06-12-2018, 01:47 PM
(06-12-2018, 02:59 AM)-JKP- wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.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.
If the VMS artists are so precise in their depictions, as you indicate, why does Wikipedia, on referring to the 112 plant folios, say "None of the plants depicted are unambiguously identifiable." I think you should write to Wikipedia and tell them to remove that statement because you have identified the VMS plants as ordinary plants growing in Europe during the 15th century.
I initially viewed the VMS plants as the product of European migrants to the New World wanting to catalog the mysterious plants they encountered. I no longer think that. I now view the VMS as a missionaries' handbook, whereupon the pretty fantasy plants are displayed to attract the attention of potential converts while the missionary talks about his religion of love. Thus, I see no reason to make an issue out of the sunflower.