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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 not promoted 04:34, 30 March 2007.

Verbascum thapsus

[edit]

I was the one who created this article over two years ago. Over the moth of November and December of last, however, I revisited and completely rewrote the article. I've been making the occasional edit ever since, but today I finished various odds and ends and I now feel it is ready to be submitted here for review. It is of course a self nomination. Circeus 23:52, 7 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment. "Distribution and naturalization" seems to put too much emphasis on introduction and spread in North America at the expense of describing the introduction in South America and (possibly) variations by region in areas where the plant is native. Also, a map showing the worldwide distribution (with perhaps a separate color for native areas) would be useful. —Cuiviénen 00:45, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • You put the finger on two thing that, despite extensive search in sources available to me, I was not able to add anything about. As far as I can tell, only the US introduction seem to have been documented, partly because it is the oldest, too, it is the best so. User:MPF, IIRC, was the one that located the data on subspecies, but I haven't been able to find any more details about variations myself. Circeus 01:02, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment. I left a bunch of minor style comments on the talk page about a month ago, most of which haven't been addressed yet. I'll to do some more reviewing soon. --NoahElhardt 08:01, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've copied below Noah's comments and my answers, for reference:

Nice article. This sentence in the lead paragraphs is awkward and confusing: "While not an issue for most cultures, it hosts many insects that can be harmful to other plants, such as the tarnished plant bug, and although individuals are easy to destroy by hand, it is difficult to destroy a population permanently." What do you mean by "not an issue for most cultures"? Also, the sentence has too many phrases and would ideally be broken up into two sentences. --NoahElhardt 15:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Split and reworded the sentence.Circeus 17:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm assuming you are working toward FA, so I'll be picky. Some of these I could fix myself, but I'll just explain here so you can make changes as you see fit:

  • In the Morphology section: I would prefer metric units listed first, then American, but I don't recall if that comes up in the MOS anywhere.
    • checkY The order should ideally stay the same as the original, but it should be consistent. There is agreement that plants found only in a place using a specific should have that system first. Since only one place had imperial first, i switched it around.Circeus 17:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • In the Morphology section: "The stem is solid (nearly an inch across) and is sometimes branched". Try replacing the parenthesis with commas or working the material into the sentence.
  • In the Morphology section: "yellow and an inch or less wide, and five stamen." Give both American and metric units.
  • In the Morphology section: "capsules containing large numbers of minute (less than a millimeter) brown seeds." Work material in parentheses into sentence and give in both units.
  • Can you give some kind of description of the different subspecies? I assume they differ in more than just distribution. They may warrant their own section.
  • In the Distribution and naturalization section: "The species has a wide native range...". Animals have a range, plants have a distribution. I think.
  • In the Distribution and naturalization section: "By the 1630s, it was already escaped". Change to "it HAD already escaped", but I'm also not really comfortable with using the word "escaped" on plants. I completely understand what you are trying to say, but people with less botanical understand might not. Maybe make it clear somehow that the plant didn't uproot itself and hop the fence to freedom.
  • In Ecological aspects: "It is not an agricultural weed, although its presence can be very difficult to completely eradicate, and is especially problematic in overgrazed pastures." If it is difficult to eradicate, why isn't it an agricultural weed? Why would it be especially problematic in overgrazed pastures? Explain, considering the average reader doesn't have much of an agricultural background.
    • ☒NThat paragraph is intended to summarize the "Agricultural impacts and control" subsection, whose first paragraph goes into greater details about this very element.Circeus 17:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • In Ecological aspects: "in nature, it will only appear if the seeds are exposed". Change "appear" to sprout, germinate, grow, etc.
  • In Ecological aspects: "and Victoria, Australia (regionally prohibited in the West Gippsland region, and regionally controlled in several others)." Maybe change to "Australia, where it is regionally...." to work out parentheses?
    • ☒NNot sure about this. I wanted to place the specific levels in parenthesis. Moving "West Gippsland" outside the parenthesis leaves a problem with "several others." Circeus 17:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • In Ecological aspects: Maybe move this last paragraph on weeds to the preceding section on Distribution and naturalization?
    • ☒NBy now, said paragraph (one sentence) has been added to the first paragraph of "Ecological aspects" instead. It did not seem to meld well in the previous section. Circeus 17:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Support - The article covers all of the important aspects of the plant that I would expect to see in an article, is thorough, and is very well cited. --NoahElhardt 01:39, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Comment: I couldn't knock this page for detail and information, but I didn't find it a lucid read. Small language errors crop up here and there and require a copy-edit, though I can probably sort those myself. The problem that leaps out at me the most is the over-use of reference tags, which in places makes the article semi-unreadable, in my opinion. Take this part:

V. thapsus is known by a variety of names. "Common mullein" is the usual name in North America,[1][2] but "Great Mullein" is the one used in the UK.[3][4] Vernacular names include innumerable references to the plant's hairiness: "Woolly,"[5] "Velvet" or "Blanket Mullein,"[4][4] "Beggar's," "Moses'," "Poor Man's," "Our Lady's" or "Old Man's Blanket,"[2][3][6][7] and so on ("Flannel" is another generic name).

Some names refer to the plant's size and shape: "Shepherd's Club(s)" or "Staff," "Aaron's Rod" (a name it shares with a number of other plants with tall, yellow inflorescences), and a plethora of other "X's Staff" and "X's Rod."[8][3][2][9][10] The plant is still called "Velvet" or "Mullein Dock"—"Dock" is a British name applied to any broad-leaved plant.[11]

The specific epithet thapsus was first used by Theophrastus (as θάψος, "thapsos")[12] for an unspecified herb from the Ancient Greek settlement of Thapsos, near modern Syracuse, Sicily,[13][12] though it is often assimilated to the ancient Tunisian city of Thapsus.[14]

<note: my example above has been improved by circeus so that it no longer fully relates to the following comment qp10qp 18:34, 8 March 2007 (UTC)> Surely all this tagging isn't necessary. The edit-page version of this is a nightmare to try and copy-edit (and it needs a copy-edit, for phrases such as ""Dock" being appliable to any broad-leaved plant" or "though it is often assimilated to the ancient Tunisian city of Thapsus"). Surely a better approach here would be to cite a page or page range of a book or books which give all the various names and leave it at that (something like: Mabey, 329-40; Grieve, 75-84, or whatever, at the end of the section), rather than cite for every single name in this intrusive fashion. qp10qp 17:15, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In the case of the Watts references, they are apreadacross the entire book (at "Rod", "staff," "Mullein" and "Velvet"), so the best I can do is move the refs for every group at the end of the paragraph, I'm afraid. How does it look now?
Grieve cannot be given a page number because I didn't look up the book: it is available in its entirety online. It seemed better to cite it as a book and link the relevant part instead.Circeus 17:47, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I combined the Watts references together too.Circeus 17:57, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How about (put "ref" instead of "noref"):

V. thapsus is known by a variety of names. "Common mullein" is the usual name in North America, but "Great Mullein" is the one used in the UK. Vernacular names include innumerable references to the plant's hairiness: "Woolly," "Velvet" or "Blanket Mullein," "Beggar's," "Moses'," "Poor Man's," "Our Lady's" or "Old Man's Blanket," and so on ("Flannel" is another generic name).<noref>Niering, 798; Rickett, 389; Grieve, Mullein, Great; Watts, 108, 369, 633-634; Brako, 189.</noref>

Some names refer to the plant's size and shape: "Shepherd's Club(s)" or "Staff," "Aaron's Rod" (a name it shares with a number of other plants with tall, yellow inflorescences), and a plethora of other "X's Staff" and "X's Rod." The plant is still called "Velvet" or "Mullein Dock"—"Dock" is a British name applied to any broad-leaved plant.<noref>Rickett, 389; Grieve, Mullein, Great; Watts, 302, 634, 774-775, 819-820, 866.</noref>

That's what I meant by combining refs, rather than just grouping tags together. (If you wanted to tell the reader precisely which name came from which book, you could do it in the notes: just list the names before the particular pages.)

qp10qp 18:27, 8 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Object - 1a. Bloopers like this at the top don't augur well:

  • "It grows in a wide variety of habitats, but favors well-lit disturbed soils the most, which it can invades rapidly thanks to its long-lived seeds." Remove "the most". "Invades"? The logic of why long-lived seeds allow this is unclear, and probably should be in the lead.

And more:

  • "Common Mullein is a weedy, but rarely competitive species." Logic problem: why "but"?
  • "it hosts many insects that can be harmful to other plants, such as the tarnished plant bug." Word order could be kinder to our readers - the tarnished plant bug is not another plant.
  • "Although individuals are easy to destroy by hand, populations are difficult to destroy permanently." Another contrast that brings up logical problems; why is manual destruction pitted against permanence?
  • "It is especially recommended for coughs and related problems, but also used in topical applications against a variety of skin problems. The plant was also used to make dyes and torches." More contrast/logic issues. Why "but"? Why "was also", and what are "torches" (means a number of things in English)?

Needs a good run-throught by a copy-editor before promotion. Tony 21:27, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You expect the lead to explain all the subtleties covered in the body of the article. There are no logic problem whatsoever (although I did replace "competitive" with "invasive").
  • "weedy, but not competitive" is a reaction to the fact that weeds are typically highly competitive or invasive (e.g. Purple loosestrife, Dandelion, Pilosella aurantiaca)
  • Contrasting individuals and permanence reflects that one seeking to eliminate a species from a location does hope to do so permanently.
  • The third case is a limitation. It's not only used for breathing ailments ("Most tigers are orange and black, but the Siberia Tiger is white and black"...)
Circeus 22:44, 26 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ Niering, William A. (1979). The Audubon Society field guide to North American wildflowers, eastern region. New York: Knopf. p. 798. ISBN 0-394-50432-1.
  2. ^ a b c Harold William Rickett, ed. (1966). "The Mulleins (Verbascum)". Wild Flowers of the United States. Vol. Volume 1. The Northeastern States (Part 2). New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 389. LCCN 66-0 – 0. {{cite encyclopedia}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
  3. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference grieve was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ a b c Watts, Donald (2000). Elsevier's dictionary of plant names and their origin. Amsterdam. pp. 633–634. ISBN 0-444-50356-0.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  5. ^ Brako, Lois (1995). Scientific and common names of 7,000 vascular plants in the United States. St. Paul, Minnesota: APS Press. p. 189. ISBN 0-89054-171-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ Watts, Elsevier's dictionary of plant names, p.108.
  7. ^ Watts, Elsevier's dictionary of plant names, p.369.
  8. ^ Watts, Elsevier's dictionary of plant names, pp.774-775.
  9. ^ Watts, Elsevier's dictionary of plant names, pp.819-820.
  10. ^ Watts, Elsevier's dictionary of plant names, p.866: "A tall plant like Mullein attracts 'staff' and 'rod' names."
  11. ^ Watts, Elsevier's dictionary of plant names, pp.302, 634.
  12. ^ a b (in French)Carnoy, A. (1959). Dictionnaire étymologique des noms grecs de plantes. Louvain: Publications Universitaires. OCLC 3284108.
  13. ^ (in Swedish) Den virtuella Floran: Verbascum thapsus, retrieved on December 29 2006.
  14. ^ Charters, Michael L. "Plant name: T". California Plant Names: Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations. Calflora.net. Retrieved 2006-12-06.
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. 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.
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