Talk:Pitaya

"Kamalam" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Kamalam. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 January 24#Kamalam until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. MB 19:35, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

Nutrient content of fruit

Currently the list of nutrients shows more than 82 grams of carbohydrates in 100 grams of fruit, that is ridiculous. You can easily feel that 82% or so of fruit pulp is water, not carbohydrates or any other solid substance. Please somebody give the true values. 81.186.20.166 (talk) 12:38, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

I agree that that's impossible. unsigned comment on 26 September by Invasive Spices.

As discussed in the article under Nutrients, there are no nutrient analyses by the USDA in FoodData Central for fresh (water-containing) pitaya, and there are no reliable alternate sources on the web for such data. The only available data for pitaya nutrition are from dried, branded products, one of which is shown in the table. Dry-processing fruit increases the relative contents of carbohydrates, protein, and minerals, and decreases vitamin C content from the fresh state. This is a FoodData Central search for"pitaya", showing at the top there have been 22 branded products (assume that this means substantially processed, and probably dried) in the US analyzed by the USDA. The are no "foundation foods" or "legacy foods" because fresh pitaya has not been evaluated (reasonable to assume it is a crop too minor in volume to be included as a common US food).

Our discussion here should be whether to include the table and nutrition section at all, because it is impossible to discern the dry-processing procedures of the manufacturer whose product the USDA tested, and therefore the change from fresh to a dried, processed condition causes unexpected values for nutrients in pitaya. Zefr (talk) 15:30, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

the USDA has recently updated their data with a new report. I'm updating the article to use the following data: https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/2344729/nutrients smIsle (talk) 03:25, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Dragon fruit name

Why has the ENGLISH article title been changed to the Mexican Spanish name for this fruit? Stop the politically correct revisionism. This is a dragon fruit in English. I am from the US and I don't know a single English speaking American who would call this a pitaya except perhaps in the SW or California...which is not the majority of America. Alexandermoir (talk) 15:50, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

The title of this article has been Pitaya since it was created 19 years ago. Nobody has changed the name of the article. If you feel that Dragon fruit is a more appropriate name for this article than Pitaya, you may propose that change by following the instructions at Wikipedia:Requested moves. Since Pitaya has remained the name of the article for 19 years, I suspect there will not be much enthusiasm for changing it. Donald Albury 22:01, 17 March 2023 (UTC)

I 100% agree with @Alexandermoir:. This is English Wiki, the target are users looking up English-language terms. Secondary names are served by using redirects. The intro and name section clearly state that dragon fruit is the English name of pitaya and pitahaya, that is what matters on Wiki.

I have no access to my computer, working on my cellphone, and forgot the technical steps needed for "moving" (renaming) an article. Who can help? I see no need for lenghty discussions. If the naming is as stated in the article, then dragon fruit is the only logical title for the article. As long as no one has an issue with the naming as stated in the article, it's an opened-and-closed case. Arminden (talk) 16:35, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

@Arminden: I thought my edit summary, though pithily expressed, was clear but apparently not. Since the article is titled Pitaya, the lead should start with "Pitaya is ....". If you believe that the article title is incorrect, then you should use WP:RM. Apologies for not noticing the talk discussion but, regardless, you need to first change the title and then rewrite the lead. RegentsPark (comment) 19:12, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Hi @RegentsPark:. Sorry, but I don't think you read my arguments:

"I have no access to my computer, working on my cellphone, and forgot the technical steps needed for "moving" (renaming) an article. Who can help?"

That's probably also why I didn't notice your edit summary: the phone version doesn't show it. Sorry.

However, I explained that

1. The only logical English name for the article is "Dragon fruit".
2. I currently can't do the move, so pls. someone else do it.
3. In such an obvious case, there is zero reason on Wiki for going through additional procedures. Think "bold" etc. Bureaucracy kills.

So, could you please do the move and re-introduce my edit? Thanks! Arminden (talk) 00:20, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

@Arminden: I reverted you merely to align the article title with the first use. Someone who knows something about this fruit will have to take the bold step of moving it without an RM. If you like, I could set up an RM discussion for you with the WP:Common name rationale attributed to you. Let me know. Unless somebody else on this thread would like to step in. RegentsPark (comment) 01:28, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

@RegentsPark: I would absolutely welcome that! Thank you! Arminden (talk) 02:39, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

Importance ranking

The importance of "pitaya" has recently been edited to Top Importance for 4 projects; was this on purpose? Nicholaswei (talk) 06:28, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I also question the new importance ratings. Even the previous "High" ranking for Project Plants seems too high. I'll notify the projects for input. Donald Albury 14:34, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

I set it to High because it gets 2,980 pageviews a day, higher than wheat and maple. Abductive (reasoning) 20:43, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 27 October 2023

The following is a closed 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 after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: No consensus. Given that it was not shown by those in support of this move that dragon fruit is a synonym for pitaya, with some evidence presented that in fact dragon fruit is just one variety, with the article covering many others, I can't find in favour of this move request. If more evidence is presented, a new RM could be opened down the line.  — Amakuru (talk) 17:19, 14 November 2023 (UTC)

---

Pitaya → Dragon fruit – As editors @Arminden:, @Alexandermoir: above noted, the phrase "dragon fruit" is distinctly more popular in english than "pitaya" is, though it's understandable why it was originally named that. Google ngrams shows that pitaya or pitahaya have remained consistently popular for the past several decades, while the term dragon fruit appeared meaningfully in the 1990s and grew explosively in popularity, surpassing both other terms in 2009, to the point where in 2023 it's nearly twice as popular as pitaya and pitahaya combined. When the article was created in 2004, pitaya and pitahaya were similarly popular, with dragon fruit holding a solid third place, but now in both american and british english, the dragon fruit holds a clear dominance in the modern day.

I don't have a good citation for this, but looking around the internet, I would guess that pitaya and pitahaya have had their consistent popularity as a loan word from English-speaking Mexicans already familiar with its Spanish name, but upon being popularized (as a 'health food' or otherwise) in the 2000s in the anglosphere, most English speakers newly aware of the fruit chose the domestic term instead. And the rest is history, if fairly recent history. exoplanetaryscience (talk) 07:32, 27 October 2023 (UTC) — Relisting.  — Amakuru (talk) 13:37, 4 November 2023 (UTC) — Relisting. Reading Beans (talk) 11:05, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

Which means: let's move it already. The Mexican names remain as redirects and bold in the lead, and that's that.

I don't remember exactly how to remove the redirect "dragon fruit -> pitaya", which for now blocks the move (it must go through some commission, blabla), I only have my phone, so please, someone help out with this last issue and then do the move. Thanks. Arminden (talk) 09:11, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

• Clarification needed It's not clear to me that "dragon fruit" includes all the fruit covered by this article. "Dragon fruit" seems to be used for fruit of Selenicereus (synonym Hylocereus), whereas the article includes the fruit of a wider range of cacti, e.g. Stenocereus queretaroensis. Selenicereus and Stenocereus belong to different taxonomic tribes. So simply moving may be wrong. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:13, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

The article says "The common name in English – dragon fruit – derives from the leather-like skin and scaly spikes on the fruit exterior", and it has the subheading "Dragon fruit, Selenicereus". So it's clear from the article that "dragon fruit" only applies to fruit of Selenicereus (fruits of Stenocereus don't have scaly spikes). If the present article is moved, then the material on non-Selenicereus fruit must be moved to another article. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:26, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Wrong, d.f. covers both. Just look closer into it. The top hit on Google might not be the Britannica, but see for yourselves here:

"There are actually many different species of cacti within the Hylocereus genus and Stenocereus genus that produce many different varieties of fruit with different names. However, the term “dragon fruit” has become a general term that's used to refer to any fruit produced by any of these cacti. ... The term “dragon fruit” has become more of a general term that is now commonly used to refer to any fruit in this family of fruits. So if you see the word "dragon fruit," "pitaya" or "pitahaya," they're typically all referring to the same fruit."

Posted by "Dr. Sonali Ruder", who keeps on writing that it's not the same but it is used as if, so confusing, but the conclusion is: the English term covers a range of similarly-looking fruit. QED, and what we knew already and all we need for the move. Again, this is English Wikipedia and is meant to help users primarily with common English terms. The article then has to clarify the botanical differences. Arminden (talk) 10:57, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

This isn't a useful source for the point you are trying to make, because the website says "Dragon fruit shares many similarities with the pitaya", i.e. they are not the same. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:36, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Did you read A. my post here above and B. the rest of that article? Doesn't seem so. Found a convenient sentence and stopped there. Go all the way to the Conclusions pls. And also pls. google some more, if this art. is too inconclusive. Arminden (talk) 19:30, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

For the last 20 days, "Pitaya" got an average of 3,250 views a day in Wikipedia. The redirect "Dragon fruit" got an average of 23 hits a day, "Dragonfruit" got 13 hits a day, "Dragon Fruit" got one hit a day, and "Pitahaya" got 9 hits a day, all passing through to "Pitaya". Other redirects to "Pitaya" got much fewer than one hit per day. The number of users searching for "Dragon fruit", "Dragonfruit", or "Dragon Fruit" on Wikipedia in the last 20 days was barely more than 1% of the number who reached the article for "Pitaya". This indicates that readers are much more likely to be looking for "Pitaya" than for "Dragon fruit". - Donald Albury 12:16, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

@Donald Albury: I don't disagree that we can have an article at Dragon fruit. The problem is to be clear, with reliable sources, what "dragon fruit" means. The article currently says that it refers only to fruit of Selenicereus. So those who want to move the article need to clarify whether after moving:

• it should cover a variety of cactus fruit – in which case reliable sources are needed to show that they can all be called "dragon fruit", and the article needs significant editing so it doesn't limit "dragon fruit" to Selenicereus, which it does now.
• it should cover only Hylocereus fruit – in which case where will non-Hylocereus be covered?

Peter coxhead (talk) 16:36, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Hylocereus was recently merged into Selenicereus. In Google Scholar, which, hopefully, returns mostly reliable sources, Hylocereus, Selenicereus, and Stenocereus each return more hits containing "pitaya" than "dragon fruit" (but not by much, and that is not a valid criteria for choosing a common name, anyway). Certainly nothing to indicate that there is any difference between the common names applied to the genera. Searching for "Hylocereus pitaya dragon fruit" got about 5,100 hits. The few that I checked were mostly using the two common names as synonyms. No luck in finding a reliable source on the relative popularity of "pitaya" and "dragon fruit". Donald Albury 19:21, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME.--Ortizesp (talk) 15:51, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

Sure, but please explain how the move and subsequent editing will meet WP:PRECISION, which is also necessary. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:36, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

The nuances can be explained in the article. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:30, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME. Rreagan007 (talk) 18:30, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
• Support the pageview data mentioned by Donald Albury is misleading and should be ignored; if you do a Google search for "Dragon fruit" or click the wikilink "dragon fruit" on Vietnamese cuisine it will show up in Wikipedia stats as a hit for "Pitaya". Google search results for "Pitaya" are a mix of unrelated topics, and pages with "dragon fruit" in their title. Per nom, Ngrams shows dragon fruit is more common, and (anecdotally) at the grocery store today it was called dragon fruit. Walt Yoder (talk) 18:33, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

@Walt Yoder: it was called dragon fruit: but what was "it"? My contention is that what is sold under the English name "dragon fruit" is the fruit of Selenicereus, not the fruit of other cacti. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:12, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

It looked like the one in the picture. I thoroughly reject the implication that this article shouldn't be moved because it is actually about two different topics. Walt Yoder (talk) 17:52, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

@Walt Yoder: I have never said there should not be an article at Dragon fruit. My request for clarification relates to how the moved article should then be edited, because it seems to me that "pitaya/pitahaya" ≠ "dragon fruit". Peter coxhead (talk) 18:14, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

As of now, we have:

Pitaya = usually Stenocereus

Pitahaya = Selenicereus (formerly Hylocereus), aka dragon fruit.

We need solid sources. Who has the E. Britannica or the Oxford ED on the shelf? Or online access to them?

Free online versions are never as reliable, but still:

Oxford Reference online has only Hylocereus, so d.f. = pitahya (Selenicereus, ex Hylocereus)(here).

Cambridge Dictionary only has the opposite, pitaya (here).

Collins online at first also has pitahia, but then widens it hugely (here): "1. any giant cactus of Central America and the SW United States, esp the saguaro [Carnegiea gigantea] ... 2. the edible red pulpy fruit of such cacti"

But maybe they just can't keep the 2 or more Mexicanos locos apart! Which is as well, meaning that "dragon fruit" is all English-speakers reliably react to.

Merriam-Webster online has both and even more ["cacti (as of the genera Selenicereus, Hylocereus, or Sternocereus)"] (here). Which means that it lists Selenicereus and Hylocereus as 2 different gena (our art. says they're the same), and misspells Stenocereus by adding an r, Sternocereus. Steno- is narrow, close, while sterno- means pertaining to the sternum :)

In the end, there's only one conclusion: dragon fruit is the only common denominator across BE, AE, dictionaries and vernacular. My point fron the start :) Cheers Arminden (talk) 21:04, 27 October 2023 (UTC)

@Arminden: Yes, "dragon fruit" is the common denominator for English speakers – that isn't disputed – but what your sources above show is that it fails WP:PRECISION as an article title, since they differ widely on what it refers to. How do you see the article being revised when it is moved? Peter coxhead (talk) 06:06, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Please read above, it's been suggested already: by being encyclopedic within the article. Meaning, by presenting reality as it is (day to day language lacks scientific precision), and we do our job by connecting common-language terms with scholarly terminology. Seems quite basic.

Concretely:

(Common English term X) covers a range of (this & that). Botanists differentiate between (term A), (term B), (term C).

And then we write separate sections on term A, B, and C.

That's what encyclopedias do. Arminden (talk) 09:53, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

@Arminden: I understand that, of course, but my contention is that, as used by English speakers and in particular by those selling the product, "dragon fruit" does not apply to the full range of fruit currently covered in the article. It's nothing to do with botanists making distinctions, it's what the English name "dragon fruit" applies to. My question remains: can you show me a reliable source that says that fruit of Sternocereus or cacti other than Selenicereus is sold or consumed as "dragon fruit"? Merriam-Webster online cannot be taken as reliable given their mistakes over the scientific name.

I don't think it's relevant here, but it seems to me that your description (Common English term X) covers a range of (this & that). Botanists differentiate between (term A), (term B), (term C) is exactly what WP:NOTADICTIONARY forbids as an article. Our job is to determine the underlying concepts in the range of (this & that) and construct articles about them, not to explain the range of use of English words and phrases. Thus we don't have a single article at "Berry" because the English word has too wide a range of meaning, we have Berry and Berry (botany). Peter coxhead (talk) 11:51, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Peter, I've written everything I needed to write here already. You're quite selective in reading my replies. And quite rhetorical, too: you're not really trying to compare in full earnest the range of meanings in 'berry' and 'dragon fruit'? I've done my homework, now it's up to you and others to do theirs. Bye, Arminden (talk) 23:14, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

Relisting comment: Are the dragon fruit and Pitaya the same? Reading Beans (talk) 11:05, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

@Reading Beans: as I've made clear above, I don't think it's been shown that they are. "Pitaya" and "pitahaya" are Spanish words used alone or in phrases as names for a variety of cactus fruits. "Dragon fruit" appears to be used for only one kind, that of cultivated kinds of Selenicereus. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:18, 7 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.