Talk:Penstemon angelicus

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. Track your hook after promotion. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Zzz plant (talk) 01:10, 8 September 2026 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that Penstemon angelicus was first described following a 1921 California Academy of Sciences expedition to Mexico?

• Source: Johnson, Ivan Murray (31 May 1924). "Expedition of the California Academy of Sciences to the Gulf of California in 1921: The Botany". Proceedings of the California Academy of Sciences. 4. 12 (30) – via Biodiversity Heritage Library.

• • ALT1: ... that dried flowers initially prevented Penstemon angelicus from being described as its own species? Source: Moran 1980
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Mount Bonaparte

Created by Pbritti (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 101 past nominations.

Pbritti (talk) 14:17, 13 August 2026 (UTC).

• I'll review this. ミラP@Miraclepine 19:46, 21 August 2026 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing: - A few issues. "Both Johnson and Moran considered the subracemose inflorescences distinctive from the conventional form of P. clevelandii"; where does it say Johnson did so in addition to Moran? The article says "The only flowers collected with the [1921] type specimen were collected from the ground and were dried", but the Johnson ref says this was referring to a 1896 collection by Brandegee; article should be fixed to address this. The peduncles' units for length are incorrectly stated as cm in the ref, while some of them are mm. Also a cn tag.
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited: - I want to promote ALT1 (rejecting ALT0 for DYKINT reasons explained later), but the sourcing for this is a bit weak in the article: The paragraph in Moran p. 497 (luckily copied to this page verbatim) indicates it was because of "several distinctive characters" but doesn't say they are flowers; if anything the next paragraph or two (Moran p. 499) says that leaves (in addition to a flower part) also played a part in making this its own species. Maybe replace "initially" with "partly", and also fix the article to support this?
• Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Moved to mainspace day before nom, size 6555 B. I don't think ALT0 meets DYKINT considering California and Mexico are well-known to be next each other, and ALT1 is barely hard to verify for reasons explained above. @Pbritti: fixed a few typos; please address the issues before I can approve this. ミラP@Miraclepine 03:40, 22 August 2026 (UTC)

@Miraclepine: Thanks for the review! Sorry it took me a few days to respond to this, but I'm finally back home for the week. For the issues your raised above, see below:

• where does it say Johnson did so in addition to Moran See the first line of Johnston's summary, which reads "Differing from species in narrow sub-racemose inflorescence..."
• The article says "The only flowers collected with the [1921] type specimen were collected from the ground and were dried", but the Johnson ref says this was referring to a 1896 collection by Brandegee This is incorrect. Please note that Johnston was describing his own type collection in 1921: "When collected the plant was in an advanced state of fruiting, but flowers were found on the ground." These fallen flowers are actually visible in the image of the type collection included in the infobox (see the top right corner, where they are set against white paper). Moran repeated that the type collection featured the dried flowers: "Until recently, P. angelicus has been known only from the very incomplete type collection, with no flowers except a few dried ones found on the ground." [Emphasis my own] The Brandegee collection is only mentioned by Johnston much later in his description to establish that that was an uncertain degree of variability in "bearding of the sterile filament" that fell under the species P. clevelandii.
• Peduncle length corrected (that's what I get for trying to write this on my phone).
• The cn tag is unnecessary as it was BLUESKY glossing of what capsule means in this context.
• ALT0 is correctly cited (as discussed above) and is my preferred hook.
• "Initially" is used because the most diagnostic feature towards P. angelicus being its own species is its flowers: its leaf morphology has been known since 1921, but it wasn't until a good collection of its flowers several decades later that it was able to be described as not subordinate to P. clevelandii.

I hope these replies resolve everything. Thank you again for the review! Please ping me if there is anything still outstanding. Best, ~ Pbritti (talk) 16:07, 24 August 2026 (UTC)

@Pbritti: I'm a bit late in responding given some RL work, but...

• The Johnston source with "Differing from species in narrow sub-racemose inflorescence" has been addressed here, but must still be added in the "Both Johnston and Moran" paragraph.
• Regarding the type specimen part, I thought for a second there was a mistake given the way the source said "type specimen" and I was looking at only one source at a time, so that's addressed. Same for the penduncle part.
• I'm not sure the cn-tagged claim meets BLUESKY the way it's written given the information is in a separate sentence (it only works when the claim is tangential part of a larger sourced claim) and (to a lesser extent) specialist; it's also sourced to on the genus page.
• ALT0 being verified doesn't change the fact it is already rejected for failing WP:DYKINT (please see that link). I'm crossing it out accordingly.
• I don't think the "leaf morphology has been known since 1921" part is directly addressed enough in the article (not all plants have leaves) even when looking at refs (the leaf section is cited to 1960); perhaps noting in prose that the 1921 ref detailed the leaves would suffice.

For the record, the basis for which I suggested that leaves were involved in the separate species reclassification is in Moran 1960 (which should be listed as 1980): Because of its dentate leaves and ventricose corolla, P. angelicus seems best kept in subsection Spectabiles of section Peltanthera, where it becomes the only species with scarlet flowers. There is no other species to which it is obviously closest but perhaps none to which it seems closer than to P. clevelandii.

• Everything else is good. ミラP@Miraclepine 22:10, 24 August 2026 (UTC)

@Miraclepine: Don't worry–you replied very quickly! I appreciate that! Your understanding of BLUESKY here doesn't align super well with how botanical descriptions are generally rendered, where implied and abbreviated information (very, very annoyingly) abounds. If there is variability within a genus's fruiting structures, there is usually phrasing like "fruit: capsule". That said, you did link to an actually functional version of the FNA page (I've been waiting for it to start working again for like a week!) and found some additional material at FNA's entry on Penstemon sect. Spectabiles which I'll add separately from this review (thank you!). As to DYKINT on ALT0, I just disagree, but interesting-ness is ultimately in the eye of the reviewer and your input is appreciated. To head off any particular issues, let's try ALT2

• ... that Ivan Murray Johnston's prediction that Penstemon angelicus would be described as its own species came true over five decades later?

Let me know if there's anything else I can do. Best, ~ Pbritti (talk) 22:39, 24 August 2026 (UTC)

@Pbritti: Cool with ALT2. To be clear, the BLUESKY issue is more about the capsules being the fruit type for the entirety of a certain genus (not all flowers have capsule fruits) rather than the meaning of capsule itself. I just need the FNA refs added before I can approve. ミラP@Miraclepine 22:46, 24 August 2026 (UTC)

Just got pinged that the sources were added. Looks like the issue's taken care of. ミラP@Miraclepine 14:46, 25 August 2026 (UTC)