(06-12-2018, 01:47 PM)Morten St. George wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(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.
A lot of the info on Wikipedia has been copied off of Voynich researchers' blogs. Some blogs are better than others. Their opinions are the same as everyone else's... opinions.
The sunflower is an issue because certain researchers made it in issue.
From the Purdue University news site:
"Illustrations of the sunflower and armadillo are viewed by the authors [Janick and Tucker] as hard proof of a post-Columbian manuscript."
In support of their New World theory, Janick stated: '“Simply put, there is no way a manuscript written on vellum that contains a sunflower and an armadillo could have been written before 1492.”
Unfortunately, there is not much support for his idea that the plant and animal are unequivocably a sunflower and an armadillo. Most people familiar with armadillos think the animal looks more like a pangolin (plus there are other possible interpretations) and those who know plants know that sunflower is not the only possible identification.