Misplaced Pages

Talk:Yucca brevifolia: Difference between revisions

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.
Browse history interactively← Previous editNext edit →Content deleted Content addedVisualWikitext
Revision as of 18:01, 19 December 2008 editAervanath (talk | contribs)13,901 edits closing move discussion: no consensus← Previous edit Revision as of 04:39, 20 December 2008 edit undoUna Smith (talk | contribs)Autopatrolled, Pending changes reviewers23,024 edits →Notice of requested move: new sectionNext edit →
Line 92: Line 92:
::Hardyplants, more people might know what a ] is, but I know lots of people who know both Yuccas and Joshua Trees, and I've never heard any of them ever call a Josua Tree a Yucca. That is, the plants that are commonly referred to by lay people as yucca does not include the Joshua tree. By the way, that's why the park is called Joshua Tree National Park, and not Yucca National Park (nor Yucca Brevifolia National Park). --] (]) 22:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC) ::Hardyplants, more people might know what a ] is, but I know lots of people who know both Yuccas and Joshua Trees, and I've never heard any of them ever call a Josua Tree a Yucca. That is, the plants that are commonly referred to by lay people as yucca does not include the Joshua tree. By the way, that's why the park is called Joshua Tree National Park, and not Yucca National Park (nor Yucca Brevifolia National Park). --] (]) 22:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
:''The above discussion is preserved as an archive. <span style="color:red">'''Please do not modify it.'''</span> Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.''<!-- from Template:discussion bottom --></div> :''The above discussion is preserved as an archive. <span style="color:red">'''Please do not modify it.'''</span> Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.''<!-- from Template:discussion bottom --></div>

== Notice of requested move ==

'''] → ]''' —('']'')— move over redirect here, to put disambiguation page where it belongs: at ambiguous page name. --] (]) 04:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Revision as of 04:39, 20 December 2008

WikiProject iconPlants Unassessed
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject Plants, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of plants and botany on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PlantsWikipedia:WikiProject PlantsTemplate:WikiProject Plantsplant
???This article has not yet received a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
???This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.
WikiProject iconCalifornia Unassessed
WikiProject iconThis article is within the scope of WikiProject California, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of California on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.CaliforniaWikipedia:WikiProject CaliforniaTemplate:WikiProject CaliforniaCalifornia
???This article has not yet received a rating on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
???This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

How cold hardy?

How cold hardy are Joshua trees? If they area planted in a raised bed (to keep the roots dry) can they be grown in areas such as USDA zone 5 or 6 that are cold but not a whole lot colder than their natural habitat? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.224.3.208 (talk) 04:11, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

Lifespan of a Joshua Tree

Should there be something here about the lifespan of a Joshua Tree? How old can a Joshua Tree get?

Hard for anybody to know, because as the article says, it "lacks annual growth rings, making it difficult to determine the tree's age". I vaguely remember reading about someone experimenting with C14 dating, dunno where I saw it. Stan 21:11, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Further, one of the subspecies forms clonal clumps, so the clump wil be older than any of its above-ground ramets.--Curtis Clark 23:19, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

branch of a joshua tree

We have had some abnormal amounts of snow fall, and the weight of the snow has broken one of the branches on the Joshua tree. Can I plant that and have it grow? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.35.188.223 (talk) 23:54, 27 February 2007 (UTC).


Unfortunatly not. If you have any more questions concerning Joshua Trees, you may contact The Joshua Tree Nursery located in Joshua Tree, Ca. jtnursery.com

Not a Joshua tree?

I'm not convinced that Image:Joshuatreesydney.jpg is a Joshua tree; it looks more like a Dracaena or some such. The branching pattern and lack of old leaf bases are both uncharacteristic for Joshua trees.--Curtis Clark 14:10, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree this is not a Joshua tree. At first I thought that it wmight be a cabbage palm, but after comparing, it does look like more like a type of Dracaena to me as well. --Bejnar (talk) 17:30, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

Why is it called a Joshua tree?

I told my kids that's cause the trees are way old, dating back to, like, the time of Joshua, but no confirmation or disconfirmation here. --Mikedelsol (talk) 19:30, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Uh, the article explains the name, under "Ethnobotany".--Curtis Clark (talk) 21:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Not enough consensus for a move, especially considering that WP:Naming conventions (flora) is heavily disputed and in flux right now, so it doesn't really qualify as a reliable rule to rely on in these debates. Given that, a move is not advisable at this time. Once NC(flora) is accepted as a convention, this requested move may be revisited.--Aervanath lives in the Orphanage 18:01, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

Yucca brevifolia → Joshua tree — According to WP:NC(flora), articles about trees/plants should be titled based on their "common name". The scientific name should only be used if it is the most common one, however "Yucca brevifolia" (which is not even mentioned in the lead section) is definitely not as common as "Joshua tree". Although there are several titles listed in the lead section, I believe "Joshua tree" is most common and most appropriate, especially since there is a national park named after the tree. — –Dream out loud (talk) 03:53, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Misplaced Pages's naming conventions.
"Joshua tree" vs "Joshua Tree" is splitting hairs, and irrelevant in the context of search users. --Una Smith (talk) 20:50, 14 December 2008 (UTC)
It might irrelevant in the context of search by users, but it is not irrelevant to the issue of whether there is a primary usage for each of the two spellings (without and without the T capitalized), the answer to which is yes. The title about each primary topic should be reflected accordingly. And using a name that is virtually unknown outside of a specialized area is not solution to a search problem, if that's what you're trying to address. Note that Joshua tree currently redirects to this article, which has a hat note to the dab page. I see no problem, and actually an advantage, to sending any user searching for the park or town by entering "joshua tree" to this article about the namesake first. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Derivation does not establish a primary topic. --Una Smith (talk) 17:20, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
By itself no, but it is one element and in this case none of the other ambiguous names are remotely close. The Joshua Tree album is the only entry likely to be more widely known, and as a title has a distinctive name. older ≠ wiser 17:28, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Have you participated in that discussion?--Curtis Clark (talk) 13:59, 15 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose; WP:NC, a policy, states "Misplaced Pages determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." Those who participated in the discussion at WT:NC (flora) will be aware that I have already checked what verifiable reliable sources in English call this particular plant. For those who didn't participate over there, here it is again:
    "The ideal source from which to obtain a physical description of Y. brevifolia is a monograph on the genus or family. Surprisingly there seems to be nothing of significance published since the brief and very general treatment of Verhoek (1998) "Agavaceae" in Kubitzki, K. (ed.), The Families and Genera of Vascular Plants III. This uses scientific names throughout. If you wanted to get into morphological variability, you might dig up Valentovich and Sandquist (2007) Morphological variation of Yucca brevifolia (Agavaceae) among seven population in the Mojave Desert, which also refers to this plant by its scientific name.
    The ideal source(s) for the species' systematics?: Presumably Pellmyr et al. (2007) The phylogeny of yuccas, which uses scientific names throughout. Possibly also Clary & Simpson (1994) Taxonomy of the genus Yucca: taxonomy and molecular biology and Clary & Simpson (1995) Systematics and character evolution of the genus Yucca L. (Agavaceae): evidence from morphology and molecular analyses. I haven't seen these last two papers but I bet you London to a brick that they use scientific names throughout.
    For distribution and habitat? Biogeography is an understudied and underpublished area. For most taxa there is no atlas available but in this case there is a three-volume set by Hochstätter (2002) entitled Yucca, Yucca II and Yucca III. Y. brevifolia would be in Yucca II. I haven't seen these books, but they give me the impression of a self-published work that may not be completely reliable. It might be necessary to go to local floras, like CalFlora, in which the relevant page is entitled "Yucca brevifolia". This information might be supplemented by papers on historical and future distribution such as Dole et al. (2002) The relative importance of climate change and the physiological effects of CO2 on freezing tolerance for the future distribution of Yucca brevifolia.
    For horticulture? I recommend Irish (2000) Agaves, Yuccas, and Related Plants: A Gardener's Guide. Our species is treated on page 239 under the title Yucca brevifolia.
    There are of course some articles that use the common name. There seems to be a cluster of them focussing on mutualism between Yucca and the Yucca moth. But in general, the preponderance of reliable sources that I would anticipate citing in a high quality article on Y. brevifolia uses the scientific name, not the common name."
Septentrionalis, I asked you over there whether you endorsed WP:NC, and you seem to have avoided answering me. I'll ask again: do you endorse WP:NC? Hesperian 00:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. I have never heard of Yucca whatever, but have often heard of Joshua tree. 199.125.109.58 (talk) 01:57, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. Misplaced Pages is not a scientific reference. Yucca brevifolia might be an appropriate title in a scientific reference on flora, but the idea that this obscure name (little known among the general public) be used instead of the widely known Joshua tree as the title of the Misplaced Pages article about this topic, which clearly has primary usage for the name, and for which "Joshua tree" is unquestionably the most common name, is not supported at all by any (undisputed) naming policy, guidelines or conventions, so far as I know. --Born2cycle (talk) 20:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Amen to that! Misplaced Pages is a reference about popular culture, pseudoscience, and political POV. Anyone who thinks they can learn any science from Misplaced Pages should smoke some salvia or weed and chill out.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
  • Support per WP:NC(flora). The wording there seems rather clear. Out in the US West, I have never heard it called anything but a Joshua tree. Maybe the scientific name is also included on the nursery tags, but it is still the Joshua tree. While not a reason in and of itself, Yucca brevifolia gets 31,000 hits and Joshua tree (in all its uses) gets 3,000,000. So since the tree itself is the primary usage it would appear that the is a case for this also being the common name. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:42, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
Since you're fond of google, try plugging in , sifting out the false hits on national parks, albums, movies, cities, etc, and check what the title and predominant use is for the pages that are actually about the plant. I did this for the first 100, and the result came out about even. Google doesn't support your position at all. Hesperian 04:12, 19 December 2008 (UTC)
FYI, WP:NC(flora) is a proposal right now, not agreed upon, and this very article is one of the debating points. One of the things that we want to be careful about is that this article doesn't become used as justification for multi-month debates on the thousands of other plant articles. Stan (talk) 00:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
If general Misplaced Pages policy, guidelines and conventions were adhered to in naming these articles, there wouldn't be any debate. That's why they are established, to prevent exactly the kind of problems that occur when "specialists" try to wiki-lawyerize category-specific rules that contradict, rather than complement, the general rules. I'm all for category-specific rules that spell out what to do in a given category when the general rules fall short, but the specific rules should only be there to complement, not contradict, the general rules. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
This coming from someone who doesn't want our specialised guideline to conform to the general WP:NC policy that "Misplaced Pages determines the recognizability of a name by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the subject." How do you rationalise such a self-contradictory position? Hesperian 01:34, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Oh, but specialist sources don't count. The important thing is that Misplaced Pages not challenge a user's existing knowledge by suggesting there is more to a discipline than they already know.--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:31, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
What shits me isn't so much the disregard for specialists as the sheer hypocrisy of the position. A mob came to WP:NC (flora) to ram WP:NC down our throats. The latter was policy, and we were told in no uncertain terms that we had no right to a mere convention that wasn't precisely in accordance with it. After neutering our convention in the name of the WP:NC policy, they are now willfully ignoring WP:NC policy in this new debate, since they have discovered that it doesn't actually say what they want it to say. Hesperian 04:48, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Ha ha ha, amen to that. Be careful what you wish for! Stan (talk) 15:16, 17 December 2008 (UTC)
Hesperian, I apologize for failing to clearly explain the basis for those reverts, though that does not justify your jumping to conclusions about what it was, and stating that I was being hypocritical with respect to following WP:NC (which, BTW, is arguably pushing WP:CIVIL). As you know, the wording I objected to was, "this is assessed by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call the taxon". I have no objection to the current wording, "this is assessed by seeing what verifiable reliable sources in English call it". The problem with using taxon in that context is that taxon implies use of the scientific name for that taxon, because of the dual meaning of the term (one meaning of taxon is a taxonomic group, the other meaning is the scientific name of such a group). --Born2cycle (talk) 18:11, 17 December 2008 (UTC)

Discussion

Comment: It may not be wise to rely on the current version of Misplaced Pages:Naming conventions (flora), as it is in flux right now. Check the edit history and the talk page. Longstanding consensus there was to always use scientific names; no new consensus has yet been reached. In light of that, a move here seems premature. --Tkynerd (talk) 04:36, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Comment: I know the naming conventiosn for floara are currently under discussion, but in general, all articles should typically be titled by their common name, not necessarily their "official" or "scientific name". Compared to other flora related articles, Oak is not titled Quercus, Sunflower is not titled Helianthus annuus, Poison ivy is not titled Toxicodendron radicans, and so on and so forth. –Dream out loud (talk) 06:13, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
Sunflower is mis titled, it should be Helianthus annuus or Common sunflower, sunflower covers a lot of different plants. Oak for the most part is limited to Quercus - so not much confusion there. Poison Ivy is a commonly used name for two different related plants and their different forms. Hardyplants (talk) 07:19, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

The naming of other plants may be more difficult; indeed, the present text of WP:Flora says so. But cases like this should not be confused by that; however rare they may be, they should be treated in the way clearest to the lay reader. (One of the comments on WT:Flora was that such cases were always understood to be exceptions; the current discussion is in large part whether and how to say so explicitly.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:33, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

More people would know what a Yucca is than what what a Joshua tree is, lots of people can relate to yucca and this species is a treelike form of Yucca. I do concede that this is as close to a universally recognizable vernacular name for one single species as one is likely to find; even if the name does not represent the entire species, some forms and subspecies have other names. Hardyplants (talk) 01:38, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Hardyplants. Also, inspection of the interwiki links to other language Misplaced Pages favors Yucca brevifolia. --Una Smith (talk) 16:58, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
That's the usage of other languages (or may be); this, however, is - or should be - the English Misplaced Pages. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:04, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Hardyplants, more people might know what a Yucca is, but I know lots of people who know both Yuccas and Joshua Trees, and I've never heard any of them ever call a Josua Tree a Yucca. That is, the plants that are commonly referred to by lay people as yucca does not include the Joshua tree. By the way, that's why the park is called Joshua Tree National Park, and not Yucca National Park (nor Yucca Brevifolia National Park). --Born2cycle (talk) 22:26, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Notice of requested move

Joshua tree (disambiguation) → Joshua tree —(Discuss)— move over redirect here, to put disambiguation page where it belongs: at ambiguous page name. --Una Smith (talk) 04:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Categories: