The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by SandyGeorgia 17:32, 12 December 2010 [1].

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Lactarius volemus[edit]

Lactarius volemus (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): J Milburn (talk), Sasata (talk) 11:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured article because this is another strong article on a mushroom. It seems comprehensive, is illustrated very nicely and sourced strongly. I created the article and sent it through DYK, Sasata expanded it to a good article and I became involved again recently, when Sasata, Circeus and I readied it to be nominated. We are confident it is ready. J Milburn (talk) 11:49, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Initial comments—looks like a great article with excellent resources and wonderful pictures. The "latex milk" tidbit is quite interesting—probably one of many reasons why I don't like mushrooms. I'll dig into the prose at some point; I do have a busy schedule, so you may have to remind me in a week or two. —Deckiller (t-c-l) 17:58, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• WP:FA Criteria 3 met, and would hope a featured picture nomination would also come from this article Fasach Nua (talk) 19:01, 17 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
• Comment—this sentence is a bit of a snake: The cap's surface features spindle-shaped, tapering cystidia, as does the stem, whose height varies between 4 and 12 cm (1.6 and 4.7 in), and is typically between 1 and 1.5 cm (0.4 and 0.6 in) thick, with a slightly lighter colouration than the cap.
  • Lactarius volemus is closely related to L. corrugis, which may generally be differentiated by having a less orange colouration, more wrinkles, darker gills and weaker or absent scent.—"may generally be differentiated by having" can probably be reworded to something tighter.
  • I notice a few "have been noted" phrases later in the article—is this type of wording necessary because they might not be pure facts, or can it be trimmed?
  • Seems like there might be missing commas here, or perhaps a rewording is in order: The North American distribution extends north from southern Canada east of the Great Plains, south to Mexico and beyond into Guatemala.
• Nice article. —Deckiller (t-c-l) 13:13, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your comments (and copyedits). I have tweaked the article to address all of your suggestions above. Let me know if you think further fixes are needed. Sasata (talk) 15:52, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Support — I think it's ready to go. Deckiller (t-c-l) 16:09, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support, one further query Comments Nice article, brilliant picture; just a few queries Jimfbleak - talk to me? 16:10, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• was first called the name it is known by today — called by ?
• alternative names seemed to be referenced only to NAm sources, what about "fishy milkcap" here and here?
• The fungus can be found in Europe — I get no sense of where in Europe, even whether they occur here in the UK
• Ref 39 — is there an author?

Hi Jim, thanks for pointing out that U of Ghent webpage, was wondering how I had missed it before, but it looks like they put it up rather recently. I've fixed the three easy points above, and will expand the European distribution later tonight. Sasata (talk) 16:45, 18 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I've added a link to a nice distribution map care of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility that shows at a glance what the European distribution looks like. It's possible to zoom in on Europe to get a closer view, but unfortunately I can't seem to link to that page directly as the resulting url has characters that break the citation template. Have also mentioned its local extinction in The Netherlands and Flanders courtesy of the Ghent Uni link you provided. Hope this is sufficient. Sasata (talk) 03:28, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• You can fix URLs using ASCII and percent-encoding... not entirely sure how but I know [ and ] can be replaced with %91 and %93 respectively. If you want to add the link and it's more complicated than that, maybe drop CS Miller a line as they told me about this. SmartSE (talk) 18:52, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• The percent encoding did the trick, thanks! Sasata (talk) 19:05, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm happy to support on the basis of the changes made, but having seen the linked map, I wonder if warm temperate is appropriate. Whilst I appreciate that the map is incomplete, all the locations mapped are in Scandinavia, the British Isles, and the mountains of the Alps and Pyrenees — none of which spring to mind as the warmer parts of Europe. In lowland Netherlands, it's endangered (too hot?). Jimfbleak - talk to me? 06:57, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, my info was incomplete; I checked the source, and it says "widely distributed in the warm temperate or northern districts of the Northern Hemisphere", so I've adjusted the article text to reflect that (and moved it down to the Distribution section as well, where it should have been). Thanks for helping improve the article. Sasata (talk) 07:31, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

DAB/EL Check - no dabs, no external link problems. --PresN 19:37, 19 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Some comments:

• "they can be distinguished by differences in distribution, morphology, or microscopic characteristics"—microscopic characteristics are not part of morphology?

• added qualifier "visible" before morphology. Sasata (talk) 23:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• "Another historical synonym is Lactarius lactifluus (Lucien Quélet, 1886),"—shouldn't that be Lactarius lactifluus (L.) Quélet or something like that?

• Took authority and year out of parenthesis/converted to prose. Sasata (talk) 23:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• "The specific epithet "volemus" may be derived from the Latin vola, meaning "the hollow of the hand", a naming significant for Fries's reference to the large amount of latex "flowing enough to fill the hand"."—rather convoluted sentence

• Tweaked. Sasata (talk) 23:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• How do we get from vola to volemus?

• I dunno ... vola -> volaemus -> volēmus -> volemus I guess, but am not knowledgeable about these matters (2-1-2 declension; wut?) ... please amend the text as you see fit. Sasata (talk) 23:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• So volemus is actually an existing Latin adjective meaning "filling the hollow of the hand"? In that case, why not cite a dictionary establishing that fact? Ucucha 00:09, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Done. Sasata (talk) 07:27, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• "The latter name may derive from its German name bratling, which means "mushroom for roasting"."—are you sure it's only a mushroom for toasting? [2] says Bratlinge may be made from mushrooms or legumes.

• No, I'm not sure, just following the source it came from ... would adding "loosely translated as" cover this, or would that be OR'ing to cover-up an inadequacy in the source translation? Sasata (talk) 23:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Actually, it's yet different. The German name for this species is in fact "Brätling" (with the umlaut); see de:Brätling and Grimm. This source also mentions this etymology (but again, with the German name misspelled) and additionally gives a different etymology for the scientific name. Ucucha 00:09, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Good find with the umlaut. Doing some digging, it was interesting to see how many other sources have made this error, even German-language sources that should presumably know better.[3] Anyway, I found and added a good source for the correctly spelled German name, and also kept the original citation to support the phrase "may originate from its German name ...". Regarding Roody's interpretation of the etymology, that's what J Milburn had put originally, but was changed by Wetman, with an explanation on the talk page. Sasata (talk) 07:27, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• "the caps of L. corrugis may be either red or, more commonly, the colour of iron rust"—isn't rust red?

• Linked to rust (color). Sasata (talk) 23:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Still, isn't that a form of red? Perhaps reword to something like "may be red, commonly rust-colored." Ucucha 23:56, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Sure, done. Sasata (talk) 07:27, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Which Königstein was Singer (1986) published in?

• Gah! There's more than one? It's the one to which a letter mailed to "P.O.Box 1360, D-61453 • Koenigstein / Germany • Handelsregister Königstein HR A 1080" will go :) Sasata (talk) 23:24, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• That Postleitzahl doesn't actually exist [4]. Königstein im Taunus comes close, though, at 61462. Ucucha 23:56, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ucucha 22:27, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I have sent the publisher an email, will update the location when they get back to me. Sasata (talk) 07:27, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Emailed received: Königstein im Taunus. Sasata (talk) 18:45, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• It looks like the first few sentences of "Description" are cited to Wang (2007), who does not mention that fruit bodies are 5–11 cm and in any case is describing the holotypes of L. wangii, not the species as a whole. I assume the real reference got lost in some reshuffle. Incidentally, Montoya et al. (1996) say the diameter of the pileus is 20–95 mm. Ucucha 16:07, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Yes, that was my fault, it was cited before I added more information from Wang; now re-cited to the original source. Sasata (talk) 17:21, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• [5] gives several synonyms that are not yet in the article, and larger dimensions for the spores (your current number seem to be based only on Mexican data). Also says it is rare in North Africa; this article doesn't mention that it occurs there at all. It also mentions another variety, oedematopus, though it admits it is not generally recognized. Ucucha 16:13, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• I'm not convinced about validity of those synonyms; they're not supported by MycoBank or Index Fungorum, and adding further discussion about one author's opinion of synonymy would bloat up the taxonomy section beyond what is useful for a Wikipedia article (imho of course). I've now cited spore size to Bessette et al. 2009, the most recent monograph on Lactarius; they give a larger range, which is usually the way to go, giving the size variation reported by different authors. Also not convinced about the African distribution: Lalli appears to be claiming that its presence there is based on L. rugatus (?), which according to my references is a distinct species. Have mentioned variety oedematopus, with the caveat that it probably just lies within the range of morphological variation of the main variety. I think the anticipated molecular work planned by researchers at Ghent University will help sort this stuff out. Sasata (talk) 17:21, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Thanks. I read the sentence about N African L. volemus as saying that it is present there, but rare because it is replaced by L. rugatus, which is presumably more common there. However, something may have gotten lost somewhere, and since there don't seem to be other African records of this species, it may be best to omit it. Why did you add the category for African fungi, though? Ucucha 19:16, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Oops-I had actually added in the text about it being in Africa, then thought about it some more, dug around the literature a bit and changed my mind; forgot to remove the cat when I removed my additions. Now gone. Sasata (talk) 19:52, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Support (moral or otherwise) Reads well and is thorough for a fungus article. Nothing jumped out as needing fixing. Only one sentence scanned slightly oddly but I can see why you wrote it thus - I suppose Phylogenetic analysis suggests that Lactarius volemus represents not a single taxon, but rather several species or subspecies - scans more nicely as " Phylogenetic analysis suggests that Lactarius volemus represents several species or subspecies, rather than a single taxon" but not so good if you want the actual finding in chronological order so to speak. Not a deal-breaker anyway. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:52, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Your suggested tweak is fine with me, have altered it. Thanks for reviewing & support. Sasata (talk) 16:20, 3 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

• Source comments: Sources look fine. For the record, it looks funny to have Milk Mushrooms of North America hanging out at the bottom by itself, even though I see why you did it. Wouldn't it be better to have all the printed works listed there, even if they only have one citation? Subjective matter, really. --Andy Walsh (talk) 04:50, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  • I guess that would be another way of doing it, although I don't necessarily agree that it's better... just different. Thanks for checking. Sasata (talk) 05:21, 8 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.