Talk:proteranthous

Discussion moved from User_talk:Equinox
Read this Asa Gray: Elements of Botany 1836,, thanks--178.83.72.114 16:39, 14 May 2020 (UTC)


 * You are right! It says: Proteranthous; when leaves appear before the flowers. It does seem that a number of other reference works have stated the opposite though. Equinox ◑ 17:56, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Gray simply made a mistake. Look at a later book of his, and you'll see he corrected it: . Indeed, good cites that make the definition clear are hard to come by, but here are a couple of unambiguous ones that we would do well to add to the entry:
 * "The pre-vernal period begins with the first blooming after the period of rest, and lasts until the foliation of the proteranthous trees, [i.e., those putting out flowers before leaves], altogether hardly more than two weeks." (source)
 * "The heteranthous inflorescence is a development from the proteranthous condition in which the growth of the pseudobulb and leaves is deferred until after the flowering" (source)
 * —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 19:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Okay, I am no botanist. If you can edit the entry to prevent this "correction" happening again then I will kiss you. (If you can't, I will kiss you three times.) Equinox ◑ 20:00, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Under that pernicious threat of kisses, I'll do my best. (I'm no botanist, either — I did dabble with plants before realising that they were not my thing.) —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 20:21, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * More likely plants realised you were not their thing, and you're licking your wounds as the jiltee. Well maybe Chuck Entz knows something about it. Equinox ◑ 20:24, 17 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Its so, you have three possibilities; before - proteranthous (leaves before flowers), with - synanthous (leaves same time with flowers) or after - hyperanthous (leaves after flowers), Asa Gray defined this 1836 just rigth, he made not a mistake he create it!!. Its logic not? Now here you have also leaves after flowers (flowers before leaves), so when here  (flowers before leaves) then you have the same and this is not possible!! because proter is not hyster in greek!?! hysteranthous is contra to proteranthous. Thank you for understanding, at some point there seems to be a confusion about these therms, but Asa Gray and Lindley 1839 defined this so. But its easy, when hyperanthous is clear, so proteranthous must be the contra, also „Having the flowers emerge after the leaves“!! --Kingbossix (talk) 22:16, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, there's definitely a confusion. I reverted your edit, because you removed actual quotations just because you didn't like them. But I have to admit that searching this term alongside "hysteranthous" in Google Books shows uses of the other sense, which is making me think that both senses are attested (a very sorry state indeed). I'll try working that into the entry now. —Μετάknowledge discuss/deeds 23:39, 17 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not a botanist either, though I started out as a botany major before switching to linguistics- back in the early 80s (it's been a hobby ever since, so I've done my best to keep up). I don't remember ever encountering this term, so I'm not much help in that respect. I will point out, however, that as a descriptive dictionary we have to document language as it's actually used, not as its etymology would suggest it should be used (who says language has to make sense?). Not only that, rules of priority don't apply to terminology: the first people to use a term don't get to set the meaning for all time. Even if they did, Asa Gray himself switched from the leaves-first to the flowers-first definition, so one could argue that we would have to follow his lead.


 * Looking just at the etymology, means "before, in front, earlier", but does that mean flowers earlier, or earlier than flowers? A compound like this doesn't have prepositions or grammatical case, so the only way to tell is by how the term is used.


 * I don't have time to do it myself, but it seems like the best approach would be to go through the usage and see if there are any trends- perhaps one definition replaced the other, or one or the other is restricted regionally (Lindley was English and Gray was American), or to a specific part of the field (I notice a lot of hits for orchids). Here is how one dictionary handled the dilemma (If you're keeping tabs, Webster and Century were American, while the Imperial Dictionary was British, but using Webster as its base). You'll notice, by the way, that it has three definitions- it's also possible to interpret the "anth" part as referring to the anthers. Chuck Entz (talk) 02:52, 18 May 2020 (UTC)