22-02-2017, 10:06 PM
I'd be disinclined to identify this as basil. The illustrator who drew some of the other naturalistic plants (and I think this is one of them) was quite careful with leaf proportions, shapes, margins, and veins.
This plant has a completely different leaf from basil—they are much longer. and narrower than basil. It has different veins—they are parallel. It has a leaf whorl— basil doesn't have a leaf whorl, it has leaves growing all the way up the stem. In other words, it doesn't look like basil in any way. There are several plants common to medieval usage that match the VMS plant in all respects.
Even with the dragon, it's hard to make an argument for basil when there are other plants in the manuscript that resemble basil more closely and several plants that resemble the VMS plant much more closely than basil. If it's basil, then the plant is deliberately drawn to not look like basil and the identification is based only on the dragon (basilisk). I suppose that's possible, but doesn't seem to be the general pattern with the rest of the plants.
This plant has a completely different leaf from basil—they are much longer. and narrower than basil. It has different veins—they are parallel. It has a leaf whorl— basil doesn't have a leaf whorl, it has leaves growing all the way up the stem. In other words, it doesn't look like basil in any way. There are several plants common to medieval usage that match the VMS plant in all respects.
Even with the dragon, it's hard to make an argument for basil when there are other plants in the manuscript that resemble basil more closely and several plants that resemble the VMS plant much more closely than basil. If it's basil, then the plant is deliberately drawn to not look like basil and the identification is based only on the dragon (basilisk). I suppose that's possible, but doesn't seem to be the general pattern with the rest of the plants.