Disputatio:Apium graveolens

Should Apium cover:

• Apium, seu heleoselinum, en:celery?
• Apium, seu petroselinum, en:parsley?
• Apium (species), en:Apium?
• More than one of the above?
• Disambiguation?

--Iustinus 08:44, 1 Martii 2007 (UTC)

I would go for celery. What would have the Romans called apium? --Xaverius 09:52, 1 Martii 2007 (UTC)

The Romans used apium for both Celery and Parsley. The celery they grew probably did not have the giant stems we are now used to, and so was very similar to parsley. The words in Greek and Egyptian also seem to be ambiguous. The more specific petroselinum and heleoselinum can be used to distinguish the two forms of apium, but the latter especially seems to be somewhat rare: it seems to me that for Apicius at least apium defaults to "celery," and biological Latin does use apium that way as well. But the term still has both meanings. --Iustinus 18:35, 1 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Ait Hortus Third (reddo ex Anglica) :

Apium = genus in familia Umbelliferarum: fere viginti species herbarum, foliis pinnatis, umbellis compositis cum vel sine involucris, floribus parvis albis

Apium graveolens dulce = Anglice 'celery'

Apium graveolens rapaceum = Anglice 'celeriac'

Petroselinum = genus in familia Umbelliferarum: tres species herbarum Veteris Mundi, foliis pinnatis, floribus flavis-virentibis vel roseis, umbellis compositis, involucris praesentibus, fructibus ovatis et complanatis

Petroselinum crispum = Anglice 'parsley'

Petroselinum crispum neapolitanum = Anglice 'Italian parsley'

Petroselinum crispum tuberosum = Anglice 'turnip-rooted parsley' ("roots thick, parsniplike, edible")

Abest heleoselinum. IacobusAmor 11:59, 1 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but do we necessarily have to go ont he basis of biological Latin here? Quite frequently it's in disagreement with classical usage, not to mention other problems that I keep bringing up. As for Helioselinum, see here. --Iustinus 18:35, 1 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Why not have paired pages: one for each classical word, and one for each scientific word ?  ¶ In fact, a Latin diagnosis & description for every scientifically known species exists: if all were to be copied into Vicipaedia, we'd have millions of articles ! IacobusAmor 04:26, 2 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Yes, in general I do think the scientific names should get their own representation, some done by redirect, others by disambiguation (if necessary). For an example of what I'm talking about, compare Allium and Allium (genus). Onions, leeks, and shallots were not as far as the Romans were concerned subtypes of garlic, anymore than they are for us. But that's the way the scientific names work. It would be stupid to have allium, just the common word for garlic, describe the entire genus (presumably relegating garlic to allium sativum), but it would be eqully stupid not to have an article on the genus. So I think the way we've done it is the proper solution in such situations. --Iustinus 00:33, 4 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Why not have three parts to the article. One about each type of the plant as we know it today. Ah, but then the interwiki would be hard. Sinister Petrus 06:08, 2 Martii 2007 (UTC)

I'm also concerned that the article could get too long, at least if we treat everything as fully as, say, coriandrum. --Iustinus 06:29, 2 Martii 2007 (UTC)

I should also point out that as far as modern languages and botanists are concerned, celery and parsley aren't the same plant. So far as I can tell, they share no taxon lower than Apiaceae, which (if you look) contains a huge number of culinary herbs already. --Iustinus 19:22, 2 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, looks like when I wrote Apiaceae I intended to put celery s.v. helioselinum, and make apium either abotu the species, or more likely make it a disambuation page. --Iustinus 19:24, 2 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Evidently you are a garlic enthusiast.

I think the way it works in that family looks fine. Theoretically we eventually want articles for families, genera and species. Normalement as my neighbours would say, our articles would have scientific Latin titles (because there are many more genera and species than there are common names). However, whenever we do have a common name (e.g. Allium) we use it as title, in preference to the scientific name (with a redirect at the latter, e.g. Allium sativum). Whenever there is ambiguity between a common name and a scientific name used in a different sense (as there is in that case) we add a disambiguation to the title that uses the scientific name (e.g. Allium (genus)). It's the same in the present case too: we need Apium (genus) and Apium, the latter (with a redirect from Apium graveolens) being the article on celery.

In the majority of cases, when we have an article with lots of information about human uses of a plant or animal, that article is going to have a common Latin name, because the Romans, or writers of medieval Latin, would have had a word for it. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:10, 4 Martii 2007 (UTC)

And, yes, parsley requires a different article. Romans used it relatively little, but they did sometimes distinguish it from celery (as Iustinus points out) and we clearly must do so too. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:13, 4 Martii 2007 (UTC)

OK, so Iacobus votes for everything to go under its scientific name. Petrus votes for everything to go under apium. Iustinus voted in a past time frame for Apium (disambiguation), Heleoselinum, petroselinum, apium (species), [[petroselinum so Andrew votes Apium (=heleoselinum), petroselinum, apium (species). I am inclined to give Andrew a larger vote than the rest of us, given his expertise in this area.

Note also that not all cases will require a separate article on the common name and the scientific use of that same name. For example, I had origanum and satureia deal both with the common name and the species in general. For an even better case, see (appropriately enough) en:petroselinum--since all species of that genus are called "parsley" of some sort, it is safe to deal with both the genus and the common name as one article. en:Apium on the other hand is a separate article from en:celery, apparently because that genus also contains species which are called "marshwort." I don't know much about marshwort, but apparently it does occur in Britain. Andrew, know if the Romans knew about it? Because maybe they considered it too a variety of apium. Of course even then apium the common name and Apium the species are not identical, because of the petroselinum problem. However, as petroselinum would not be covered under apium in Andrew's scheme, this might not be a problem. --Iustinus 18:03, 4 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear (because it's damned difficult talking about these things clearly), I vote for:

1. Apiaceae article about the family, linking to all genera
   1. Apium (genus) article about the botanical genus Apium including list of all species, and linking to the next
      1. Apium article about garden celery, the species Apium graveolens, because it was commonly called apium
         1. redirect from Apium graveolens
         2. redirect from Heleoselinum, a rare word which seems to mean "smallage", i.e. celery grown for the leaf
   2. Petroselinum (genus) article about the botanical genus Petroselinum including list of all species, and linking to the next
      1. Petroselinum crispum article about garden parsley (using scientific species name because we can't be certain of a common Latin name)
         1. disambiguation at Petroselinum, a rare word which may have meant "parsley"

But I don't claim a weightier vote than anyone else! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:20, 4 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Yikes! THat is quite complicated, and I will have to think about it. It does look like en: considers Celery equivalent to A. graveolens subspp., so that's OK. But it seems to me that it is safe to merge all the petroselina at Petroselinum. First of all, we are unlikely to ever write separate articles on curly-leaf and flat-leaf parsley (which even en: has not done!) Second of all, while I have no grounds to argue if you consider the equation of classical petroselinum with what we now call Petroselinum open to doubt, still, it seems to me that unless there's a better theory about what petroselinum really meant, we should just write the article on parsley at petroselinum, with a note about why the identification might not be correct.

However, it seems that in any case, I can just start with an article on celery at apium and worry about the rest later (but if I start writing the article before tomorrowish, someone shoot me. I've got a paper due!)

--Iustinus 19:35, 4 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Well, I set out the idea in its fullest form. But I agree with you and with English Wikipedia that there may be no need for articles about the separate species of parsley (and the same might well hold for many other herbs). In that case a single article Petroselinum replaces the last three in my list. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:13, 4 Martii 2007 (UTC)

OK, sounds like a workable plan. BTW, are you aware of any ancient name for marshwort (or other Apium species?) --Iustinus 20:19, 4 Martii 2007 (UTC)

This .pdf suggests that σίον is "marshwort or water parsnip" --Iustinus 07:08, 7 Martii 2007 (UTC)

Rethinking

Since the above discussion, Iacobus has been hard at work on biological pages (and so have some others less linguistically dexterous). They prefer to locate articles at the scientific name. Iustinus, Fabullus and I have tended to prefer classical names. (I hope I am summarising correctly here.) In spite of my love of classical Latin, I have come round to thinking it is best for us to follow the scientific Latin route for page names, which has the great advantage that the name we choose always has (somewhere) a full unambiguous scientific definition (in Latin, too!) Therefore, I would now suggest moving this page to "Apium graveolens". How would others feel about that? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:10, 13 Aprilis 2011 (UTC)

Nearly six years later (enough time for objections perhaps) I made the move. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:02, 8 Ianuarii 2017 (UTC)