Talk:furze

furze, gorse, real distinction?

@Chuck Entz: Currently the translation table of furze claims to be for Ulex europaeus, the one of gorse claims to be for Ulex. However one calls the Ulex europaeus common furze too. The tribe’s plants may be too close to each other for such a subtile distinction in vernacular names to develop; thus also the tables are the same. I am inclined towards a merge of the tables and a rewrite of the definition. Fay Freak (talk) 15:21, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

• I'm pretty sure that "gorse", "furze" and "whin" are all the same plant - needs to be merged somehow. SemperBlotto (talk) 15:26, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

  There's really no taxonomic difference in the distribution of the common names. The person who started the furze entry gave the name for the species, while the person who started the gorse article gave the name for the genus, with that choice being perpetuated because no one had any preference one way or the other. As I understand it, Ulex europaeus is the original bearer of those names, being the most common and best known species in England, but I don't think anyone excludes the other species. We could address that by either having 2 senses: 1) "Ulex europaeus" 2) "Ulex", or by having one definition that says "Ulex, especially Ulex europaeus". If we're going to consolidate everything in one entry and make the others synonym-of soft redirects, I would avoid making whin the lemma, because there are other whins. Beyond that, both "furze" and "gorse" are common and have animal names based on them. The bit in the original Winnie-the-Pooh about the gorse bush probably makes "gorse" marginally better known outside the UK, but I doubt it's a big factor. Chuck Entz (talk) 04:00, 11 September 2019 (UTC)