Talk:Tropaeolum

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Sainsf (talk · contribs) 02:46, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi Cwmhiraeth! I am keen to review your article. My preliminary comments:

• In the first paragraph of lead, mention it was Linnaeus who described the genus.
• When was the introduction of the first Tropaeolum species?
• 'Stigmas' is a redlink. It is improperly linked, actually - link it to Stigma (botany).
• Convert templates are needed in 'Uses', I think.
• Make it clear what is 'The Plant List'.

Rest everything looks fine to me. Pretty much effort put in! I shall be glad to have it as a GA. Contact me here, or on my talkpage. Cheers!--Sainsf <^>_{Talk all words} 02:46, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for taking on this review. I have dealt with all the points you mention above with the exception of the date for the introduction of the first species. I own a copy of the book from which the history section is derived but it does not mention a date. As Linnaeus lived from 1707 to 1778, the date is bound to be in the 18th century so I have used that. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 09:31, 20 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes, the date 18th century would do. No more problems. I think this is much for an article on a genus. Promoted GA! --Sainsf <^>_{Talk all words} 13:24, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 18:10, 21 September 2012 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

This discussion is transcluded from Talk:Tropaeolum/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the reassessment.

At Wikipedia:Editor review/Cwmhiraeth#Comment by Fram, I listed some major problems with the history section of this article (which I have just removed). Considering that these edits were one of the reasons to accept this as a GA, even though the editor self-admitted that the edit was guesswork (and turns out to be wrong). Looking further at the article, I see things like "The hardiest species is T. polyphyllum from Chile, the perennial roots of which can survive underground when air temperatures drop as low as −15°C (5°F).", in the lead, which is not sourced and not repeated or explained in the body. I don't think this article warrants the GA rating. Fram (talk) 11:25, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

@Fram: Nothing having happened to this reassessment for the past six weeks, I have reincorporated the History section as modified by User:Plantsurfer below. I have dealt with the T. polyphyllum issue you mention above. Are there any other problems that you can identify? Apart from growing and liking nasturtiums, I can't now imagine why I should have bothered to bring this article to GA back in 2012. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 13:16, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

I have delisted it. The assessment that brought this to GA was clearly deficient, and the whole of the article needs serious scrutiny. The "species in cultivation" section starts with a rather definite claim, "The most common flower in cultivation is a hybrid of T. majus, T. minus and T. peltophorum,", linked to one ebsite of dubious reliability; this claim is not put a strongly in any reliable source I checked, most indicating that commong garden nasturtium is T. Majus, with some hybrid elements mentioned in some cases, like here (no indication of what the hybrid species are) or here (majus, sometimes a hybrid with peltophorum).

The article also doesn't even mention Monardes, which is a rather serious oversight. I suggest, if you want this article to again become a GA in the future, that you go over it from start to end, expand, rewrite, resource it, and then start the GA process again (I'll let someone else review it then). Until then, as it should never have been promoted in the first place, I think it is better if it delisted. Fram (talk) 07:20, 6 June 2014 (UTC)

History section

Might I suggest the following modification of the history section?

History

The first Tropaeolum species had evidently been introduced into Europe by the 16th century, since the English herbalist John Gerard reports having received seeds of the plant from Europe in his 1597 book Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes. Tropaeolum majus was named by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus, who chose the genus name because the plant reminded him of an ancient custom. After victory in battle, the Romans used to set up a trophy pole called a tropaeum (from the Greek tropaion, source of English "trophy"). On this the armour and weapons of the vanquished foe were hung. Linnaeus was reminded of this by the plant as the round leaves resembled shields and the flowers, blood-stained helmets.

Nasturtiums were once known commonly as "Indian cresses" because they were introduced from the Americas, known popularly then as the Indies, and used like cress as salad ingredients. John Gerard called the plant "Indian Cresses" in his herbal. He wrote: "unto the backe part (of the flower) doth hange a taile or spurre, such as hath the Larkes heele, called in Latine Consolida regalis.<ref name=Woodward> He was comparing the flowers of Indian cress to those of forking larkspur (Consolida regalis) of the buttercup family. ~~~~

Tolkien - "nasturtian"

J R R Tolkien, himself something an expert on the English language (he was after all Oxford's Merton Professor of English Language and Literature, and a very distinguished philologist) asserted that a common anglicization of the name was "nasturtian" rather than "nasturtium". His letter to Katherine Farrer of 7 August 1954 - of which there is a summary at http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Letter_148 - says

But nasturtians is deliberate, and represents a final triumph over the high-handed printers. Jarrold’s appear to have a highly educated pedant as a chief proof-reader, and they started correcting my English without even referring to me: elfin for elvin, farther for further, try to say for try and say and so on. I was put to the trouble of proving to him his own ignorance, as well as rebuking his impertinence. So, though I do not much care, I dug my toes in about nasturtians. I have always said this. It seems to be a natural anglicization that started soon after the ‘Indian Cress’ was naturalized (from Peru, I think) in the 18th century; but it remains a minority usage. I prefer it because nasturtium is, as it were, bogusly botanical, and falsely learned. I consulted the college gardener to this effect:

   ‘What do you call these things, gardener?’
   ‘I calls them tropaeolum, sir.’
   ‘But, when you’re just talking to dons?’
   ‘I says nasturtians, sir.’
   ‘Not nasturtium?’
   ‘No, sir; that’s watercress.’

And that seems to be the fact of botanical nomenclature…"

I must say I like Tolkien's use of the word "just" in the reported dialogue with the college gardener.Thomas Peardew (talk) 09:04, 4 June 2014 (UTC)

Is Tolkien the source for the unreferenced claim in "Species in Cultivation" that nasturtium (is) occasionally anglicized as nasturtian?142.163.194.210 (talk) 23:10, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

As it is unreferenced who can say? But the OED has a separate entry for "nasturtian" ("corrupt form of nasturtium") with four examples starting in the early 18th century, so it would be easy to add a reference if it weren't evidently trivial. Thomas Peardew (talk) 05:40, 24 May 2022 (UTC)