Talk:Valerianella

Valeriana

Is there any difference between Valerianella and Valeriana? I ask because on the French and Spanish wikipedias, there are pages for both Valerianella Locusta (Corn salad on the English wikipedia) and Valeriana Locusta, and I suspect they're talking about the same plant, although they have different pictures (in French, the page titles are different vernacular names for the same plant, but it's always possible that there really are two different species and the linguistic borders don't match the biological ones). I have found some web pages indicating this, but nothing clearly explaining that there are two names. Even if the two Locustas are the same plant, maybe there are still two genuses. What with bots automatically creating stubs and language links for these things, we really need to be clear on which genus name to use across wikipedias, make it clear that the other is an alternate name for the same thing, which redirects to it, and change them all at once. I'm not certain enough about the subject to do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Angelastic (talk • contribs) 12:45, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

Botanists generally consider Valerianella and Valeriana different now. They didn't always though. Valeriana locusta is an older name for Valerianella locusta.70.242.129.252 (talk) 00:20, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

USDA Plants & bogus common names

USDA Plants is promulgating some apparently bogus common names. "Lewiston cornsalad" for V. locusta, and "Benjamin Franklin Bush" for V. ozarkana. V. locusta is the "common cornsalad"; I can't figure out why it would need Lewiston associated with it. Benjamin Franklin Bush appears at first glance to be a shrub/bush named for Benjamin Franklin. V. ozarkana is not a shrub. However, B.F. Bush was a botanist who worked in the area where V. ozarkana is found; the synonymous V. bushii was named for him. I'm removing these common names; please do not add them back even though they appear in what is a generally reliable source (USDA Plants). I'm also removing "Yemenite mache"; this purported common name is not found in the sole reference for Valerianella affinis, and is etymologically implausible. "Yemenite" is an older word that fell out in favor to "Yemeni" far before "mache" became a popular English term for "corn salad".Plantdrew (talk) 00:46, 27 November 2012 (UTC)