Talk:Inosperma maculatum

GA Review

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

Reviewer: Sasata (talk) 18:17, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Finally a mushroom article to which I have not contributed and can review! Comments in a few days. Sasata (talk) 18:17, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

• leads repeats that it's poisonous. Two consecutive sentences start with "The species"
  • Fixed. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• "Consumption of the mushrooms will lead to salivation, lacrimation, urination, defecation, gastrointestinal problems and vomiting" Sounds so definitive … Am I guaranteed to poop my pants if I eat this? How about something like "Symptions that have been associated with the consumption of this mushroom include …" or something similar.
  • Fixed. The symptoms aren't necessarily associated with the consumption of the mushroom (it's probably never been consumed...) but with muscarine. A reliable source does list this mushroom specifically as leading to those symptoms, though. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• If there's only two images available, I like to space them in the article and place a gill shot in the description section (not necessary do, just explaining my stylistic preferences… have been contemplating writing up a "Fungus MOS" for future myco-Wikipedians and would like to hear your opinions about this kind of stuff)
  • Yeah, interesting. You'll note I haven't used the mycomorphbox, of which I'm not a massive fan- I think that hails back to a time when mushroom articles were more like guide book entries. I'm not wild about the pictures- if they are Inocybe maculata (how reliable are those fungal fair thingies, typically?) they're in a terrible condition. Checking Commons, we have some rather nice pictures that look much more typical (as in, fit the description and look like the pictures in my book) which is lucky- I'll switch them out. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
    • I put in the other two; feel free to rearrange them if it doesn't appeal to your aesthetic sensibilties. Sasata (talk) 02:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• I've been adopting the capitalization philosophy of keeping things lower-case unless it's covered under the exceptions listed in WP:capitalization#Animals, plants, and other organisms.
  • God, that really is back and forth. I've only just started capitalising myself. Fixed. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• "The cap is covered in fibres which extend from the centre of the cap to the margin (which is usually split)." Are all caps usually split, or only the older ones?
  • All of them, it would seem. All the guidebooks mention it, but none seem to mention it as specifically in older specimens. Phillips, for example, mentions that it is "often radially split or cracked" while Pegler and Kibby both have illustrations of younger mushrooms with split caps, as well as the older ones. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• how about spelling out a unit on first usage but abbreviating after that?
  • Makes sense- I'm just using Template:Convert, so it's all done automatically. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
    • I added abbr=on to the second convert template. Sasata (talk) 02:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
• I think that fragments like "In color, …" or "In size, …" are somewhat awkward constructions (yeah, I'm used them before …) that should be tweaked out of existence.
  • Done. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• "the basidia measure from 15 to 30 micrometres (0.00059 to 0.0012 in) by 5 to 9 micrometres (0.00020 to 0.00035 in)." I remain unconvinced that giving imperial units is of any real use here. However, micrometer should be μm, and should be linked.
  • Changed. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• "The sterigmata (the narrow horns on the end of the basidia which hold the spores)" Funny, I call them "slender extensions" and you call them "narrow horns".
  • That isn't my phrase, it'll be from a glossary somewhere. They're a little technical for me- I can't say I've ever looked at any of this stuff through a microscope. I've done a bit of spore printing, but that's as far as I get! J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• I have never heard the descriptor "snuff" used to modify brown. I guess I don't see snuff enough.
  • Roger Phillips was writing a good few years ago! It's a term I've come across in other fields. The Grund source had a rather quaint list of all the metaphors that had been used to describe the brown colour- I guess adding that could add a little interest to the article- "Buckthorn brown", "snuff brown", "tawny olive" and "Saccardo's umber" were all mentioned. What do you reckon?J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
    • These odd-sounding colors are a throwback to the days when mycologists used to carry around color charts to try to describe colors in some sort of standardized fashion. They sound quaint, but don't really mean anything unless you've got the color chart to refer to. Sasata (talk) 02:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
    • Just to clarify, that was about the cap. I've added it to the article. J Milburn (talk) 13:46, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• How about some phylogeny? See this recent paper from Persoonia, and here for some older conclusions (2002).
  • I'll look into this in a second. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
    • I've introduced some nice stuff from the Persoonia article (though it did contradict something I'd already written- I hope the taxonomy section doesn't read as self-contradictory or non-neutral now?) but the other's too much for me- I'm not a biologist, that's all pretty meaningless to me. It mostly seemed to agree with the other (as in, subgenus Inosperma and section Rimosae) but with some more technical details. J Milburn (talk) 13:44, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• this species has also been found in Iran:

Author(s): Saber, M.

Source: Iranian Journal of Plant Pathology Volume: 35 Issue: 1-4 Pages: 7-11 Published: December, 1999

Title:The species of Inocybe in Iran

• Iran would already be covered in "western Europe to Eastern Asia", surely? I'll add it as a source to help clarify that it does literally go from one end to the other. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)

• There's a couple of potentially interesting articles about this species, but alas, in foreign languages I can't read and in journals I can't access.
  • Titles? I only read English, but there's a chance I can access a few bits and bobs- I have access to a lot of stuff through my university. I'm not sure precisely how much. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
    • This one has a determination of muscarine concentration (in Dutch):

Title: THE OCCURRENCE OF MUSCARINE AND MUSCIMOL IN VARIOUS FUNGI

Author(s): STIJVE T

Source: Coolia Volume: 25 Issue: 4 Pages: 94-100 Published: 1982

• • • This one has poisoning data from Switzerland:

Title: TOXICOLOGIC REPORT 1974 REPORT OF POISONING OF HUMANS BY MUSHROOMS IN SWITZERLAND

Author(s): MAEDER A

Source: Schweizerische Zeitschrift fuer Pilzkunde Volume: 53 Issue: 10 Pages: 150 Published: 1975

• Nope, couldn't get hold of either of them. On the plus side, I did find I have access to a few databases I didn't know I did, so that'll be useful. J Milburn (talk) 10:49, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

• If you look close up in the 3rd image in Alan Rockefeller's MO observation (a similarly cropped version of which which btw might make a good third picture), doesn't it look like the gills are closer to being subdecurrent, rather than adnate?
  • See above. I wasn't really wild about those pictures, and I've now switched them for something much more typical. J Milburn (talk) 11:53, 23 September 2010 (UTC)
• I think the form fulva should be mentioned: you can get the citation to the protolog from MycoBank, and a brief description on how it differs from the main form in the Persoonia paper. I will put together a cladogram, and maybe add a few more words about phylogeny, then I'd be satisfied passing this as a GA. Sasata (talk) 02:37, 24 September 2010 (UTC)
  • Added some more, including a list of trees. J Milburn (talk) 11:19, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, I added a cladogram and a few words about the phylogenetic support of the split of section Rimosae into two clades. I'll leave you to add a sentence about that to the lead, but otherwise, I think the article meets GA criteria. You might want to add an etymology for maculata (sources available by searching Google Books for "Latin maculata") Am promoting the article now, it's been good working with you :)

Thank you very much, this has been a very productive GA review. I will certainly get to those things at some point soon. J Milburn (talk) 11:10, 25 September 2010 (UTC)