The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep and moved to Semecarpus magnificus. This seems to have been resolved satisfactorily. Malcolmxl5 ( talk) 07:35, 23 June 2022 (UTC) reply

Semecarpus magnificum

Semecarpus magnificum (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log | edits since nomination)

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Species doesn't exist. YorkshireExpat ( talk) 07:06, 16 June 2022 (UTC) reply

• Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Biology, Indonesia, and Oceania. - MPGuy2824 ( talk) 07:42, 16 June 2022 (UTC) reply
• Comment The species Semecarpus magnificus seems to exist (See [1] and [2]). It is also native to the island of New Guinea. My guess is that the creator did a typo. YorkshireExpat has asked the creator about this on their talk page. Hopefully they respond. - MPGuy2824 ( talk) 07:57, 16 June 2022 (UTC) reply
• Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organisms-related deletion discussions. Shellwood ( talk) 08:03, 16 June 2022 (UTC) reply
• Comment: if the creator doesn't get back, it would be better to start again. MPGuy2824 is almost certainly correct, but the existing article has a single source that's very hard to trace. There is no author, and a google search for the specific name of the book doesn't come up with a book of that title, which means our readers cannot verify the article's contents. The description is also a poor fit to the herbarium samples in MPGuy's references, though this might just mean that whoever collected the herbarium samples didn't fancy lugging 5-foot long leaves around (or finding a press big enough to dry them out), and chose unreasonably small, young leaves. Either way, if the creator doesn't come back, there's a lot to be said for deleting the existing article and starting a new one at the correct name, using MPGuy's references as sources. Elemimele ( talk) 09:45, 16 June 2022 (UTC) reply
• Comment: I suspect a typo is the case. A cursory look through a lot of databases (IPNI, GBIF, JSTOR, Tropicus, Kew Gardens records) confirm only two names: magnificus and magnifica which are equivalent (K. Schum as botanical author). NeverRainsButPours ( talk) 12:50, 16 June 2022 (UTC) reply
• Comment It's certainly possible to create a stub at "Semecarpus magnificus", but a Google Scholar search only finds sources which include the species in checklists, but with no description, and I agree that the existing description is too poorly sourced at present to retain. Peter coxhead ( talk) 20:45, 16 June 2022 (UTC) reply

Ah, found the original description by Karl Schumann in Die Flora von Kaiser Wilhelms Land online, so a description can be written based on this. The dimensions he gives are a bit less, 6 m high tree with 1.2 m long leaves.

Interestingly, Schumann uses the feminine magnifica (common with trees e.g. Taxus baccata, Fagus sylvatica), whereas PoWO has now 'corrected' all the adjectival epithets to the masculine. IPNI also has magnificus, with a note about the original. Peter coxhead ( talk) 22:01, 16 June 2022 (UTC) reply

@ Peter coxhead this is why I couldn't just move the article giving the benefit of the doubt on a spelling error. The information was unverifiable as it stood. YorkshireExpat ( talk) 11:47, 17 June 2022 (UTC) reply

@ YorkshireExpat: I suggest moving it to Semecarpus magnificus with references to IPNI and PoWO, and deleting the existing description as unreferenced. The original description is here, on page 65. It's in Latin and German; I can understand much of the latter, but unfortunately it won't copy as text to paste into Google Translate for the rest, and I haven't had time to retype it yet. Peter coxhead ( talk) 18:18, 17 June 2022 (UTC) reply

Thanks. Done. To whom it may concern, please feel free to close this AfD. YorkshireExpat ( talk) 21:32, 17 June 2022 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.