Talk:Cactus

From Academic Kids

Mentioned are "varieties" of cacti. In fact they are both species and genuses. Opuntia being a genus. When you explain what cacti are, you can give examples of cacti and use vernacular names. When you look at the info from a "technical" point of view, words like variety should be used with care as they have a meaning within the nomenclature. Acanthocalycium klimpelianum var. macranthum is alphabetically the first variety that I am aware of :).

As to methods of preventing evaporation, there are many methods to prevent evaporation employed by cacti. That might be a special subject within the wikipedia? Among them a thick skin few "huidmondjes" stomatals??, retaining water in bulbous stems, reflecting sunlight, being able to absorb dew etc. This should then lead to a new term xerophytes plants that are adapted to drought. These includes succulents and bulbous plants and and..

This should be moved over to Cactaceae for consistency with all other angiosperm families, unless there is a reason to have both Cactus and Cactaceae? Merging Cactaceae into here was probably a mistake; should have gone the other way. I do not buy the arguement that the common name should prevail—that causes difficulty in most other families of plants. Even within this group, many people regularly confuse the terms "cactus" and "succulent", thinking anything succulent with spines is a type of cactus; there are numerous examples of these kinds of false cacti in the Euphorbiaceae - Marshman 20:28, 9 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I don't buy the argument that consistency should prevail. In that case, we shouldn't restrict our attention to consistency within divisions and phyla, and so should never use common names. Whether or not the scientific name is more appropriate should be decided on a case by case basis - but I don't know whether it should in this case or not. Josh

I think consistency is more significant than the rule that common names should prevail (IMHO); but case by case is essentially what we have. It is a fact that while broadly used common names usually coincide with a taxonomic group, there exist (because they are common names) lots of exceptions. In this case, I think Cactaceae is more appropriate because of those exceptions. On the other hand, cacti are one of those plant groups with lots of non-botanist collectors and afficianados. They may want a "cactus" article. Should there be two Cactus and Cactaceae? How purist are the "cactus" people? The orchids are under Orchidaceae (got my vote) although I'm not aware of too many non-Orchidaceae orchids (there are a number of non-Orchidacea flowers howeever, like the orchid tree (Fabaceae). Cactus people tend to be more cactus&succulant people, rather than just Cactaceae people.

In the end, it does not matter all that much, since between redirercts and searches, no one is really put out that much by names that are not just what THEY or I expected or want. I would propose a Cactus and succulents and a Cactaceae to cover different aspects of the subject - Marshman 03:10, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

There is already an overarching article in Xerophyte that covers what you propose.

You assume that latin names are stable and, in the case of the cactus family you may be right however, when you add a Cactaceae you need a Cactus with a redirect as that is what the users type in for a key word. So what is the point, being "correct"? There is no confusion that is solved. GerardM 06:47, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

My point is partly just for consistency with other angiosperm families. Typing cactus certainly could redirect to Cactaceae or it could go to a disambig. page that gives the reader a choice based on what he perceives "cactus" to mean. With Orchidaceae, "orchid" right now goes just there, with Poaceae, "grass" goes instead to a disambig. page because there are many alternative meanings for "grass" and Poaceae is just one. You need the redirects in any case, so that is not an issue. - Marshman 17:28, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps it's just that people in Las Vegas are connoisseurs :-), but I don't recall anyone calling a non-Cactaceae a "cactus". The general term of choice is "nasty spiky thing" which nicely covers agaves and yuccas and the rest of our things you don't want to bump into. :-) In general, there seem to be a number of families that line up well with common names, and for those the common name makes sense, and others that really need the Latin, such as Agavaceae. Stan 17:20, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

I disagree there are "a number of families that line up well with common names". Some said that was true for "grass", although clearly that is NOT the case. Orchids and cacti are perhaps the better examples of your contention. But I suspect that even in Las Vegas many people would call certain euphorbs "cacti". But having a hodge-podge of imprecise names to preserve some myth about "common names are better" seems a well-established approach around this place. As I note above, in the end it does not really matter (just makes editing a bit more difficult and the product a bit less scholarly) since redirects take care of links either way. And there would be no avoiding, with either approach, having to write a paragraph or two explaining why some things people call "cactus" are in fact not cacti at all. I was just aiming for consistency of treatment of the plant families. - Marshman 19:59, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Ferocactus ident

Can anyone put a species name to my Ferocactus photo? Image:Ferocactus1.jpg Plant about 1.5 m tall, 40 cm diameter stems; location details: Cuautemos, southeast of Saltillo, 25°18'N 100°55'W, 2120 m altitude - MPF 21:45, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Too late, had to take Anderson back to the library. :-( Might be tough to pick a species without flower or areole closeup. Stan 01:19, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Identified as Ferocactus pilosus, thanks to Daiv at http://www.cactiguide.com/ - MPF 22:17, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Layout

Please do not revert to the old layout; it fails to render properly in my browser, making the taxa list unreadable because it is covered over by the images. I've made another attempt to re-place the images. I'm not wedded to any particular image placement, but the old layout simply was not usable for me (and, I expect, other users with Galeon or other Mozilla-based browsers). —Tkinias 17:11, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

You've still got some whitespace there because of the pics pushing text down lower (tho' nothing like as bad as before). How would it be if the offending images were spread out down the right hand side of the genus list, like the 'A night blooming cactus' pic? - MPF 18:04, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I took out the <br style="clear: right" /> preceding #Genera as it doesn't seem necessary now; there's no whitespace now in my browser's rendering. Look OK to you? —Tkinias 20:06, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Yep, OK thanks, just a tiny bit of white left at the top of the genus list on mine, not enough to worry about - MPF 22:43, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

genus

am i correct in assuming that all trichocereus species should be renamed to echinopsis? eg, San Pedro (cactus) is still considered trichocereus on wikipedia, but i was under the impression that the name of the genus had changed. --Heah 22:24, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)