Morten St George Theory

[-JKP-]

Literally every part of that is wrong, even the roots. The sunflower you show has a central tap root with other roots attached. The VM plant has several equal roots all attached to the stem.

Those minor discrepancies can be attributable to an artist drawing the sunflower from memory rather than having it in front of him at the time of drawing. The fact remains that the inner flower of this single-flower plant, its stem, leaves, and root (as seen on f93r) all resemble those of the sunflower whereas the multiple flowers and crazy roots seen on the other hundred or so plants depicted in the VMS generally do not resemble the sunflower even remotely. This strongly suggests that the VMS artist did in fact see a real sunflower at some point in his or her life.

This demonstrates that you have not studied the VMS plants. One of the things the illustrator DID care about was leaf arrangement and even the margins of the leaves. Plants without serrations on the leaves are drawn correctly. Plants with serrations on the leaves are drawn correctly and even the SHAPE of the serrations is sometimes drawn in detail if it is relevant to the ID of the plant.

It's very easy to dismiss the way it's drawn, but these plant drawings are very measured, they are not haphazard even if they may seem strange in some ways. Some aspects of them are carefully observed and drawn and unless you study ALL of them in context, you are not likely to be aware of this. I already knew quite a few things about plants before I met the VMS, and yet I spent MONTHS studying the plant drawings before I made any attempts at ID because I wanted to know WHAT WAS IMPORTANT to the illustrator and what was not instead of guessing (as you are) which minor details might be wrong.

As I said before THERE ARE OTHER PLANTS THAT LOOK LIKE SUNFLOWERS in the Old World, depending on how you treat scale. You probably can't name a single one. Learn about plants before you accept at face value that it has to be a sunflower.

This is an Old World plant and it is not a sunflower:

   

Notice how the "fringe" around the outer edge of the flowerhead is finer textured than the triangular bracts of the sunflower. It's closer to the VMS drawing than the edge of a New World sunflower. If there are Old World plants that resemble the drawing more closely than a sunflower (along with many of the other New World plant IDs that have been offered), it greatly weakens the argument for a New World origin.