Talk:Wollemia nobilis

Distribution

• Australia

Name

Also as "wollemi™ pine", trademark © the National Geographic Society. A confusingly inaccurate name, best avoided as it is not a pine (c.f. Kelsey & Dayton 1942 "the principle adopted by the Joint Committee that a common name properly belonging to one genus should not be used for a plant of another genus").

"Wollemi pine" is the common name for this species according to two of the references already linked in this article:

http://www.conifers.org/ar/wo/index.html

http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/34926

"Wollemi pine" is the name used by the Australian government and Australian botanical gardens in their official publications:

http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=64545

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/nature/criticalHabitatDraftWollemiaNobilis.pdf

http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/science/wollemi_pine

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/nature/recoveryplanDraftWollemiaNobilisPart1.pdf

http://www.environment.nsw.gov.au/resources/nature/recoveryplanDraftWollemiaNobilisPart2.pdf

"Wollemi pine" is the name used almost universally for this species since at least 1996--just take a look at some of these article & book titles:

http://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/science/wollemi_pine/further_reading

Just because a name is widely used, does not make it accurate, or a wise idea. It is verifiable as you have stated elsewhere, but it is not factual as you have also claimed. It is not Pinus nobilis, nor even in Pinaceae, but Wollemia nobilis, in the unrelated family Araucariaceae. To call it a pine is to promote error and confusion, and we should not be in the business of promoting error or confusion. Wollemia is (like the scientific names of many monotypic genera, such as Ginkgo, etc.) widely used as a common name as well as a scientific name; it is unambiguous, accurate, and completely avoids confusion over the identity and relationships of the plant. As such it is greatly preferable as a name. - MPF 08:06, 28 April 2009 (UTC)

I did not say it was accurate or a wise idea. However, it is a FACT that "wollemi pine" is the common name of this species in all English-speaking countries, and variants of that name in various langauges in various other countries, as abundantly documented in the linked references and in the various language Wikipedias. To try to airbrush out that fact is to try to deny reality.

Regarding the trademarked name, that is in the USA only. A similar application in Canada was rejected. In Australia, common names cannot be trademarked:

http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/pdfs/factsheets/TM_Plant_Fact_Sheet.pdf

The common name "Wollemi pine" predates the American trademark by several years and it is unlikely this trademarking of a common name will stand, given the precedent of a similar case:

http://content.herbalgram.org/abc/HerbalGram/articleview.asp?a=2891

If you accept that it is not accurate and not a wise idea, why do you insist on promoting it as the only correct name? - MPF 17:33, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

The issue is not whether it is a true pine, the issue is whether "Wollemi pine" is the vernacular name. "Wollemia" is the botanical name. "Wollemi pine" is the vernacular name accepted by the Australian government in its official publications. "Wollemi pine" is the accepted vernacular name in all horticultural and botanical publications on the species. "Pin de Wollemi" is what they call it in France and "Pino Wollemi" is what they call it in Spain. Do you dispute any of this, or do you insist on missing the point that a vernacular name is quite frequently not the same as the botanical names for the same plant? Do you really intend to tell the Australians, the French, the Spanish, etc. what they should be calling this plant because the name they already use for it doesn't satisfy you? 68.48.220.53 02:27, 30 April 2009 (UTC)