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+--- Thread: f34v (/thread-2038.html)
f34v - Koen G - 07-08-2017
I'd like to offer a possible explanation for at least part of this folio. The story goes as follows:
Over at the comments on my blog, Rene was talking about weasels. My mind kind of drifted off at this point, and I ended up wondering which funny stories medieval bestiaries would tell about the weasel. It appears that one of the things weasels do is conceive through their mouths and give birth through their ears. According to You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., Isidore wrote about this behavior but added that these claims are false, which implies that he is not the origin of this tale.
A graphic representation of two weasels mating in this fashion is a marginal drawing in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (England, 1310-1320). The weasels have clearly different body lengths, which makes them a fine parallel for the zoomorphic root of our plant:
Now I would have let this slide if it weren't for one thing: the root animals' genital appendages are intertwined. Which is mating-but-not-really-mating while joining their heads.
So the animals might be mating weasels.
Next, which plants are associated with weasels?
Pliny mentions the herb rue, but in my opinion this does not look like the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. plant at all.
But there was something else. I remember that when we were discussing the enigmatic Trinity herbal, I saw a plant with an anecdote about birds and weasels: sticados citrinum. Marco kindly translated the passage as follows:
Some call it "herb of the birds" because a certain bird puts some of this herb in its nest. Similarly, also the weasel does the same in its nest, because the weasel and that bird know | its [of the plant] virtue.
Again, the image does not look much like the VM plant (see You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. f.74r).
But, and now I get to the point, sticados apparently means lavender. This does not explain the VM plant's round leaves at all, but strangely it does explain the flowers - remember that the VM does not utilize a lavender-like color.
Image top right credited as: Lo sticados, dal codice “Historia Plantarum”, fine XIV secolo
Bottom: Lavandula stoechas
So if there is a link with weasels and lavender here (and that's a big if), then it would mean that the plant image is composite... any ideas?
RE: f34v - Anton - 07-08-2017
Could not find anything related to Wiesel/Wessel in Pritzel.
As for lavender, likewise its occurrence in Pritzel does not boast any clues.
But, according to our previous findings, it was usually leaves that gave us clues as to the plants names, while the essense of the roots mnemonics remains vague.
What do the leaves of this plant look like? I'm at a loss. Some quite generic circular shapes. I can't but think of a hockey puck
RE: f34v - -JKP- - 07-08-2017
The community might go "huh?" when they see my ID for Plant 34v because it's completely different from previous suggestions, which include Sempervivum tectorum, Libanotis umbilifera (Theo Petersen), Lunaria (Sherwood), Arctium lappa, Eryngium, Ficus carica (O'Donnell), Nardostachys jatamansi (Voynich Adventures), etc.—but I have good reasons for putting it on my list of possible IDs. I think asparagus should be considered...
- Asparagus has two forms, one that is the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., the part we eat, and the ferny form that has an abundance of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (on spreading branches) that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. as they ripen. The berries weigh down the branches and they are more horizontal in the fall.
- Asparagus spreads by extensive systems of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and has a stringy coarse texture at the base of the stalks, somewhat like the VMS drawing.
- Asparagus has bell-like white or yellow flowers.
It occurred to me that the round clam-like forms (which are reminiscent of Venus flytrap except for the way they are lined up along the branches) might be drawn with hatched lines to indicate roundness, and the intimate portrait of mating roots might refer to the fact that asparagus is dioecious with male and female forms growing in close vicinity.
The flowers vary, depending on the species—some are bell-like, others star-like. Asparagus was considered both a medicinal plant and a food in the middle ages.
The VMS plant matches quite well in terms of the roots (both physically and mnemonically), the base of the stalk, the berries (if they are intended to be berries) and, to some extent, the flowers (depending on the species).
![[Image: 250px-Illustration_Asparagus_officinalis0b.jpg]](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0c/Illustration_Asparagus_officinalis0b.jpg/250px-Illustration_Asparagus_officinalis0b.jpg)
![[Image: asparagus-berries-wiki.jpg]](https://honest-food.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/asparagus-berries-wiki.jpg)
RE: f34v - Helmut Winkler - 08-08-2017
The idea of composite plants (leaves from one plant, flowers from another) seems very strange to me. I rather think of hybrides, in this case something like lavandin
RE: f34v - -JKP- - 08-08-2017
So many of the plant IDs I've seen on blogs are people jumping to conclusions by choosing one part of a plant they recognize and then assuming the other parts are "wrong" or from a different plant. It's even been said, over and over, that they look like different plants pasted together.
One example is the "water lily" at the beginning of the VMS. It has nuphar/nymphaea leaves and a flower that is obviously not from the typical lotus-shaped water lilies, so... I see people explaining this anomaly by saying it is a flower from another plant (or by ignoring the flower altogether). But it's not necessary to come up with such an explanation when there ARE real plants that look like this, they are just less well-known, like the villarsia/menyanthes species. They have this kind of rhizome, this kind of leaf, AND this kind of flower.
As for plant 34v, it's not quite as naturalistic a drawing as some, so I'm not quite as certain about this one as some of the others, but IF those red and green knobs are berries, then it's not a bad way to get across the idea of asparagus, including the berries that are spaced out along the stalks, first green, then red, exactly the right kind of roots, the right kind of coarse base at the stalk, and (depending on the species), the right kind of flowers AND the fact that it is a male/female plant with separate stalks for the sexes could easily inspire an imaginative illustrator to draw "mating" intertwined roots.
There's no need to think of the water lily as a composite plant or even a hybrid plant and there's no need to think of 34v as a composite plant or a hybrid plant. There are plants that fit without having to mix and match parts from different plants.
RE: f34v - Anton - 08-08-2017
(08-08-2017, 09:08 AM)Helmut Winkler Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The idea of composite plants (leaves from one plant, flowers from another) seems very strange to me.
In the pharma section, there are composite plants - composed of elements of different plants of botanical section. In the botanical section, however, I'd careful about assuming composite plants.
RE: f34v - VViews - 08-08-2017
Apologies as this may be veering into OT territory, but regarding the strangeness/plausibility of composites, let's not forget the oak&ivy situation in other manuscripts which has been discussed on the forum.
This sort of thing did happen, although it may not be a frequent phenomenon.
RE: f34v - Anton - 08-08-2017
It occurred to me that the circular leaves resemble coins. I checked for Muenze, Nickel and Geld- in Pritzel; there is quite a number of occurrences, but I failed to locate a good match at a glance. "Muenze" is primarily associated with mint, and the plant does not look like mint at all.
In one English book the name "weasel-snout" is recorded for galeobdolon luteum, but this looks like galeobdolon neither.
RE: f34v - Koen G - 08-08-2017
Latin for weasel is mustela, might there be a plant which sounds like that?
The first thing that comes to mind is nutmeg, which in many languages has a "muscat" root. About the etymology, I'll link to the wonderful spice page by Gernot Katzer: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
"In many European countries, the name of nutmeg derives from Latin nux muscatus "musky nut; moschate nut" [...] The term musk refers to an aroma obtained, since antiquity, from the musk deer, a dog-sized animal native to the Himalayas."
mustela
muscatus
![[Image: image001.jpg]](http://www.srilankanspices.com/download/spices/Nutmeg_files/image001.jpg)
![[Image: 339fb1a3d3b4dfe120db4c090608aad2.jpg]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-b2HqZmW-TuI/TlH5uyQcw_I/AAAAAAAAAAU/kKmsv_Zupkg/s300/339fb1a3d3b4dfe120db4c090608aad2.jpg)
RE: f34v - Oocephalus - 08-08-2017
Since Pritzel has been mentioned (and I was the one who originally pointed to that book here in the forum), I should mention that I've now looked at Marzell's five-volume "Wörterbuch der deutschen Pflanzennamen", which Helmut Winkler recommended in another thread. Unfortunately, the preface of that book states that Pritzel's book is full of mistakes, and cannot be used as a reliable reference. This may be because it was edited posthumously, and the editor (Jessen) may have mixed up some notes. So I wouldn't trust anything in Pritzel's book unless it is confirmed by another source. Fortunately, the university library here has Marzell's book, I'll look if I can find anything relevant next time I'm there.