f13r - banana?

[ReneZ]

This discussion is not new, and thanks to VViews for the older references.

However, I remember other discussions, which I thought were here on voynich.ninja, but a search for 'musa' did not bring them up.

For one thing, the banana plant was not unknown in late medieval Europe.

It can also be found in some copies of the family of herbals known as 'Tractatus de Herbis', with the name 'Musa', for example the 14th C Paris BN Lat 6823, on foll.105v, in Masson 116 on p.238 (I don't have a copy of that), in Sloane 4016 on fol. 63r and in several later ones.
These illustrations do not look like that in the Voynich MS.

That, of course, still leaves open several possibilities.

I found that the group of flowers on top of the illustration of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. looks remarkably like the very first beginnings of the banana fruit (of course if you leave out the very conspicuous purple flower). However, this is also something one might call the typical style of the Voynich MS illustrator, and is found back in other drawings, e.g. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .