Talk:Symphyotrichum novae-angliae/GA1

GA Review

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Reviewer: RoySmith (talk · contribs) 16:14, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Lede

• "deep-purple". Later in the body, you use "deep purple" without the hyphen. I'm not sure that either is right or wrong, but be consistent.

Done. Removed the hyphen. Eewilson (talk) 19:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• The name "hairy Michaelmas-daisy" is mentioned in the lede, but not in the main body.

We typically list the common names for the plant in the lead but then don't use them or most of them in the body of the article, which is why they are cited in the lead. If they are used in the body, it tends to be at the editor's discretion (at least from what I've seen...), and in this article, I think I've just used New England Aster, and only a couple of times, as that appears to be the most common vernacular. Eewilson (talk) 19:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Description

• "clump-forming perennial, herbaceous plant". Is there some way to rephrase this to avoid WP:SEAOFBLUE?

Done. I replaced the comma with the word "and". Eewilson (talk) 19:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• That first sentence is kind of complicated: "... usually between ... but sometimes ... and is usually ...". Consider breaking it up into two smaller sentences. Maybe (paraphrasing) "...usually between 30 and 120 cm tall and 60 to 90 cm wide. It can sometimes reach heights of 180 to 240 cm".

Good point and done. Eewilson (talk) 19:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Roots, stems, and leaves

• Link "hairy" the first time it's used in the body.

Done. Eewilson (talk) 19:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

• "Sizes of the distal leaves range 3–8 cm in length by 6–15 mm wide.[3]" You can leave out the "Sizes of the" part: "Distal leaves range from 3-8 cm...."

Just driving the point home! :) Done. Eewilson (talk) 19:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Flowers

• "Each open flower head is wide and can be up to 5 cm in diameter.[8]", I'd leave out "is wide": "Open flower heads can be up to ..."

Well, it is wide for an aster! :) Done. Eewilson (talk) 19:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, assuming the reference supports this, how about something like, "Open flower heads are wider than in other aster varieties, reaching 5 cm in diameter" -- RoySmith (talk) 19:35, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I’m okay with removing it. And I can think of one species whose may be wider. I don’t think it’s worth trying to find a source because I’m not sure there is one. Looks like I accidentally had done a POV. Eewilson (talk) 19:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Involucres and phyllaries

• I'm can't find the right WP:MOS citation, but I don't believe "phyllaries" should have quotes around it. Perhaps set it in italics? Similar comment in various places for "coming together", "hair", "stipitate glands", etc. For example, later on you say, "is made up of 5 fused petals, collectively a corolla, which open into 5 lobes" and don't put corolla in quotes; I think it works better than way.

I think you are looking for MOS:WORDSASWORDS, and in these botanical articles where scientific names are italicized, I have seen us on the Plants project page (maybe?) discuss using quotes or italics. I thought I saw that on WORDSASWORDS, but I'll have to look again later. .... I am interrupted right now and will continue in a few hours. Eewilson (talk) 19:16, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm back. Yes, it is in MOS:WORDSASWORDS. First suggestion is italics, second is 'single quotes', third is "double quotes". In botany, italics are for genera and species names, and single quotes are used for cultivars, so for words as words in taxon articles, you generally see double quotes. I'll make sure it's consistent. Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Made some changes and I think it's consistently done now. Eewilson (talk) 22:30, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Florets

• "one to one (1:1) ratio", I don't think you need to both spell it out and set it in numerals.

Done. Removed the numbers. Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Chromosomes

This section is a little confusing. The sentence "Diploid plants with chromosome counts of 10 have been reported.[3]" calls out an unusual situation, but you don't state what the normal condition is. Maybe this should start out as "Plants are usually haploid (I'm assuming here that's correct), but diploid examples ....". The link for "base number" should be to the more specific Ploidy#Haploid and monoploid. Part of the problem is that if you search for "base number" in Ploidy, you won't find it because it's not punctuated that way.

I'll see what I can do. Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

So here, I don't know what ploidy plants usually are, and that may be out of scope anyway. However, I did link base number to Ploidy#Haploid and monoploid. That Ploidy article does need work. In the S. n-a article, I could use base number (which is what I've usually seen as the term for x), but also put monoploid number in parentheses, or link on monoploid number. Eewilson (talk) 00:48, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Okay, so it's not that diploids are unusual for this species. It's just that no other ploidies have been found – and sure, someday there could be others found. As a contrast, see Symphyotrichum lateriflorum, for which diploid, tetraploid, hexaploid, and octaploid plants have been found. So for S. n-a, I don't want to say "only diploids have been found", but I do want to be able to say it in a way that it doesn't look like I'm pointing out an unusual situation. Any suggestions? Eewilson (talk) 22:08, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Well, I'm not a botanist, so I don't know if this makes sense scientifically, but how about, "Unlike many Symphyotrichum species in which diploid, tetraploid, hexaploid, and octaploid plants can be found within the same species, S. n-a plants are always diploid". If you want to waffle a little, maybe, "... S. n-a plants have always been observed to be diploid". -- RoySmith (talk) 23:33, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Or, "...only diploid plants have been observed in S. n-a". -- RoySmith (talk) 23:37, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Simplified it to The species is diploid with a chromosome count of 10. Eewilson (talk) 00:39, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

That works, thanks. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:07, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Distribution

• Link United States and Canada.

Done. Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Habitat

• Link pH.

Done. Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Reproduction

• Link bisexual to Sex#Plants (unless there's some better target).

Hmmm. What's your thought here? Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm just thinking that the reader may not know that plants have sexes, so it makes sense to give them a place to go to learn more about the concept. -- RoySmith (talk) 23:34, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Honestly, the only simple explanation right now is the current link. There is some information in the Asteraceae article on sexual reproduction for species in this family, but it's pretty convoluted (or hard to follow) and needs work. I will do an Efn telling them to See Asteraceae § Flowers for more detail. which I have done in another location. Tell me what you think Eewilson (talk) 01:03, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

My first thought was, "what current link?", but I guess you're talking about vegetatively -> Vegetative reproduction in the first sentence? I'm not sure I understand this correctly. Vegetative reproduction talks about "asexual reproduction", but then you're talking about female ray florets and bisexual disk florets, so I think this needs some clarification. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:14, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

I meant the link from bisexual to Hermaphrodite (botany) which is in the Florets section, not reproduction section. Sorry for the confusion. I could link it both places if you think I should. Eewilson (talk) 01:20, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I think this is starting to make sense. The gist of the first sentence of the Reproduction section is that there's two modes of reproduction. One is asexual (i.e. vegetative) via rhizomes. The other is sexual vs seeds. If that's correct, then how about making the first sentence a little more explicit:

Symphyotrichum novae-angliae reproduces both sexually via wind-dispersed seeds and asexually (vegetatively) via short rhizomes.

I've reversed the order of the two methods only because it seems to make more grammatical sense to use the positive (sexual) before the negative (asexual), but I don't have any strong feeling about that. I had missed that bisexual was linked earlier in the body, so I guess that's fine the way it is. -- RoySmith (talk) 01:29, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Got it! Symphyotrichum novae-angliae reproduces sexually via wind-dispersed seeds and asexually (vegetatively) via short rhizomes. Eewilson (talk) 01:58, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Medicinal

• See MOS:BLOCKQUOTE; the citation should be moved from the block quote to the introductory sentence preceding it.

Done. Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Notes

• We don't need the instructions on how to convert between inches and mm/cm.

Removed. Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

General comments

You use the full name Symphyotrichum novae-angliae in a lot of places. Is that really necessary? Could some of them be shortened to "S. novae-angliae", or even eliminated completely because it's obvious by context?

It needs to be spelled out at the beginning of at least every section at minimum. If the paragraphs are small and it's overkill, it doesn't need to be each paragraph. If for any reason not spelling the genus out would cause ambiguity with another genus, then it needs to be spelled out. I will look for overkill. Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Dealt with the overkill. Eewilson (talk) 22:30, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the specific GAN criteria, I'm not seeing any issues with any of them. The images all appear to be appropriately licensed. The references all look like WP:RS.

Cool. Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Overall, this is a very well written article which was a pleasure to read. -- RoySmith (talk) 16:14, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll get back soon when I've made the other changes. Eewilson (talk) 21:47, 21 December 2021 (UTC)

Looking at the whole article again, one thing that strikes me is there's lots of very short sections. For example, "Infraspecies" consists of a single sentence, as does Conservation/Status. Could you make a pass over the entire article and see if there's any places where adjacent short sections and/or paragraphs could be merged to make it less choppy? However, if there's some conventional article structure used in botany articles which requires this, I'll defer to that.

Okay, so I did that in several places. I did keep the short sections within Description. While not everything in the Taxon template of the Plants project is required, the coverage of what is in these description sections is project consenus (and I personally expect them [if they can be sourced] in an article at GA class or above). I like the headers for readability. You can go straight to "Involucres and phyllaries" if you wonder what they should look like. A GA should have a description and photos if available. A FA should wow you with them (like Symphyotrichum lateriflorum). Incidentally, if I take this one to FAC, I'll be adding much more to the article, especially in Reproduction. Eewilson (talk) 01:51, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

OK, this looks great. Passed GA. Looking forward to reading more of your stuff. -- RoySmith (talk) 20:36, 22 December 2021 (UTC)

Thank you and thank you so much, RoySmith, for the review, suggestions, comments, and ideas! It's been a pleasure. Eewilson (talk) 23:31, 22 December 2021 (UTC)