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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 16/09/2015 06:33, johnw wrote:<br>
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<div class="">On Sep 15, 2015, at 6:44 PM, Jerry Clough -
OSM <<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:sk53_osm@yahoo.co.uk" class="">sk53_osm@yahoo.co.uk</a>>
wrote:</div>
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1442305049203_4311" class=""
style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue',
Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;
font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Hi
John,</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1442305049203_4263" class=""
style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue',
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_1_1442305049203_4555" class=""
style="font-family: HelveticaNeue, 'Helvetica Neue',
Helvetica, Arial, 'Lucida Grande', sans-serif;
font-size: 14px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">No
there is nothing I'm aware of which discriminates
anywhere between cultivated pears in general (<em
id="yui_3_16_0_1_1442305049203_4442" class="">Pyrus
communis</em>) & specific cultivars (<a
moz-do-not-send="true" id="ms__id3258"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conference_pear"
class="">'Conference'</a>). Cultivar just is shorthand
for "cultivated variety" so of course there is no
hierarchy variety=>cultivar.</div>
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<div class="">I guess I was looking for an idea of where people
draw the lines between the trees, like we can with potatoes
and sweet potatoes. I know there are many many kinds of both,
but usually they can easily be divided into two groups,
because we can say that a potato and a sweet potato are
commonly referred to by those two separate names, and usually
not confused with each other by the people that grow them and
consume them. <br>
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Sweet Potatoes & Potatoes are completely different things:
different plant families (Convolvulacae vs Solanaceae), different
origin as a cultivated plant (Central America vs Andes), different
method of cultivation, they have in common that they are root
vegetables. When I'm buying potatoes in the supermarket I pay a
great deal of attention to the variety: King Edwards have very
different properties from Desiree or Maris Piper. The 'Lumper'
variety is historically important because of the Irish Potato
famine, as it was this variety's susceptibility to <i>Phythophora </i>which
was the proximate cause of the famine. (See for example Salaman's <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redcliffe_N._Salaman#The_history_and_social_influence_of_the_potato"><i>The
History</i> <i>& Social Influence of the Potato</i></a> ,
and late works on the same subject).<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:4FD4A6F2-386E-4BE2-BD3E-3CAC9B2A63C1@mac.com"
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<div class="">I am very comfortable throwing all grapes into
“grapevines” or all oranges into “orange_trees” - but I don’t
know about some obviously different fruits that share the same
words - Asian pears look different, taste different - and most
importantly - not considered a “pear” by the people that grow
them - “pears” are “western pears” to them. So I feel
comfortable saying that having “pear_trees” and
“sand_pear_trees” is a good idea. <br>
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Hmm, not all grapes are the same. In NY state and elsewhere in the
NE of the US, grapes are grown which are <a
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitis_labrusca">native to
North America</a>. The vast majority of grapes grown for fruit and
wine-making are however <i>Vitis vinifera</i>. Similarly your pears
are different species not varieties. <br>
<blockquote cite="mid:4FD4A6F2-386E-4BE2-BD3E-3CAC9B2A63C1@mac.com"
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<div class="">But when it comes to all the other trees I have
never heard of until I was cleaning up that list (is a
"Governor’s plum" a plum? Is a “Custard Apple” an Apple?), I
was looking to see if there is some known way of putting the
trees into usable categories or types for mapping without
having people suggest them one by one - otherwise we’ll get
odd regional or slang names - or things possibly grouped by
distant mappers who don’t understand the nuances - like me
with some of these trees. </div>
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<div class="">Javbw</div>
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For these types of differences I think it is important to be aware
that things are different, and not try and subsume them in some
artificial category. We're still living with early American
colonists calling things Robins, Blackbirds and Sparrows, when they
weren't. In general wikipedia is your friend here!<br>
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The whole point of taxon/species tags is to allow much more precise
tagging than is possible, say with the trees tag. Even in the UK an
oak wood may be made up of one of 2 species, and we have a very
impoverished set of trees. There are not mutually exclusive,
although one idea of taxon was to allow any taxonomic level to be
used. Thus I'm fine with trees=pear_trees and taxon=Pyrus pyrifolia
for Asian Pear (I would always recommend using taxon:en or taxon:ja
to add a vernacular name as well) and trees=pear_trees and
taxon=Pyrus communis for the Common Pear.<br>
<br>
Jerry<br>
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