(07-03-2016, 09:22 PM)Oocephalus wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The root in You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. looks to me like two male animals (stallions?) with their penises intertwined. Maybe a coded reference to homosexuality? Or perhaps not; the hole in that page, which seems to have been intentionally created, has reminded You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of female genitalia.
I think that interpretation is as good as any, at this point. Four legs, two tails, penises in the right location, and a hole in the page could certainly be interpreted as "the female principle", as it has sometimes been called.
Gnarly roots inherently seem to suggest familiar shapes (mandrake roots often do look like people, just as some ferns do actually look like upside-down sheep) and it was pretty common for medieval herbals and medieval imagery in general to include explicit or implicit double meanings, especially considering many people couldn't read and imagery was the primary form of communication next to speech. Even ecclesiastical imagery had some pretty amazing (explicit, gory, you-name-it) stuff that you would never find in contemporary religious imagery.