Talk:Phellinus ellipsoideus

previous MUCH find

at least ten years ago scientists found an underground fungus west of chicago * they moved a few miles east and again took DNA samples * they were identical * of course i have no references * 184.74.68.171 (talk)grumpy

• You're probably referring to Armillaria gallica. While that one was larger in terms of the largest individual organism, this one has a far, far larger fruit body than the mushrooms that species produces. A comparison would be that a large oak tree is bigger than a large apple tree, but apples are bigger than acorns. J Milburn (talk) 16:55, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

Mushroom or not?

My recent edit calling a polypore a mushroom was reverted with the edit summary "It isn't a type of mushroom- a polypore and a mushroom are both examples of fruit bodies, but they are of different structures."

Well, okay, but I got that mushroom claim by clicking on polypore and reading its opening sentences: "Polypores are a group of tough, leathery poroid mushrooms similar to boletes, but typically lacking a distinct stalk. The technical distinction between the two types of mushrooms is that polypores do not have the spore-bearing tissue continuous along the entire underside of the mushroom." So does that need to be changed?

Also, the edit summary statement that "a polypore and a mushroom are both examples of fruit bodies" seems to conflict with the statement in sentence 2 of this article that "the species produces brown, woody fruit bodies" -- so is a polypore a fruit body, or does it produce them? Duoduoduo (talk) 21:31, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

(tl;dr- Both.) Ok, there are essentially two meanings of "polypore". A "polypore" (type 1) may be any one of a number of species/genera/etc which come under the (non-scientific) umberella term because they produce polypores (type 2) (equally, any number of species may be called "fish", though there is no real scientific definition). A polypore (type 2) is a type of fruit body in a particular shape (see the pictures in the polypore article). For comparison, if I use the term "blackberry", I may be referring to a small berry, or I may be referring to a plant which produces them. However, this question is further complicated by the fact that "mushroom" can mean a number of things (again, none of which are, strictly, technical terms). A mushroom may be a generic name for fungal species (or, more likely, specific fungal species that produce that particular fruit body) or it may be a name for a certain type of fruit body (Amanita muscaria being the architypal "mushroom" shape). It could, alternatively, be a layman's term for a fruit body generally (or perhaps just more generally than just those of the "standard" form), but, for instance, I doubt many would want to call Xylaria hypoxylon fruit bodies "mushrooms". In this last sense of "mushroom", we might call polypores (type 2) mushrooms (and I think anyone who corrected you would be just being picky), but, in the opening line of the article, I was using the term to mean type 1- I was referring to "Fomitiporia ellipsoidea", a species, not "fruit bodies of Fomitiporia ellipsoidea". Hope that clears things up a little. The opening line has now been changed again, and is hopefully more layman friendly :) J Milburn (talk) 22:04, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Fomitiporia ellipsoidea/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Sasata (talk) 15:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Claiming this review; should have comments up in a couple days. Sasata (talk) 15:21, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I appreciate it. I'm interested in the possibility of FAC (and, for the record, I'm in the process of negotiating for images) so please be as rigorous as you can! (Also, in case you're wondering, the chemical constituents article can be found here, but, apart from the abstract, is in Chinese. I gather biochemistry is your area, so any thoughts you have there...) J Milburn (talk) 16:55, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Comments & suggestions

• "woody fruit bodies which grow on dead wood" which->that
  • Done. J Milburn (talk)
• the fruit body is called alternatively "extremely large" and "very large" in the lead
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 10:05, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "and is in reference to" -> "and refers to
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "which are resupinate" which -> that
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• characterized - Brit Eng?
  • According to the OED, that is British English. The British zed-ophobia (zee-ophobia?) is a bit of a myth- we do spell some words with the s, and it looks better to my eyes, but certainly not all of them. J Milburn (talk) 10:04, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• 8 millimetres (0.31 in); 2 mm (0.079 in); 0.5 mm (0.020 in) -> each of the conversions has 1 more sig fig than the input
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "which are ellipsoid or broadly ellipsoid" which -> that
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "easily recognizable"; "easily identified" -> don't like the value-laden word "easily", perhaps readily?
  • Done. Probably not so "easy" for the non-mycologist. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "was 5.25 μm, while the average width was 4.14 μm" should be present tense
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "cystidoles" -> cystidioles
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "but there a number of large rhomboid crystals throughout the hymenium and the flesh." missing word "are"; more detail needed here: how large is "large"? can I see it without a microscope?
  • Not specified, but I strongly doubt it. I've removed "large", as, without detail of what it is being compared to, it's pretty much useless. No details are given in the source. J Milburn (talk) 10:11, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "The hyphae are divided into separate cells by septae, which lack clamp connections." the way it's phrased it sounds like it's explaining that the septa lack CC (incorrect), rather than the hyphae lacking CC (correct)
  • Done. The source material implies that the clamp connections were on the septae, which I thought odd when I was writing. J Milburn (talk) 10:11, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "While the hyphae will darken when a solution of potassium hydroxide is applied (the KOH test), they remain essentially unchanged." suggest that "otherwise" is a better fit than "essentially"
  • Fair. I was trying to get across that, while there is a change, it's not a significant one (does not change the essential nature). Changed. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "The main structure of the fruit body is comprised primarily of an agglutination (mass) of interwoven skeletal hyphae, which are golden- to rust-brown." perhaps "... comprises primarily an agglutination (mass) of interwoven golden- to rust-brown skeletal hyphae."
  • Changed, but to "comprises primarily of". Without the "of", we are saying that the fruit body comprises the hyphae, not the hyphae comprise the fruit body, surely? J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I tweaked it. Sasata (talk) 00:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• "with a lumen that can be thick or narrow." -> "enveloping a lumen of variable thickness."
  • Done, much better. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "the spores are spherical or nearly" + so
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• could all of the instances of upon be replaced with on ?
  • Done. "upon" sounds much nicer to my ears, but I'm happy to change it. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• what's a Cyclobalanopsis oak?
  • This is rather awkward. The description of the large fruit body says that the specimen was found on Cyclobalanopsis patelliformis, which, I gather, is synonymous with Quercus patelliformis (as Wikipedia seems to be going with the belief that Cyclobalanopsis is a subgenus of Quercus). You mention below that that name is synonymous with something else. I have a good source saying that it favours the wood of that particular "genus". We have a fair section on the subgenus- it's possible that it's considered its own genus in China, but nowhere else. I'll have a fiddle. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "F. ellipsoidea fruit bodies are perennial growers, meaning that they can, in the right circumstances, grow very large." should reword so that the part that comes after "meaning" is not taken as the definition of "perennial grower"
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• In 2010, Deng et al. reduced Quercus patelliformis to synonymy with Quercus asymetrica (probably best footnoted)
  • I've created an article on Q. asymetrica, and added an in-prose note about synonymy. I can do it another way if you think it would be an improvement. J Milburn (talk) 10:52, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "up to 1,085 cm (35.60 ft) in length." would change "in length" to "long", to comply with the way units are given in the following sentence; similarly, "It was estimated to be between 400 and 500 kilograms (880 and 1,100 lb) in weight" -> "It was estimated to weigh between 400 and 500 kilograms (880 and 1,100 lb)"
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• no estimate of the circumference of the fruit body?
  • It's not a bracket, as such; it's more like Peniophora than Fomes or Ganoderma in shape, really. One of the images I may be able to get hold of will show this. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "The specimen had an average of 49 pores per square millimetre, meaning that there were around 425 million pores at the time of discovery." Can we trim to "The specimen had an average of 49 pores per square millimetre, roughly equivalent to 425 million pores." (the "time of discovery" is implied in the beginning half of the sentence)
  • Yep. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• "Cui, Bao-Kai, Dai, Yu-Cheng" semicolon needed
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• the chemistry section leaves me wanting more… there's too much detail about the identity of the extraction solvents, and not enough about what these chemicals might actually do, and why we should care about them. Maybe you could ask somebody from Wikiproject China to translate the very last paragraph of the article, where the authors probably draw general conclusions about the compounds they've isolated, and maybe compare them with similar compounds from other species.
  • I've made a request. J Milburn (talk) 10:57, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• the editorial note to Dai and Cui makes the interesting estimate that the fruit body "may be capable of shedding one trillion basidiospores per day"
  • Honestly, that's only just been posted up, I think. I noticed it just now myself. Also a fair source for the Armillaria species you mention below (as it ties the two species, meaning I avoid synthesis). I'll try and incorporate some of it. Scatch that, they're mentioned in the article proper. ... And that's just a copy-paste from the article proper. Not my day. J Milburn (talk) 09:42, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
    • I've added a few pieces from the editorial note. J Milburn (talk) 10:01, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
• I think it would be good to mention in a sentence or two Armillaria bulbosa and Armillaria solidipes (formerly Armillaria ostoyae) as candidates for largest "fungus", with a brief explanation that their status is based on mycelial area, rather than fruit body size
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 10:31, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

Translation

Danaman5 (talk · contribs) very kindly translated the last paragraph of the article for me. It's blockquoted below, but the bold-type face are words of which he is unsure. J Milburn (talk) 07:43, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Steroidal chemical compounds are an important constituent part of cellular membranes; they can directly influence the mobility of the membrane, and play a part in cellular membranes’ physiological function of distinguishing and regulating cells. (Parks & Casey 1995; Bloch 1992; Weete 1989) Therefore, steroidal chemical compounds demonstrate excellent pharmacological activity. For example, ergosterol and hydrogenated ergosterol have a clear inhibiting effect on MCF-7 tumor cell precursors (Ding et. al. 2009); ergosterol-7; 22-alkene, 3(Beta)-Alcohol also shows clear activity against BEL-7402 and MGC-803 tumor cell precursors (Lu Yi and Weng Xinchu 2007); ergosterol-7, 22-diene-3-ketone has excellent anti-inflammatory activity (Deng Zhipeng 2004). In addition, steroidal components are very important in taxology. Generally, speaking, cholesterol is the main steroidal component of relatively primitive fungoid groups, and ergosterol is the main steroidal component of relatively advanced fungoid groups (Weete 1989). This research result shows that Fomitiporia ellipsoidea fruiting bodies contain abundant and diverse steroidal chemical compounds, indicating that this fungus may have relatively strong pharmacological activity. Therefore, there is a need to carry out deeper research on the activity of the steroidal chemical compounds or steroidal ramifications discussed in this paper, as well as on other mid-level components, and so on.

I have added some details from this paragraph. It's not something I can pretend to know about, but I don't think I've made any mistakes. J Milburn (talk) 08:04, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Just to be clear, the "ramification" in "steroidal ramifications" in my translation refers to a specific chemistry term for "A type of complex compound, where simple hydrogen or a radical in a simple compound molecule is replaced." (according to my Chinese dictionary) It is not the more common "ramification" that means "effect, meaning, outcome". Other than that, I think your additions match up with the translation. (I do not have a background in these topics either)--Danaman5 (talk) 14:18, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I've rephrased. J Milburn (talk) 15:05, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the translation! Sasata (talk) 18:34, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

• there's now a repetition of "very large", "largest", and "very large" in consecutive sentences. I haven't had enough coffee yet to make any useful suggestions myself, but you might want to find a way to express this more elegantly before FAC
• "and extending 8 millimetres (0.3 in) from the wood from which they grow" -> perhaps "on which" to avoid repetition
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
• "8 mm (0.31 in)" needs sig figging
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
• I'd consider renaming "Chemistry and pharmacology" to just "Chemistry"; the pharmacological applications (of the species-specific compounds isolated) are largely theoretical, and the simpler heading is sufficient, I think
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
• "Two of the compounds, one from the petroleum ether extract and a second from the chloroform extract, were new to science.' How about dropping the solvent specifics, and instead giving the names of the new compounds, viz. "Two of the compounds, ergosta-7,22,25-triene-3-one and benzo[1,2-b:5,4-b']difuran-3,5-dione-8-methyl formate, were new to science."
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
• "Steroidal compounds play important physiological roles in cell membranes, which means that some act as anti-inflammatories (including ergosterol) or inhibit tumour growth." the "which means" sounds to me too much like a definition, rather than giving an example; how about something like "Steroidal compounds play important physiological roles in cell membranes; some act as anti-inflammatories (including ergosterol) or inhibit tumour growth."
  • I've rejigged the surrounding sentences a little- better? J Milburn (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
    • If this were FAC I might whine about consecutive sentences with semicolons ... :) Sasata (talk) 00:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
• nothing about the Chemistry is mentioned in the lead
  • Done. I'm wondering whether the lead could do with expansion generally- thoughts? J Milburn (talk) 21:08, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
    • Maybe it could use another sentence to further describe what the fruit body looks like macroscopically. I think the article is now well on the way to FAC and ready for more eyes. It certainly meets all the GA criteria, so I will promote it now. Hope you're successful in procuring a picture! Sasata (talk) 00:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
      • Thanks very much for the review. I got replies from both Cui and Dai, offering me pictures, but, as of yet, neither have been willing to release them under free licenses, sadly. I'll give it a few more days, poke around the article a little more, then nominate at FAC unless something occurs to me. Thanks again! J Milburn (talk) 00:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Wrong Photograph?

The accompanying photograph looks like the fungus is about six inches long on the underside of a tree trunk; it doesn't look like a 427 inch fruiting body as the caption indicates. Is this the wrong photo? Gruhl (talk) 13:36, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

No, it's the correct photo- the fungus is the orangey-brown mass all the way along the underside of the trunk and extending beyond the edges of the photograph. Are you perhaps mistaking a chunk taken from the fungus (see a close up and one of the researchers holding the chunk) for the fungus itself? Try viewing the photograph at full size to get an idea for how big this thing is! J Milburn (talk) 13:42, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I thought that was just exposed wood, that the bark had come off. Thanks. Gruhl (talk) 20:48, 25 June 2013 (UTC)

"One specimen"/"a specimen" (first paragraph)

The version by J Milburn is not optimum. Regardless of how something "reads" (which is entirely subjective) "..a specimen of which.." in general English discourse means "any specimen", while "..one specimen of which.." without further qualification means "one particular specimen", which is the meaning being sought. Meaning is paramount: therefore, I am reverting to my version. Harfarhs (talk) 14:16, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. If I say "Tom Jones has numerous releases; an example is "It's Not Unusual".", I'm not saying "Any example of Tom Jones's releases is "It's Not Unusual"." Would you really say that I was wrong and should instead be saying "Tom Jones has numerous releases; one example is "It's Not Unsual"."? As far as I can see, both work. J Milburn (talk) 15:04, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

Your example is OK, but not all English sentences permit each construction to be used with the same clarity. A good example is the one which we are disputing over! Harfarhs (talk) 23:11, 12 June 2013 (UTC)

I've honestly not come across the rule to which you're referring. Does it appear in any style guides? J Milburn (talk) 18:35, 13 June 2013 (UTC)