Talk:Salsola

2006

Should we create a section for pop culture? Tumbleweed gets lots of mention in pop culture, especially on blogs and chatrooms (like the PopoMundo chatroom). --211.29.2.63 12:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd be inclined to change the Tumbleweed page (currently a redirect to here) into this. That page could then start with a pointer on the lines of "This page is about the plant in popular culture; for botanical information about the plant, see Salsola" - MPF 22:17, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I have no expertise in this area but given tumbleweed's strong symbolic and cultural significance it does seem that this entry is very much incomplete. I would definitely support the creation of such a section, be it on this page or on another. Salsola's suggestion seems reasonable to me.--JSLR 22:35, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

ITIS "accepted" species

The long list of species in the article is a bit daunting. The "integrated taxonomic information service" ITIS presently accepts only the following six Salsola species:

• S. collini Pallas
• S. kali L.
• S. paulsenii Litv.
• S. soda L.
• S. tragus L.
• S. vermiculata L.

Should these be specifically listed in the taxobox? Should we distinguish between the accepted and the not accepted species?EAS 02:14, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

• Despite claims that ITIS contains information for "North America and the world", its coverage outside North America is poor. For taxa that occur outside North America, the absence of an ITIS record should not be interpreted as a repudiation of the taxon. Hesperian 02:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

OK. Seems like the article needs a reference to that long list of species, tho - Easchiff 04:52, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Yep. Hesperian 04:58, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The article looks much better after your reformat. I've left a message for MPF; based on the article history, that's who inserted the species list some time ago. As I noted there, the [GBIF Portal] has a different, and equally lengthy, list of "unreviewed" species.Easchiff 10:28, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, MPF left Wikipedia late last year. He was an excellent editor. But excellent or not, his contribution in this case appears to be unreferenced. If you have a respectable reference that differs from what this article says, you should feel free to update it. Hesperian 11:24, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I see that MPF went cold turkey just before last Christmas. I've added explanatory text to his list of species, which is otherwise preserved.Easchiff 03:39, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Good stuff. Hesperian 03:57, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Invasiveness

I wanted to add a note that, at least in the Mojave, tumbleweed colonizes empty ground, but seems unable to compete effectively against the native plants, and is never observed displacing any natives. However, while I remember reading about this (and it matches my personal observation), now that I'm looking, I can't find a reference that explicitly mentions its inability to compete. Anybody know of a good cite for that? Stan 14:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd always understood that it was brought to the TX/OK Panhandle in the early 20th century, mixed in among hard red wheat seeds carried by the Rusland Deutsch. Who were Germans, invited into Russia by Catherine but who buggered off to America when Alexander reneged on all the tax & conscription breaks she'd given them. 81.105.201.41 (talk) 23:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Got a source for that? Seems hard to find anybody committing the statement to print... :-) Stan (talk) 23:26, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

The 1891 reference I added to the article is a USDA report. The report says that was the year they first heard about invasive Salsola and that local informants say the invasion had been going on about 5 years, starting in the (IIRC) northwest. That does not agree with an early 20th Century introduction into the TX/OK panhandle. That report can be mined for far more information; it is full text on Google Books. --Una Smith (talk) 03:42, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Taxonomy

GBIF, a reference given for the article, and plants.usda.gov put this genus in Chenopodiaceae, not Amaranthaceae. D. H. Goldfish 21:34, 13 October 2007 (UTC)

Lifecycle

 Done Would someone be so kind as to add some information on lifecycle? Why do tumbleweeds tumble? I'm assuming the dry weed spreads seeds as it is blown across land? Thanks. 192.58.204.226 (talk) 14:47, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

See new article: Tumbleweed. --Una Smith (talk) 03:42, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Let's balance North-America centrism

"Salsola ... is a genus of herbs, subshrubs, shrubs, and small trees ... native to Africa, Asia, and Europe". However, the article largely focusses on Salsola in North America. Let's add some balance to this. -- 201.53.7.16 (talk) 14:12, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

We've been waiting for you to add additional material - what's taking you so long?? :-) Stan (talk) 23:31, 1 January 2009 (UTC)

Notice of requested move

Requested move: Tumbleweed (disambiguation) → Tumbleweed; move over redirect, to better disambiguate "tumbleweed". Please discuss at Talk:Tumbleweed (disambiguation)#Requested move. --Una Smith (talk) 02:26, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

File:Salsola tragus tumbleweed.jpg

File:Salsola tragus tumbleweed.jpg, now used in this article, does not look like a Salsola tumbleweed; I think it is one of the mustard tumbleweeds. I will remove it from this article. --Una Smith (talk) 03:25, 6 January 2009 (UTC)

Authorship and attribution

Recently I discovered a file on my laptop containing a single paragraph from this article:

Several annual species form tumbleweeds: after the plant dries it breaks away from its taproot and is driven by the wind as a light, rolling mass, scattering seeds far and wide. The seeds are produced in large numbers and do not have a protective coating or food reserves for the coiled plant embryos. The deep, ineradicable taproot remains in the ground and survives to grow again the following season.

I had entirely forgotten copying the paragraph and saving it in a file on my computer. But upon reading the excerpt I recalled that last year I'd driven past tumbleweeds on a long drive through Eastern Washington and must have looked up the plant on Wikipedia when I returned home. I copied and pasted the paragraph because it is so lovely. It describes the process by which this plant survives and does so with near-poetic simplicity and beauty. Upon rediscovering the paragraph on my computer, I fired up Google and attempted to track down the source so that I could insert a proper authorial credit for my own edification (and to ensure that I didn't at some point in the distant future make the erroneous assumption that I had composed the paragraph myself!). To my surprise, I could find no attribution. The paragraph has been reproduced verbatim on at least five web sites. An author is never cited. Now I am wondering where it came from. SOMEBODY wrote it. Who? If it was the author of this Wikipedia article, that's fine. The author (1) is a wonderful writer, and (2) deserves to be credited. If it was NOT the author of this article, who was it and why is the true author not credited? Can someone enlighten me? Many thanks. 96.10.247.112 (talk) 02:41, 7 March 2009 (UTC)simonlefranc@hotmail.com

I think this passage originated on Wikipedia with the efforts of many authors; see the article history: [1] -- Beland (talk) 19:25, 16 July 2013 (UTC)

Taxonomy

The genus Salsola belongs to the family of Chenopodiaceae, NOT Amaranthaceae. This is a serious mistake you adopt: http://ww2.bgbm.org/EuroPlusMed/PTaxonDetail.asp?NameCache=Salsola&PTRefFk=7300000 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.66.59.241 (talk) 06:49, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Yes, Salsola belongs to Chenopodiaceae, but molecular genetic research supports that this family should be included in "Amaranthaceae sensu lato" (= in a broad sense). Wikipedia follows this broad circumscription of the family, see Amaranthaceae #Systematics. This is also followed by databases like Catalogue of life, Plant of the World online, or Tropicos. --Thiotrix (talk) 08:25, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Species update 2024

For checking, the old list included:

• Salsola acutifolia (Bunge.) Botsch.
• Salsola arbusculiformis Drob.
• Salsola cruciata Chevall. ex Batt. & Traubut
• Salsola cyrenaica (Maire & Weiller) Brullo
• Salsola drummondii Ulbr.
• Salsola foliosa (L.) Schrad.
• Salsola genistoides Poir.
• Salsola grandis Freitag, Vural & N.Adigüzel
• Salsola glomerata (Maire) Brullo
• Salsola gymnomaschala Maire
• Salsola kerneri (Wol.) Botsch.
• Salsola laricifolia Turcz. ex Litv.
• Salsola longifolia Forssk.
• Salsola makranica Freitag
• Salsola melitensis Botsch.
• Salsola oppositifolia Desf.
• Salsola papillosa Willk.
• Salsola setifera (Moq.) Akhani (Basionym: Anabasis setifera Moq.)
• Salsola sinaica Brullo
• Salsola soda L.
• Salsola tunetana Brullo

I hope you agree that POWO is authoratative. Roy Bateman (talk) 10:21, 4 March 2024 (UTC)