08-04-2017, 09:33 AM
The point I'm trying to make is not that there may be one or two trees.
The point is that if the VM represents trees like one of their twigs, there may be dozens of trees in the manuscript. If this is the case, it should have a profound impact on our ability to understand the VM plants, since we know that some of them may be little branches or twigs rather than herbs.
This is not just baseless speculation. My first impulse was to see the "oak" in the manuscript as a very badly drawn tree. But when I researched how oak leaves are arranged on the twigs, I noticed that the VM shows his pattern well: alternate leaf arrangement and clustered terminal buds.
The point is that if the VM represents trees like one of their twigs, there may be dozens of trees in the manuscript. If this is the case, it should have a profound impact on our ability to understand the VM plants, since we know that some of them may be little branches or twigs rather than herbs.
This is not just baseless speculation. My first impulse was to see the "oak" in the manuscript as a very badly drawn tree. But when I researched how oak leaves are arranged on the twigs, I noticed that the VM shows his pattern well: alternate leaf arrangement and clustered terminal buds.