User talk:Bludgeon4U/sandbox

Macginitiea

It would be a good idea to explain what is the Clarno Formation of central Oregon, since it is a very specific denomination, not known to many people.

Discovery & Naming

Maybe it would be clearer to phrase “...of Macginitiea to the Platanaceae.” as “...of the genus Macginitiea to the family Platanaceae.”, just because lay people are not so used to the way hierarchy is indicated by the suffixes in the some of the words.

How was the genus Platanophyllum problematic? Would it be possible to explain this part a bit further?

Description

Would it be possible to explain the palinactinodromous venation pattern with a simple example? Venation pattern is a topic complicated in itself. If explained with simpler words, how it is done when you talk about the "chevron" pattern, it becomes easier for people to come up with a mental image of what is being explained.

Again, maybe it would be clearer to phrase "The branching of primaries..." as “The branching of primary veins...” because it can be hard for lay people to relate to the fact that this genus refers only to the leaf and not the whole plant, making the association of primaries to primary veins harder.

For the same reason as above it would be a good option to phrase "Macginitiea is usually entire..." as “Macginitiea margin is usually entire…”.

You are missing the "on" in the following phrase: “and partly ON lobe numbers”.

I think this table is very helpful and illustrates quite well the morphological diversity of this genus. Nice job with synthesizing this information.

Whole Plant Reconstructions

I think this section is great, and I feel that lay readers would benefit from reading this earlier on in the article. I understand this is not the focus of the page, but it helps to explain how genera are treated in a different way under a paleobotanical perspective. Maybe, you could add this section before the Discovery and Naming, when you first mention the Clarno Plane.

The Clarno Plane

Is it Platananthus or Platananthis? You first mention the genus Platananthis, when you talk about the species Platananthis synandrus, so I assume is the second option, correct?

It would be good to explain what a connective is.

It would be good to explain through a simple example what is an scalariform perforation.

The Joffre Plane

It would be interesting to rephrase this paragraph. It is just after a few sentences that it becomes clear to the reader why the Joffre Plane topic is being approached. At first, it doesn't make sense, and this might cause some confusion in a less careful reader.

Ecology

It could be interesting to set the scenario for how the flora looked like in the Eocene. I think this captures people’s attention, specially because we have this idea of “strange” plants occurring in older eras. If there is an available reconstructed image of plants of the Eocene, and perhaps one that depicts Macginitiea it would be even more interesting to add this to the article.

Overall comments

The content provided in this article is very solid and backed up by good reference sources. The author makes a good job approaching a topic that is hard to explain even within the academic community, given the fact that paleobotany is not as "popular" as other subjects (unfortunately, since it is a beautiful area of knowledge). Because she is so well versed in this academic field some terms are mentioned without being fully explained, which makes it harder for the lay public to completely understand the meaning of some passages. The only major modification I would suggest is to approach the concept of a genus under the paleobotanical perspective earlier in the article, since this knowledge is crucial for the reader to fully comprehend Macginitiea. It was an enjoyable experience to learn more about this interesting genus and also more about paleobotany. Great work!

24.170.192.76 (talk) 03:25, 19 February 2019 (UTC)Maria Cortez

Comments from Emily

[This is a gorgeous page! Please be sure you choose a few sentences to include as the introductory lines at the top.]

Specific comments on different below, in bold:

From first section: [somewhere in this section you need to say something about how many species are recognized, since in the table below you list several species. Are the species listed in that table exhaustive?] Because paleobotanical material is often found in disarticulation, different species names are often used to refer to different organs (e.g. leaves, fruits, wood) even if those organs might have belonged to the same plant.[Fix spacing issues - should be single spaces following periods, not double spaces.] When these organ species are considered together as a whole plant, the study is known as a whole plant reconstruction. Some localities have enough co-occurrences of different fossil plant organs that whole plant reconstructions are possible, one example being the Cercidiphyllum-like Joffrea from the Joffre Bridge locality of Alberta, Canada.[6]

The Earliest definite occurrences of Macginitiea have been observed from the Comstock Flora of southern Willamette Valley, Oregon, which have [should be has] been dated to be younger than 38-40 million years old (Bartonian), though similar ages are observed throughout the Pacific Northwest, with occurrences around 38-39 Ma.[4]

From Description section: Macginitiea differs from modern Platanus [include link to its wiki page] with its often greater number of lobes and narrower angle between adjacent primary veins.[7]

From Whole Plant Reconstructions section: Staminate flowers (Platananthus synandrus) have an even more developed perianth than pistillate flowers, but similarly have more consistent numbers of parts than the modern, with 5 stamens per floret.[2] P. synandrus pollen appears to be smaller than pollen from modern Platanus [needs to be italicized]. Platananthus synandrus is also distinctive from extant Platanus for the elongation of its connectives, extensions of filament tissue that cover or divide an anther. In Platananthus and in modern Platanus, peltate (shield-like) connectives cover the tops of anthers, but the connectives of Platananthus are 4 to 5 times the length of the modern. Stamens are connate (fused) within each floret, causing them to be shed in clusters of stamen bundles (Macginistemon) [why is this name here, in italics? It's not clear why it's included in that sentence], rather than one at a time as in modern Platanus species.

Great illustration!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Emilysessa (talk • contribs) 20:58, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Thank you both for the helpful comments! I have incorporated all of these suggestions into the article. Bludgeon4U (talk) 14:00, 3 April 2019 (UTC)