[Trinity] General discussion of Trinity College MS O.2.48 Apuleii Herbarium

[Koen G]

Berbers, of course. That makes 52

I can only offer a very rough estimation of the amount of plants with European place names. I'd say it's another 10 percent. A similar amount has no phrase at all, or is damaged or otherwise illegible.

That would leave 70 percent, definitely the vast majority, with only an indication of the type of terrain. The terrain types are varied and appear very accurate. Vines are said to grow on trees or walls, plants which grow in the shade often have darker leaves and so on. I really got the impression that the origin part was well informed, despite the confusing plant names.

I was surprised at the amounts of plants that grow on high mountains. Lots of climbing for herb collectors. There were also some words I was unable to read, though these were usually preceded by something like 'loci'.and looked like indications of terrain types. A common abbreviation was also "ub" which I took to mean "everywhere".

Daine: note that both the words Ethiopia and Tartar appear in the section before the one I studied. The final plant section, which is the largest, always gives the name, the Greek name and the Hebrew name. 

Something else I noticed is that the names of the plants in this section generally vary wildly between the three languages. This while the names of exotic plants tend to be similar because they are passed from one region to the next and people adopt the name from the other language...