The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: moved per request. Favonian ( talk) 17:41, 19 August 2013 (UTC) reply

Lodgepole pine → Pinus contorta – Several common names, including differing names for subspecies. Most unambiguous would be to locate plant at scientific name. Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 13:02, 12 August 2013 (UTC) reply

• Support In general, I'm in favour of using the scientific name, so support a move. "Lodgepole pine" does seem to be a genuinely 'common' name rather than a made-up English name, so its use is somewhat better justified than some other English names of pines, although the confusion as to whether the name refers to the species as a whole or just one subspecies means that it fails the precision test of WP:AT. (The Flora of North America treats them as varieties, not subspecies; it uses "lodgepole pine" for the species and for var. latifolia but not for the other varieties.) Peter coxhead ( talk) 13:36, 12 August 2013 (UTC) reply
• Support While lodgepole pines are culturally significant (i.e., they are used to make tipis), this Google ngram link shows that the majority of the usage in English books is still scientific. Therefore, both WP:COMMONNAME and WP:FLORA guide us to using Pinus contorta. — hike395 ( talk) 13:45, 12 August 2013 (UTC) reply
• Oppose – Hike395's n-gram link omits the overwhelming most common capitalization of the common name; see this correction. Dicklyon ( talk) 16:51, 12 August 2013 (UTC) reply

You're right --- my mistake. I suspend my !vote until I can do more analysis. — hike395 ( talk) 14:43, 13 August 2013 (UTC) reply

• Support' – The scientific name is the best one that precisely describes the species. Lodgepole pine appears to be a common name for two of the subspecies, but not the central subspecies, the one that includes the type, which is called shore pine. The species overall seems to have relatively obscure common names twisted pine and contorta pine, which are English translations of the Latin name. Sminthopsis84 ( talk) 17:22, 12 August 2013 (UTC) reply

The alternative names are quite rare. Dicklyon ( talk) 01:35, 13 August 2013 (UTC) reply

• Support - the article covers both "shore pine" and "lodgepole pine", which are well distinguished in common usage (people in the western US would never call P. contorta trees growing on the coast "lodgepole pine", nor would they call trees growing inland "shore pine"). Move to scientific name which covers both vars./subsps. Plantdrew ( talk) 19:16, 12 August 2013 (UTC) reply
• Oppose. There may be different names with different shades of possible meaning--if those differences are big enough that separate articles could be written, then split, but otherwise it's fine to just pick one and roll with it. Dicklyon's evidence is quite compelling. Red Slash 23:01, 12 August 2013 (UTC) reply

To "pick one and roll with it", twisted pine is the one to chose (or contorta pine, which is less English). Lodgepole pine is not what this page is about, it is about two things, lodgepole pine and shore pine. Sminthopsis84 ( talk) 13:29, 13 August 2013 (UTC) reply

• Support For the coastal subspecies, "Lodgepole pine" fails the recognizability, naturalness, and precision criteria. Because human populations are concentrated near coasts, our readers are as likely to encounter the coastal subspecies as the inland subspecies. -- Walter Siegmund (talk) 03:48, 13 August 2013 (UTC) reply
• Support This article is on the species so it should be at the taxonomic address, the scientific name Pinus contorta. Opposing !votes suggesting that if there's no split of the article then it's just fine to keep it at one of the subspecies' vernacular names reveals a lack of understanding of the hierarchy in taxonomy. Lodgepole pine ≠ all Pinus contorta; it is, instead, a subset of this taxon and thus this article. Given that logic, in the early days of Wikipedia when there wasn't enough information to split Pinus from Pinus contorta and since the latter is a subset of the former, you could have easily argued in the same manner to move pine to lodgepole pine. What Sminthopsis84 articulates above is that the species as a whole has no clear and widely used vernacular name; the subspecies do, but unless the subspecies articles are split, none of the vernacular names applied to the subspecies can unambiguously apply to the entire taxon Pinus contorta at the rank of species. Cheers, Rkitko ^{( talk)} 03:26, 14 August 2013 (UTC) reply
• Support re Rkitko --- common name is much less precise than scientific name. It's not clear to me that common name is more recognizable than the scientific name, so the trade off doesn't seem worth it. — hike395 ( talk) 16:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC) reply
  • Comment About your comment, Hike395, like Douglas fir and others, lodgepole pine is part of the lumber industry nearly anywhere it grows. I submit that the people most in contact with these trees and refer to them in their own common speech not by the Latin name but as "lodgepole pine". I can guarantee you if a logging truck goes by with a stack of fresh-cut lodgepole pines someone's not gonna say "yep, he's carrying a load of pinus contorta". In truth in that phrase they'd just say pine - unless there were two possibilities, e.g. yellow pine. What's common in printed sources is not what is most common in English-as-she-is-spoke. Particularly around those in daily contact with the subject; suggest a search on that basis would be at the BC Ministry of Forests Library website or its equivalent in Washington, Idaho, Montana etc. The Latin name will be there, but not in the way and with the primary use that "lodgepole pine" would have. In the same light, as those for whom these are a commodity; the forest companies. Their reports will mention the Latin name only by way of introduction and use the vernacular term. Skookum1 ( talk) 17:51, 14 August 2013 (UTC) reply
    • Yeah but in my neck of the woods, the logging and building industry pretty well unanimously refers to Eucalyptus regnans as Tasmanian oak.... Cas Liber ( talk · contribs) 20:29, 14 August 2013 (UTC) reply
    • No, they will only be referring to the infraspecific taxon latifolia whether variously reported as a subspecies or a variety as "lodgepole pine." If they encounter, log, or admire the infraspecific taxon contorta, the autonym also variously reported at the rank of subspecies or variety, they could refer to it as "shore pine." Neither of these names apply to the entire taxon Pinus contorta at the rank of species. As it stands, the article is currently mislabeled for the subject matter it covers. Rkitko ^{( talk)} 02:34, 15 August 2013 (UTC) reply
• Support per Sminthopsis84.-- Melburnian ( talk) 13:04, 15 August 2013 (UTC) reply
• Support The common name is sometimes used for the species as a whole, see USFS reports. However, this is unusual, as the common name is not typically used for the pygmy subspecies. Most articles using this name describe a tree with a diameter much greater than the height of the Bolander pine. - AfadsBad ( talk) 17:57, 15 August 2013 (UTC) reply
• Support because the scientific name for the species is unambiguous. However, the common name of this species truly is "lodgepole pine". In most of the range of this tree species, this is a forest tree that grows tall and straight, and the common name of "lodgepole" is widely known. The gnarled version of the tree that is found on windswept coastal sites is far less widely known than the forest interior version, but the species has the "contorta" name because it was first described by botanist David Douglas, who saw it along the coast. [1] -- Orlady ( talk) 17:58, 15 August 2013 (UTC) reply
• Support There are so many subspecies and subspecies vernacular names that this article could appear under many vernacular names besides this one. And if the article were split into subspecies articles, the scientific names would be even more important to distinguish them from each other, and still connect them as the same species. First Light ( talk) 15:37, 17 August 2013 (UTC) reply

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.