Talk:Penstemon

The article places Penstemom genus in family Plantaginaceae. Surely the family is Scrophulariaceae? Peterjhbot (talk) 17:23, 21 November 2008 (UTC)

Did you read Plantaginaceae and articles like "Whatever happened to the Scrophulariaceae?" cited there? The majority of the plants which used to be in the Scrophulariaceae have been moved out in newer classifications. The Penstemon article already discusses this in the first two sentences. Kingdon (talk) 21:14, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I am sorry that I did not read the article thoroughly and that I caused you trouble. I was actually only looking up the Family and was surprised to read Plantaginaceae! In general,as a field botanist, I find genetic reclassification unhelpful.Peterjhbot (talk) 22:38, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

Penstemon barbatus photo is incorrectly identified, as it was on the P. barbatus page. This species has a strongly projecting upper lip and a reflexed lower lip, unlike the Penstemon in the photo. See USDA Plants Database - Penstemon barbatus for more photos.botanybob (talk) 20:18, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Species List

I finished a good list of ambiguous species using USDA Plants. The page finally looks fairly reasonable. I have not taken the species out of the valid list that are not used by the USDA on the basis that if a species is recognized by both POWO and WFO it is probably valid. I am still looking for a decent source to validate the common names, though this is not as high a priority as the Latin names. MtBotany (talk) 20:48, 18 February 2023 (UTC)

Replying to myself to make an announcement about planning some changes for the article. I think, due to the length of the species list, that it would appropriate to have a separate article List of Penstemon species. I would appreciate comments by interested parties and recent editors. My goal is to get this article as well sourced and organized as Dahlia or Narcissus (plant) by the end of 2024 and this will be a major step in that direction. Are there any other requests or suggestions about how it should be organized?

Pinging @Averixus, @Orange Suede Sofa, and @Peter coxhead as the three other most recent editors besides myself. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 19:35, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

A separate list article sounds sensible, no other suggestions from me. Averixus (talk) 21:06, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Having recently listified an article myself, my only suggestion would be to make the list more obvious to readers of the main article who might be arriving from a web search. For example, the Narcissus (plant) article buries the link to the list under a fourth-level subheading which doesn't appear in the default table of contents; if I were a reader who arrived at that article and just wanted a list, I'd have a hard time finding it. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 06:04, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the suggestion. That is a very good idea. I will make sure to figure out a good wording to put a link in the head of the article, or failing that, put in a disambiguation link at the top. Possibly linking the number of species to the list would be the most obvious spot to link from. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 21:51, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Link the list in the |subdivision= parameter in the taxobox (it can also be linked from other other places). Plantdrew (talk) 17:38, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

I agree; a list article is better when there are so many species. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:48, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

The Draft:List of Penstemon species is now live for editing. I put in the first two tables. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 22:34, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't see any point to having the scientific name and the authority in separate columns. I guess it's fine to keep it that way, but it seems like it would have entailed more work to implement separate columns than to keep the scientific name and authority together in the first place. Plantdrew (talk) 17:41, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

I'm experimenting with the idea that it might be useful to make the table sortable so that users can see which species where described by the same authority. It was only a very little bit of work to do it that way and would also be very easy to put them back into one column. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 18:22, 16 October 2023 (UTC)