Talk:Coriaria arborea

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Coriaria arborea/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Alexeyevitch (talk · contribs) 04:29, 20 March 2026 (UTC)

Reviewer: Snoteleks (talk · contribs) 16:18, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Hello Alexeyevitch, I will be reviewing this article. Will add comments soon — Snoteleks (talk) 16:18, 3 April 2026 (UTC)

Here are my thoughts. Please feel free to indicate with comments, ticks, strikethrough, etc. that an issue has been resolved.

Quick checks

• Images are relevant and with the acceptable copyright licenses.
• Copyright:

• Earwig test clean.
• Spot-check test clean for the sources I have access to.

• All references look OK and are appropriately cited.
• No signs of edit instability, nominator is primary editor.

Prose

• Lead is properly written but does not include the content seen in all sections.
• Most scientific terms are wonderfully explained between brackets in a reader-friendly manner.
• Content extends to other areas such as colonization and linguistics in a seamless and useful way, with proper wikilinking.

Requested improvements

1. There is quite a bit of information that is left out of the lead, such as the pollination (brief explanation would satisfy more than left as "uncertain"). Do not be afraid of extending the lead into more than two paragraphs.

Added?

1. Erase all the "the"s preceding people. For example, "by Scottish botanist William..." instead of "by the Scottish botanist William...".

I thought it is grammatically correct either way?

1. You state the 2023 year for conservation status in the lead only. Either add it to its corresponding section below, or change the past tense to present tense.

Done

1. Could you add a non-POWO reference to support the claim "William Lauder Lindsay in 1868"? Just so the readers have access to a more direct reference instead of a clean website with only "Linds."

I can't find a digital document of it, regardless POWO and IPNI are very reliable taxonomic databases for plants.

1. When mentioning specific studies/authors, there is excessive use of the improper "Author (Year)" format: good for academic papers, bad for wiki readers. Please avoid this by directly in the text either by omitting it (e.g., "by a phylogenetic analysis published in 2000") or by referring to the author as a person (e.g., "by biologist Jun Yokoyama and coauthors..."). This also goes for "Good (1930)", "Burrows (1995)", "Thomphson & Gornal (1995)", "Lloyd & Webb (1986)", and so on.

I agree with this. I substituted the Yokoyama et al. instance, but I didn't do the other ones because I might not know what their pronouns are or if they are notable enough to have their own WP article. Also, to my mind, "and others or coauthors" seems a bit unusual in a sciencey article where the norm is "et al."

1. You may also support the Good (1930) mentions with the primary source, as you did with the other authors.
2. Cite the analysis in the cladogram caption.

Done.

1. The parts of the text that refer to the cladogram mention distinct geographies for species but does not clarify which species in particular. Does this have to do with the "group 1 and 2" division? If so, it is unclear. If not, perhaps you could include geographical information in the cladogram.

I think including geography in it would be too much...

1. For the sake of clarity, please briefly state that groups A and B were renamed as group 1 as well.

Done.

1. It would be great if you could add a bit more information on what separates the two species variants. Otherwise, an entire section would be reliant on a single database citation, which is not ideal. If the only differences are geographic, please state so.

The geographic difference is stated. The only detail I could find from Allan (1961) is the slightly shorter pedicels, etc. I don't have access to Oliver (1942), which is unfortunate, because that would probably have a lot of detail about it. [1]

1. Please include explanations for these other scientific terms, "cognates" and "branchlets" (what exactly is the difference from normal branches?), "nodules", "semideciduous".

1, I don't know how to describe cognates. 2, branchlets are young, new-growth, and usually smaller branches, 3, done. 4, done.

1. In the Etymology section, you mention that the word 'tutu' is also used as a verb. What meaning does it have as a verb? Readers will want to know.

Done

1. I am confused by the parts of the text where toxicity is explained, as they talk about "petals" (presumably the flowers') as the only non-toxic portion, while at the same time the "seeds" must be removed from the petals before consumption. From my basic biologist knowledge, petals are not fruits (yet). The quote at the bottom mentions fruits, not petals. Do the seeds originate from petals instead of fruits in this particular plant?

Corrected

1. It would be a nice detail to include the common Māori names of the other species mentioned along with the English names whenever possible, such as for the wineberry (something like "makomako or wineberry" (Aristotelia serrata)).

I'd stick with the current phrasing

@Alexeyevitch: I am confident that once these comments are addressed your nomination will easily pass. — Snoteleks (talk) 12:57, 4 April 2026 (UTC)

@Snoteleks: Done. :) Alexeyevitch^(talk) 05:09, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

@Alexeyevitch Alright... I see you did not implement all the changes but I suppose they are minor enough. To answer your questions: it is grammatically incorrect (or informal?) according to some editors to put an article before an author, but apparently this is not a universal opinion; same with the "et al." and "Author (Year)" format. You can usually find authors' full names and gender at Wikidata. I added the geographic info since there is no use of mentioning that there are two geographically separate sister clades if the readers cannot see what you mean.

The rest of the changes look good, but I noticed there is some bloating in the first paragraph of the Ecology section. You mention Burrows (1995) directly when explaining two birds that consume its fruit, but then follow with However, these are not the only birds which are known to consume the fruits of C. arborea, the kererū (Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae) and the New Zealand bellbirds (Anthornis melanura) have been recorded feeding on them, and cite this with O'Donnell & Dilks 1994 and Crow 2009. Do you imply that only blackbirds and silvereyes are assumed as the only consumers but that contrary to popular belief kereku and bellbirds also consume? Or is this just a fancy way of listing more birds? If it's the latter, what is the significance around Burrows' contribution that deserves its own mention? If there is no special significance of Burrows over O'Donnell & Dilks or Crow, I suggest you rewrite the text to simply list the birds that have been observed feeding on fruits, without these authors. I understand the last two mentions of birds refer to the first explorers, which noted birds that have not been noted afterwards, so it makes sense to keep those. — Snoteleks (talk) 20:28, 5 April 2026 (UTC)

@Snoteleks: I have noticed the new cladogram you updated.. looks better now. I replaced "Burrows (1995)" with "a 1995 study". I have also removed excessive wording in the ecology section (as you've suggested). Alexeyevitch^(talk) 07:02, 6 April 2026 (UTC)

@Alexeyevitch Looks great, I will pass it now. Congratulations :) — Snoteleks (talk) 16:15, 6 April 2026 (UTC)