The Voynich Ninja

Yes, 'seebluemen', [English: lake flowers]  On the nenuphar see the best short article:  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

(28-12-2018, 03:33 PM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view....


From this, we should conclude that 'looks most like X' is not a sufficient criterium to identify herb drawings in medieval herbals.
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I agree with this. I believe the plant that the VMS drawing MOST RESEMBLES are in the plant family I mentioned above, and I've argued for it because I think it's an ID-possibility that is often overlooked, but this is not the same as saying that is what it is. My contention is that the frogbit plants belong on a list of possible IDs. It might be a not-good drawing of Asarum europeum (the flower is completely wrong) rather than a good drawing of one of the frogbits.

That's why I have a "short list" of identifications for each plant (including this one). Some people have criticized me, saying that I was trying to "hedge my bets" by having several IDs instead of just one, but it's unrealistic to think it's possible to choose one ID for a crude unlabeled drawing. Even the VMS drawing that looks very much like Viola tricolor resembles two or three other species of Viola.

It's not POSSIBLE to narrow medieval plant drawings to one species unless they are labeled. We have to find the "best matches" and compare the SEQUENCE of drawings to similar herbals to work out what they are. If no similar herbals can be found, then multiple plant IDs for any given drawing are inevitable.

Even GOOD botanical drawings cannot always be narrowed down to a specific species because some plants can only be distinguished from one another using a microscope. In fact, the Villarsia/Menyanthes is an excellent example, since botanists originally thought the New World gulf species was a transplant from the Old World, brought over by colonists. Closer examination showed it to be a separate species, even though it looks the same.

Herbal manuscripts are full of drawings that look nothing like the plant they describe and the VMS drawings are not stylistically comparable to any commonly known manuscripts, just as the Greek and Arabic herbals are not stylistically comparable to European herbals (or to the VMS, or to each other).

But... the VMS drawings are pretty good compared to many. It's what attracted me to the VMS, and it's what keeps me interested.

Frogbit seems to be reasonable ( for a European provenance ).  In any case, I stay with the assumption that it is a plant from the family of aquatic plants. The leaf shape with the characteristic slit is just too conspicuous. That's what the draftsman wanted to emphasize on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ( in my opinion ). The fact that the blossom differs somewhat from the presentation in the Vitus Auslasser and the Circa Instans is acceptable. The differences, especially to the Circa Instans, are not so big that an ID would be out of question. In principle, however, I remain open to other assumptions.

A video of the Skaggerak region that shows one species of the small aquatic plants collectively known as "frogbit" (which is actually several species) opening up. You can see the pistils are sometimes quite extended and there's a light fringe on the edge of the petals. These features are present in the VMS drawing and are not characteristic of the larger water lilies (or the ones with multiple petals).

See 34:30

Also, if you stop the video at 34:34 and look closely, you will see a line running up the middle of the petal. It's not apparent in this variety, but in some species, the "line" is quite distinctly triangular, which is another detail included in the VMS drawing. The calyxes on the different species differ—some are blunt, some are pointed like this one. Some have a little "shelf" similar to the VMS drawing.


I'm not insisting the drawing has to be one of the frogbits, but in terms of matching features, it scores very high.

Plants in the alchemical herbal, one of the most popular herbals in XV century Italy, are largely unrecognisable. Trinity ms MS O.2.48, pointed out by Rene, also is striking in this respect: it includes the well-known "Pseudo-Apuleius" collection, but (Pseudo-Apuleius apart) most of the pages describe unidentifiable plants. The drawings appear to have been created on the basis of the text, that describes plants by analogy with other plants. For instance, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is said to have leaves like lavender, flowers like dove's foot and root like basil.

Pliny says that nymphaea's flower is like lily (flore lilio simili): a possibility is that the illustrator created at least part of the images on the basis of the text. In this case, he might have used (a drawing of) lily as a model for the flower. But I believe it is likely that most of the plants will not be identifiable even when we can read the text (as is the case with the alchemical herbal and the Trinity ms).

I am inclined to believe that the VMS You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. plant is quite close to life.

The reason I believe this is because the rhizome is remarkably accurate for its time. It not only shows the correct spiral arrangement for the leaf scars (a detail most medieval illustrators ignored), but it also shows the correct rhizome "scales" on the leading edge of the rhizome (the part that creates the new growth for the next year).

These details of the rhizome require genuine observation and knowledge of plants and would never be drawn by accident. Even the porous texture of the leaf scars has been indicated with dots.

I have not been able to find anything equivalent this early in the 15th century (I'm still looking, but I've been looking for more than a decade and haven't found it yet). Even when they started adding the leaf scars, most illustrators still neglected the leading scales (new-growth scales). Look at how the texture changes from old growth (left) to new growth (right). Also, if you look at the row of leaf scars just below the green stalk, you will see the correct curve as the scars follow the contour of the rhizome (the leaf scars follow a somewhat spiral pattern).

I posted one of these in March 2016 and the other one a year and a half ago (May 2017), but maybe some people haven't seen them, so I'll post them again:



If you understand rhizome morphology and growth patterns, this drawing cannot fail to impress. It wasn't until the Renaissance that a small number of artists paid attention to details like this and even then, most of them just brushed in an approximate root without these botanical details.

Here is a photograph of Nymphoides leaf scars (the old growth). There are slight differences in the patterns and on how bumpy the rhizome is, depending on the species. The larger water lilies have the same basic structures (also with differences in the attachment patterns and the bumpiness of the rhizome):

[attachment=2607]

Photo Source: "Modeling Nymphoides architecture: A morphological analysis of Nymphoides aquatica (Menyanthaceae)", Jennifer H. Richards, Marlene Dow and Tiffany Troxler, American Journal of Botany, Vol. 97, No. 11 (November 2010), pp. 1761-1771.

The Nymphoides pic is too small to show the pores, so here's a Nymphaea root that shows the "dots" (the pores) in the leaf scars:


Image credit: Pairat Songpanich, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

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It's difficult to find pictures of the leading edge, the scaly part with the new growth. Nobody cares about them except botanists and gardeners (and the VMS illustrator). Some species have only a little knob, while others have a longer "finger".

The flower is shown with a definite fringe. This is characteristic of Nymphoides but not so common in larger water lilies. It has a prominent pistil. This is also a characteristic of Nymphoides, but not of larger water lilies (some of them have capsules, but they are fat, with a flat top). Sometimes the long pistil is prominent (as in these examples), sometimes not. It's easier to see when the flower is more fully opened:

[attachment=2608]  [attachment=2609]

i think that most if not all plants of the VM have been drawn according to nature, especially if you take the small plants section into account. I think it would be a possibility to fall back on the herbals of the late 15th century, which are  only about forty years later and to achieve at least some  identification appropriate to the time, the identification with modern species i think is largely illusory

The nymphea I saw in the "Pseudo-Apuleius" were all very unrealistic. The Nenuphar in the "Circa Instans" can be recognized pretty well.

I would rather see the VMS in this tradition. For comparison:

The VMS pictures of Tragopogon and Viola are also naturalistic. I think those three in particular are probably taken from life. We know that at least some people in the classic and medieval periods gathered fresh herbs and brought them in to be drawn because it's mentioned in manuscripts and there are sometimes drawings of "sages" copying plants that are in vases on the table in front of them. Most manuscripts appear to be copied from others, but some of the exemplars are naturalistic. The Juliana Anicia drawings are good, so someone at an early time actually LOOKED at plants and tried to render them realistically.

Consider that Viola tricolor (and its two or three look-alikes) were NOT included in most herbal manuscripts before 1460. Most of the early herbal manuscripts used Viola odorata rather than V. tricolor. V. tricolor includes palmate leaves. Most violas (including most of those in plant manuscripts) have heart-shaped or sagittate leaves.

The Egerton 747 drawing has some indication of texture on the rhizome but it's not scientifically correct, it's just a texture. For its time, the VMS rhizome is scientifically quite good. I am doubtful that the VMS water lily rhizome is copied from other herbals unless there's some 14th-century exemplar that has been lost that had input from a real botanist. I think the person who drew VMS 2v knew (and cared) about plants. The VMS leaf margins show the same care and attention. Other plant manuscripts pay very little attention to correct leaf margins. Even if they get the smooth/serrated distinction correct, they don't pay attention to the details of the serrations and the VMS does.


To slot a plant into an herbal tradition, you need to compare plants that are drawn in completely different ways or in weird ways. For example, oregano is drawn in many different ways (which makes it easy to spot which group it belongs to) and basilica is drawn in weird ways (three snakes intertwined for the roots is usually one of the English manuscripts, basil is drawn in a pot in others, and like a tree in still others).

These are related traditions, but there is a clear difference in the two lines of evolution... on the left, the fruits are amber clusters and they hang down, on the right, they are round, red, and they point up. In real life, the flowers are greenish-yellow clusters that hang down. When they mature, some of the fruits are reddish, some are amber or amber mixed with red and the bigger they get, the more they droop. In a crude way, both drawings are correct, even if they are not the same:





If you try to slot the VMS into a verbal tradition based on a plant that MOST people draw the same way, then the similarity may be circumstantial, so it needs to be a group of plants that follow the same templates, or a plant drawn in distinctive ways by the different groups. The mnemonic roots and leaves seem more similar to the "alchemical" herbals than the more naturalistic ones. The VMS might not fit any one tradition, it might be drawn from a variety of sources (including life).

JKP I had no idea the roots were so close to nature, that's unbelievable. With the pores and everything. It's quite the paradox: sometimes the VM plants look almost too accurate for their time, but often they look like distant symbols for the plants they are supposed to represent.

I'd also say that as far as drawing skill goes, this plant actually surpasses contemporary works, obliterating its ugly duckling reputation.