[split] f25v little dragon parallels

[Sam G]

Sam: I had never thought of it as a sea horse, but they do surely share some features. I've always thought of it as a relatively late addition (i.e. outside of the plant proper) and comparable to a dragon of this "model": You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

Yeah, that's kind of what I thought too, since there are dragons accompanying plants in the alchemical herbals.  But it's hard to see the VMS "dragon" as being derived from any of those.  Here are all the dragons from the alchemical herbal that Marco posted a while back:


Maybe it's more likely that whoever made the original alchemical herbal saw a manuscript related to the VMS, and replaced the VMS creature with a more conventional dragon.

I can see what JKP is getting at with the giraffe head and turtle shell idea.  It certainly looks like it combines elements of at least two different animals.  But I still think the head looks closest to that of a seahorse (which may or may not be coincidental).