f5r

[-JKP-]

I'm not a friend of botany, but as I understand the matter, Trientalis is quite close in appearance to "modern" Lysimachia, so some botanists even today prefer to account it to Lysimachia species. So in the past there may have been confusion between the two. If the VMS author's intention was to depict Trientalis but he knew it under the name of Lysimachia or simply did not separate between the two, he might have consulted Pliny for Lysimachia and borrow from there the mnemonics of lion claws, and also the "purple" color which (as the commenters to Pliny suggest) is just a mistake by Pliny.


Actually, the best tiebreaker here would be to check whether we can find a "real" Lysimachia in the VMS. If we can, then this alleged Trientalis cannot go under the name of "Lysimachia", and we'll need to look for other meanings of its mnemonics.

If you took Paris or Trientalis and changed the flowers to yellow and then stacked ten of them on top of each other on a long stalk, the plant would look like You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (which is a North American species). It even has a berry-like fruit (although the calyx curls up rather than down).

I can't take time right now (lunch break over) to look up whether I have any VMS plants identified as Lysimachia. Gotta run.