The Voynich Ninja

Quote:Koen:
The main function of taro's root is that is provides food. This root is roundish and has several thin, long roots coming out of it. I would really love this to be Taro, but so far I'm not convinced :/
The Voynich plant's roots are long, relatively thick, look fibrous and have been painted blue. This does lend some support to Diane's idea that this plant was used to dye fabrics. Some of the roots even look like they end in fringes like some kind of scarf or carpet.
I haven't been able to find any plant like that yet though.

By the way - roots in the VM are very often entirely symbolical, giving a hint about the use or name of the plant instead of representing a botanically relevant structure.

If that is the case, it is possible that fibres gained from this plant are suitable to be dyed before being woven into baskets or what have you. In that case it would be sufficient to find a plant (palm?) with leaves like this which was especially useful as a source of fibres.

Anyway, the earliest image of Colocasia I've found is from the Ecphrasis minus cognitarum stirpium, vol. 2: p. 0 (1616) The whole gallery of Colocasia images is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. Possibly, the name "Elephant's ears" came from Persian "Gush-e fil", but I can't find any information how much old this Persian name is, all searching queries lead to the doughnuts with the same name.   You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., where the name "gush-e fil" is mentioned, refers to Avicenna's "Canon of medicine", but all the rest sources say only about "qulqas". 
I think it must be kept in mind, maybe, someone will find more information. 



Another possible variant is You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., if exactly this plant is called herba Elephans You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Its roots are probably closer to the roots of the VMs Elephant-plant, but leaves - less. Actually, I've found only this one book with this name and it is printed in 1610.
Quote:
" In many parts of its range it is grown as a salad crop or as a medicinal herb. The tender shoots and leaves are eaten raw or cooked. In Nepal, juice from the roots is used for treating indigestion and applied to the skin to treat wounds and skin diseases."



So, as always, food for thought.

(08-09-2016, 02:23 PM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The main function of taro's root is that is provides food. This root is roundish and has several thin, long roots coming out of it. I would really love this to be Taro, but so far I'm not convinced :/
The Voynich plant's roots are long, relatively thick, look fibrous and have been painted blue. This does lend some support to Diane's idea that this plant was used to dye fabrics. Some of the roots even look like they end in fringes like some kind of scarf or carpet.
I haven't been able to find any plant like that yet though.
...

There is a species of amaranth that is called elephant-head. It's the flower spike that is elephant-like (not the leaves) but that doesn't matter if a mnemonic is enough to identify the plant. It is, however, a South American species but there are many amaranths all over the world so possibly another species also has this distinctive characteristic.

If you look very closely at lousewort (Pedicularis), you will see that the each flower looks very much like an elephant head. The leaves are not broad, they are frondy (odd pinnate) and probably not the VMS plant, but I thought I would mention it because of the striking resemblance to elephant heads and trunks.

Elephant garlic (which is actually a form of leek) has big fat heads, larger than most plants in the onion family, but as with other onions, the roots are bulbs rather than long tendrils.

There is also a palm called an elephant palm that has big fanned-out fronds like a grouse's tail. I haven't located a picture of the roots. It's native to Thailand.


So... none of those score super high in probable IDs, but there are a couple that are of special interest...


1. There is a species of Kalanchoe (Kalanchoe beharensis) called elephant's ear with deeply lacerated leaves which, when viewed from the side, curl under like an elephant's head with the long tips curling even farther like the end of an elephant's trunk. Increasing the resemblance even further, the upper outer tips of the leaves curl down like elephant's ears. Kalanchoe plants with this form of leaf are found mostly in Africa and Madagascar. The roots are usually moderately long and stringy. They are quite variable. Only some of them (east Africa) look like elephant's ears. I'm not aware of medicinal or pigment uses for this particular species and it may not have been known in continental Africa (although it was certainly within reach of ships), but it occurred to me that the blue fibrous-looking roots in the VMS could also look like river tributaries/water ways.


[Edit: added picture. Elephant Ear is also the size of an elephant, growing up to 12 feet in height. Photo credit: plantoftheweek.org]

2. Bergenia is a common northern plant called elephant ears. It has long stringy roots and, like the VMS plant, has a distinctly serrated leaf margin. Like an elephant's ears, the leaves are leathery. Some species are used medicinally or as pigment sources.

Looking at some of these suggestions, I am tempted to reconsider Searcher's suggestion of a Colocasia species. The tall, green stem, large leaf, appearance of wavy edges... It's a pretty good match.

One thing about the common taro, Colocasia esculenta, is that its leaf's edges stand up instead of hanging down. Also, I would expect a more obvious bulbous element in the roots, since that is its most valued part.

Looking at related species, however, the giant elephant leaf, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. can have floppy leaves, and it is apparently still used as a source of fibres. Acoording to the Wiki, it is also used as an impromptu umbrella, which might explain the water flow in the roots.

On the image below, also note how in the VM leaf, faint parallel vertical lines are visible, which match the lines in the plant leaf very well.

Koen and all,

I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to see the difference between reception here when theme of mnemonics was introduced, to that which met my efforts to begin a similar discussion on the old mailing list after having repeatedly noted and explained the  presence of such items  in botanical folios in Beinecke Ms 408.  That effort, and the research which led to it, lasted from  2010-2015, without response.

Only with the establishment of Voynich.ninja has this topic at last been engaged - which is not to say it may not have been, meanwhile,  adopted and re-presented without acknowledgement of my own work.

I think we owe  special thanks to Koen for having brought the theme forward here, and to everyone else for the transparent and enthusiastic style of engagement.

Since I've been writing about this matter in every analysis of a botanical folio written up since 2010, I feel there's little point in joining in this thread now only to repeat it all.

I will say one thing: the way in which the Latin manuscripts and herbals relate the plant to the mnemonic is by reference to the language of Latin; the way in which the mnemonics or 'pictorial annotations' work in the Voynich botanical folios (I'm not speaking of the 'root and leaf' section) is very rarely by reference to names for plants, nor by reference to Latin (one of the very few exceptions is the little dragon on f.25v). 

This, as well as stylistic considerations and more, lead to  conclude that there is a very substantial difference in character and mind-set informing the Voynich botanical series than informs the Latins "herbs of the alchemists".

I do not doubt some more remote point in common, but I believe it would be a mistake to suppose too close a connection between them.

Postscript: perhaps I should add that I have identified, described and classified the set of root mnemonics (or 'pictorial devices') employed in the botanical section. This work was done and published before 2014 and will be included in the forthcoming book.

Diane - did you ever come up with a possible identification for this plant? You may have mentioned before but I forgot.

_____

About the linguistic side of things: if the single word between the trunk and the rightmost root is the label, it starts with the K-gallow, which, in my analyses of the small plant labels corresponds to consonants pronounced in the back of the mouth: k or g (and rarely the fricative "x"). The second letter is definitely a vowel, often corresponds to "a".

Now there is one group of languages where the word for elephant starts with "ga". Interestingly, the "ga"-elephant word overlaps well with the range of these plants. The word for elephant is gaja or gajah in many Indian languages, Indonesia, Malaysia, Java... This opens up the possibility that the whole label does indeed read something like "elephant leaf" or "elephant plant" in the local language.

Koen,
I'm under certain restraints, due to obligations to the publisher, so may not reproduce the detailed discussion of that detail.

I thought, though, that some background notes might be interesting for you; they were published as a sort of introduction to the more detailed matter.  Links omitted, sorry - no time just now to check them.
______

FINDINGS: Nov.12th., 2011

fol 99v: detail, lower right, Alocasia [-esculenta' -odora; -gageana?].
[pic]

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Alocasia spp.

Dana Scot mentioned yonks ago that the plant shown lower right on fol. 99v has a leaf resembling the form of an elephant. (I haven't seen the original post, but I'd guess he also referred to an Alocasia or 'elephant-ear' plant.

Independently, and very recently, 'Don' [Hoffmann] suggested the same.

At first I thought leaf-margins of this sort were only on Alocasia gageana but that isn't so!

See this picture of -esclulenta.  The associated article explains why some sources call the same plant Colocasia esculenta.

This page claims that today "Colocasia esculenta is the 14th most widely consumed vegetable on earth".

This page lists -macrohrizzos as a medicinal plant.
The same page gives its name in numerous original languages.

In western countries, Alocasias are known best as ornamental only.

 This page has a good picture of Alocasia gageana, just fyi. It's also known as the 'dwarf elephant ear'.

Caution with pics: If you are using Guglypics remember many may be modern hybrids. Lots about.

When I get back to the de' Conti saga, I'll shift this post back a ways. Enjoy.


Addition - 19th Nov 2011:

As the wiki article says (repeated endlessly in other web-sources) one needed go no further than the eastern side of the Mediterranean to see these plants.

Very interesting - there seems to be quite some agreement on it being an Alocasia then. My preference is macrohrizzos variety, though others might turn out the be better.

Yes, as I understand, any secie of Colocasia or Alocasia could be under the alternative name "Elephant ears", but, probably, in the first place, edible (as Alocasia macrohrizzos) and curative species must be considered. 

Unfortunately, I don't know, who firstly suggested this interpretation, but I like it. I hope to be openminded and belive that Persian name "Gush-e fil" (Elephant's ear) existed for a long time. It would be great, if someone could find more detailed information about this in Arabic or another sources.