italics, but maybe we simply have different tastes) and ask for a bit more ecology information. I'd be interested, for example, in a little more about any animal species (and maybe plant and fungi species) which have some kind of ecological relationship with this species, but I appreciate that there simply may not much of a mention in the literature. Josh Milburn (talk) 13:10, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

thx/Sigh...I've trawled and come up with nada :( Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:26, 22 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Images are appropriately licensed. Nikkimaria (talk) 20:51, 21 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Preliminary comments:

  • "grows as a multistemmed shrub to 3 metres (10 ft)" in the lead: I would explicitly insert the phrase "a height of" before the measurement to make it unambiguous for non-botanical readers.
added Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:55, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the lead, you use the figure "10 metres (33 ft)", while in the Description section, you use "10 m (35 ft)". This should be consistent.
wish there was something in the convert template that could convert to multiples of five in feet. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:55, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "metres" is spelled out throughout the article; all other units (cm, ft) appear as abbreviations only. Per WP:MOSUNITS, the first instance of each should be spelled out and the other occurrences abbreviated. (Solely as a matter of personal taste, I think all of these are sufficiently common as to require no spelling out, but YMMV.)
abbreviated Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:55, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "No subspecies are recognised...", in the lead, feels a bit awkward to me; it implies (IMO) that subspecies are the only valid taxonomic classification below species. I might say something like "Yellow-flowered forms are occasionally seen, but do not form a population distinct from the rest of the species."
yep, an improvement. tweaked Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:55, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "In the garden", in the lead, is superfluous.
removed Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:55, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the lead, the way "hybrid form" was used initially made me think that these forms were considered T. truncata. I might say "cultivars that are hybrids of T. truncata with..." to make it clear that the cultivars are distinct from all of the parents.
tweaked Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:55, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The common names of T. speciosissima and T. oreades should be used in the lead, allowing the removal of the common name of T. oreades from "Taxonomy and Evolution". I hit "New South Wales waratah" in "Description" and had to click around to figure out what that was. I'm not sure how frequently you want the scientific names of those two species linked in the article, but it might be best to make that consistent.
they are generally linked at first instance only in both body and lead. tweaked now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:14, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In "Taxonomy and Evolution", "for it in 1809" should be changed to make it clear that "it" refers to the species, not the genus Embothrium.
clarified thus Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:16, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • This section needs a bit of revision in general, as it's hard to understand what exactly was conserved, illegitimate, and so forth. The situation seems to be this: the species was originally named Embothrium truncatum. Salisbury scooped Brown and published Hylogyne australis, based on the type material for E. truncatum, in 1809. Since he failed to make use of the original species epithet, this name is illegitimate. Brown published the new, valid, combination Telopea truncata in 1810. Because Salisbury published the genus Hylogyne based on material of Embothrium speciosissimum, it represents the oldest name available for the genus Telopea, but everyone ignored it because he acted like a jerk, and long after (1988, ICBN No. 2062) the name Telopea was conserved and Hylogyne formally rejected. The article makes it seem like T. truncata was conserved, and it took me some back-and-forth to figure out why Salisbury's name was illegitimate and what, if anything had to be nomenclaturally conserved.
funnily enough, it was more because some important people were feuding with Salisbury as much as anything else...and they just ignored his work Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:36, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
added them, but was unsure of best way to format the last one. It's dated 1959-61 on one bit....there is also a simpler web version Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:36, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Although it's listed in the synonyms, there's no mention of Kuntze's combination of 1891, Hylogyne truncata, which was a valid name and technically the senior one until the rejection of Hylogyne in 1988.
added Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:05, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'd move the sentence about the meaning of "truncatus" right after the sentence about Labillardière's description; it's sort of floating partway through the synonymy here. I'd also use specific epithet instead of "species name". Use a semicolon rather than a comma after "seed wing".
I perviously used "epithet" but was corrected to "name". "Epithet" is more exacting. moved sentence. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:05, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Consider linking New Caledonia and Victoria.
linked Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:00, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the "Description" section, I would consider using a colon instead of an em-dash after "altitude".
tweaked Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:00, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the "Ecology" section, "several metres" is ambiguous; they travel not more than several metres from the parent plant?
this is difficult - the source uses "several" which I know vernacularly what is meant. However it is extremely hard to put in a number without falling into OR. The seeds are heavy so I can understand how they don't go far..not sure what to do else. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 20:38, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good in general. Let me know and I'd be happy to work over the taxonomy section to incorporate the nomenclatural information I've brought up. Choess (talk) 04:56, 27 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

@Choess: done everything but the ref for the conserved name...help appreciated... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 12:47, 28 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
thanks for tweaking the taxonomy Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 11:41, 29 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Ummm, @Choess:? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:02, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry I've been away for so long--finals season. Three comments. First, I'm not quite sure what to make of the sentence about Triporopollenites ambiguus. Is the idea to point out that this form taxon includes material that was already like T. truncata in the Eocene, so that it might have begun diverging from other Embothriinae at this point (although macroscopic fossils don't occur until later in the record)? Second, a review article here, per Google Scholar, seems to discuss the cultivation of T. truncata for flowers, but I don't have access to the full text. It, like the CRC Handbook of Flowering (v. 6, pp. 593–596), cites Cooke, S.L., Investigation into the Vase Life of Tasmanian Waratah (Telopea truncata), Report, Fruit and Ornamentals Branch, Department of Agriculture, Hobart, Tasmania, 1985. I don't have access to the full text of any of these; can you get at one or more of them and see if there's anything more to be added to the cultivation or uses sections? Third, according to Wikipedia:WikiProject Plants/Template, "Description" should precede "Taxonomy and evolution". I tried flipping the order, but it pushes the picture of f. lutea under the taxobox. If you want to rearrange in an aesthetically-pleasing fashion, go ahead, but I wouldn't consider the section order a deal-breaker.
Other than that, I'm ready to support. I've thrashed pretty extensively through GBooks, GScholar, and BHL, and I'm confident the coverage is comprehensive and well-researched. It follows the WikiProject Plants template for article structure except as noted above. Styling seems in order to my eye, although I can't claim to have the entire MOS on tap. Choess (talk) 05:16, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
ok, switched the sections. I realise I did that with the other waratahs and banksias Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:10, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Update - I have added material from the Halevy book, which I suspect has distilled useful information from the sources you mention...which I can't access either. The plant is rarely cultivated, either for the home garden or cut flowers, and the dearth of subsequent web info and guarded nature of info in Halevy makes me think all useful info for general audience has been scraped from sources and added (though the elusiveness of these articles would stop me from betting my house on this presumption!). Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:09, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding Tripollenites....I hadn't thought of it like that, I just thought it was interesting that such pollen had been discovered and was not making any assumptions about relationships or divergence. I mentioned the other taxa as I figured it'd be a misrepresentation of the source to imply that it only resembled T. truncata (by omitting the other two)... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 10:16, 22 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I was mainly trying to get a handle on the transition from discussing subtribe Embothriinae to Triporopollenites ambiguus, which feels a bit abrupt. I was trying to sort things just now and wound up going down a palynological rabbit hole, but I found a cool fact for the article and I think smoothed over the transition a bit. See how you like it. I'm ready to support without further quibbles. Choess (talk) 04:19, 23 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Looks good/thanks Cas Liber (talk · contribs)

Comments from Cwmhiraeth

    • A nice-looking article, but as always, a few niggles.
  • "specific epithet" needs disambiguating.
That target page needs cleanup...anyway now linked to Botanical_name#Components_of_plant_names Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:04, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "predating Brown's formal 1810 description and claiming precedence" - surely this didn't matter because the species had been formally described in 1805?
It was the genus name that was the issue - Hylogyne vs Telopea. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:08, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "must predate the splitting of Gondwana" - Did the source really say this? I usually prefer "is likely to have" or "probably".
must --> most likely Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:08, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "it is from here that the seed pods then develop." - Is there more than one seed pod per individual flower, then?
no/well-spotted/fixed Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:08, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "It is occasionally found in Leptospermum scoparium-Acacia mucronata forest community of western Tasmania." - Singular or plural, perhaps add one or two "the"s?
It is a type of ecological community, see here for instance Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:09, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Waratah seeds are often eaten—and destroyed—by animals" - is the seed not distributed at all by animals then?
not generally, as far as I know (and have read) they are either eaten...or fall off the plant and are eaten. Just tried to go on the sources is all... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:30, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Wikilink "Mount Wellington".
linked Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:30, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reference 12 (Rossetto) needs attention.
weird...how'd that parameter sneak in there...fixed now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:30, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The article has a large section on Taxonomy and evolution, but the lead does not mention these. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:57, 6 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
lead expanded now Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 02:40, 7 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support - I am happy with the improvements made to the article and am now supporting its candidacy on the grounds of comprehensiveness and prose. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 19:03, 8 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support. Very interesting article. Prose is great and engaging and no major detail seems to be missing. Burklemore1 (talk) 04:50, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source review All sources seem of appropriate quality and are consistently cited.

Content checks:

  • 39: While the material is generally supported, I'm a bit uncomfortable with saying its principal use has been flowers based on a source from 1905.
  • 11b Supported.
  • 29 Supported.
  • 36b Supported.
Looks good, if you'd shore up the 1905 matter.--Wehwalt (talk) 02:13, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
none of the goddamn contemporary articles specify that use, hence I've removed it and reworked material. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 13:42, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I've been there ... my sympathy. OK, that's all I have.--Wehwalt (talk) 23:13, 27 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
This one is my fault: I slapped the "Uses" section in there while reviewing for comprehensiveness and poking in odd corners. "Principal" may be an overstatement: there seems to have been more investigation (e.g., Cooke 1985 mentioned above) of its use as a cut flower than for decorative wood, but its use seems rather incidental either for flowers or for timber. Would it be OK to put back an opening sentence in that section to the effect of "flowers were once used for decoration," etc., leaving it ambiguous as to whether that was a major use or whether the practice continued today? It feels a little odd to me starting the section on "use" with a sentence about population loss, but I'll let Cas have his say before mucking up the article further. Choess (talk) 03:09, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Choess: happy if you wanna tweak it to include the fact but somehow get across the historical nature of the source. I figure these days folks just buy their flowers from the florist anyway.... Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 07:25, 28 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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