Talk:Yucca/GA1

GA Review

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Nominator: MtBotany (talk · contribs) 23:19, 11 May 2025 (UTC)

Reviewer: Reconrabbit (talk · contribs) 20:42, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Hello, I'll be looking over this article. I recognize the name of a plant editor but am surprised to see this is your first good article nomination (if that is true, according to Christie Bot). Will give it my all, though I'm starting with the simple stuff first. -- Reconrabbit 20:42, 15 May 2025 (UTC)

Crossed out my notes where your changes look good or my suggestions need no alterations. Have been ill as of late but will do my best to finish my part of the review in time -- Reconrabbit 04:48, 31 May 2025 (UTC)

Prose

• Good call on moving the list of species to its own article. There are cases where you would want to keep it in, but WP:NLIST points to a minimum of 8 items in a list and the list of Yucca species definitely meets that criteria.

Introduction

• The very first sentence is somewhat awkward. A reason to specify "in English" has not been established yet. It may be better to note "collectively referred to as yucca" or some variant and describe its characteristics. I am taking reference from how Fritillaria is structured.
  • A good suggestion, I've reworded rather than following Fritillaria exactly. Let me know what you think. -MtB.
    • Looks good to me --RR
• Human uses of the yuccas include cultivation as garden plant, chemical extracts, and parts of the plant that are eaten as food These three uses don't read well in sequence. Should garden plant be plural? Also, aren't all three of these uses tied to its cultivation? Also noting that "chemical extracts" is a vague term. (My suggestion: "Humans have cultivated yuccas as garden plants, for food, and for their extracts.")
  • Thanks, I went with extracts because on reflection I think chemical is too specific in this case. -MtB.
• The flower petals of various species, particularly in Central America and Mexico, are eaten as a part of local cuisine. Could move Central America and Mexico to the end of this sentence, otherwise the subject is only "the flower petals of various species, particularly in Central America and Mexico" and they could be eaten as local cuisine anywhere in the world. (pedantic, I know)
• More information could be provided on alternate names and general characteristics of the genus, historic uses, and symbolism

I'm working on the introduction. To better support the historic uses I added additional information from one new source and from Dunmire & Tierney to Traditional uses. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 23:55, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Description

• Gloss or link "rosette"
• The leaves are numerous and arranged in spiral Should it be "in spirals"?
• Plants can be a small shrub or be large with a form like a tree Is form a specific term? This is vaguer than the introduction
• About half of all species have fibers that peal off the edges of the leaves Peel?
• Mention leaf color? Appears in Irish & Irish, 2000
  • Rewritten, let me know how the current version reads. -MtB

Taxonomy

• Consider using {{lang}} for words like juca to indicate the language used, like was done for izcotl
  • From what I can tell the spelling juca is archaic in contemporary Spanish with yuca now used for cassava as it is in English so I would be hesitant to tag it as Spanish. Source: Entry at Spanish Dictionary.com It might be appropriate to label it as Old Spanish, but that also might be going beyond what the OED is telling us. "In sense 1, found in the forms juca (Amerigo Vespucci, 1497), yuca (Clusius, 1567); of Carib origin." -MtB
    • If it's clearly of a specific language or dialect I like to indicate that but it doesn't seem clear here, no preference -RR

Range and habitat

• What is VASCAN?
  • Good point, changed to full name. -MtB
• In Australia one species, Aloe yucca (Yucca aloifolia), has become definitely become naturalized in Western Australia how should this be worded
  • Reworded -MtB
• "Also" is used over and over here
  • Copy edited out almost all of of them from this section and many others in the rest of the article. -MtB

Continuing down the list working on concerns and fixing other errors of gaps I notice as I go. Added in IPA pronunciation today sourced to Oxford English Dictionary. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 20:58, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

Ecology

• This section has a lot of one-sentence paragraphs that could be combined with each other to be more cohesive.
• The association between the yuccas and the yucca moths is quite ancient, with a molecular clock estimate that it began between 51.3 and 31.7 million years ago with them becoming pollinators 35.6 million years ago ±9 million years Kind of a run-on sentence.
• What is seed set?

  Ah. This appears to be one of my assumed "everyone knows this" gardening terms. It is not even defined in the Glossary of botanical terms. Though I did find it in the Encyclopedia of Applied Plant Sciences. Since this is jargon I have reworded to "without sufficient pollination produce minimal number of seeds". -MtB

• Beetle herbivores include yucca weevils, in the Curculionidae Could combine this sentence with another paragraph.

  Combined paragraphs and some copy edit for clarity. -MtB

Uses

• Ornamental uses needs a citation. May be supported by those used in subsequent paragraphs (Irish & Irish 2000?). I recommend combining it to avoid a one-sentence paragraph here.
• Additionally, the flowers are edible both cooked and raw, and the young flowering stems of some species are edible when cooked, however others may be toxic. Are the flowers edible in all species, but the stems are sometimes toxic? Somewhat confusing.

Symbolism

• All clear

Etc.

• List of Yucca species doesn't necessarily need to be in a See also section since it is already referenced in a hatnote earlier on.

References

• Layout: Very cleanly organized, maybe more organized than I'm used to seeing in a flora article. All looks good with regards to reflist and refbegin/refend usage.

  Thanks -MtB

Spot checking

14 to check (~15%). Generated via random numbers (swapped if inaccessible). Based on this revision:

• [5] Y I don't see anything about fibers that peel off

  Bottom of page 32 "Approximately half of all Yucca species have marginal filaments."

• [17] Y
• [19] Y
• [20]
• [23]
• [28]
• [32]
• [49]
• [55]
• [69]
• [72]
• [74]
• [85] Y; other uses of the plant are mentioned here such as their "universal use" in sandal making on p.146
• [89]

Copyright violations unlikely according to a search, but will be looking for close paraphrasing in referred texts

• Link to version where random selection of citations was made

Scope

• Broad: Article makes reference to all species and describes specific examples when warranted, covering ecology, general description, taxonomy, range, and uses by humans - all expected for an article on a genus of relatively restricted distribution
• Narrow: Detail is provided in quantity across many places where it is useful (description and comparison, taxonomy), and uses in pre- and post-Hispanic periods are detailed

Stability

• Neutrality: No evident bias towards any particular group and its promotion of a particular use, depiction, etc. of the yuccas, aside from the obvious (warranted) ones in regards to government symbols. Nominator has a clear bias towards plants, but I can't say I've done much better...
• Edit warring: Largely edited by one contributor with some editors providing minor corrections - no controversial edits or instability

Images

• Free/Fair use:
  • File:FLOR DE IZOTE DOS.jpg tagged as own work... which I doubt based on the contributor's other uploads that look to be of wildly differing quality.File:140401 flor de izote luis figueroa luisfi61.JPG is another example of yucca as food but is not as nice of a picture.

    Thanks for finding the alternate image, but I think it better to remove it without replacing for now. Perhaps I will gather some petals from Y. glauca, cook and photograph them. Once the season starts. Still working on other items. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 21:57, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

  • All other images are imported from iNaturalist, are "own work" (believable) or have usable free licenses.
• Relevance: Images are used in places relevant to the text, though on my display the Yucca elata image gets pushed down past the infobox - not a huge issue, it could be displayed on the left as well but that might be considered a different problem (WP:SANDWICH).

  I have tried to make it closer by collapsing the list of genus synonyms, but it only partly helps. What if the pod were in a gallery alongside some other representative pictures under the description? -MtB

• The editor could consider showing the full diversity of Yucca, either with the infobox as in Dracophyllum or in a gallery placed under the description, or both. Cheers, Dracophyllum 02:55, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

  I agree, a gallery of various species growth habits under the description would be a good addition. Two or three of the tree types, the same of the shrubby ones. Maybe find a good picture of an edible fruit for down by uses. I'm not totally against a simple list of all the species, but with 50 of them it gets close to being a wall of text. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 20:21, 28 May 2025 (UTC)

Good Article review progress box

Criteria: 1a. prose () 1b. MoS () 2a. ref layout () 2b. cites WP:RS () 2c. no WP:OR () 2d. no WP:CV () 3a. broadness () 3b. focus () 4. neutral () 5. stable () 6a. free or tagged images () 6b. pics relevant () Note: this represents where the article stands relative to the Good Article criteria. Criteria marked are unassessed