[split] f2v plant ID

[ReneZ]

The plant drawing that triggered this discussion, in the Auslasser herbal, is definitely the plant known as Nymphaea (Greek) or Nenuphar (Arabic), i.e. a waterlily.
However, it seems that the drawing looks more like a different plant, as described by JKP in the original thread.

From this, we should conclude that 'looks most like X' is not a sufficient criterium to identify herb drawings in medieval herbals. This is also what has been stated by herbalists many times. As I was looking for the Toresella quote in the 'humanist hand' thread, I again ran into this contribution from Jim Reeds, 19 Feb 1996 (old Voynich mailing list):

It is tremendously difficult to learn anything from the pictures in medieval herbals.  There is debateamong the herbalologists about the actual utility of the pictures.  

John Riddle, Sergio Toresella, and my wife (whom I take to be the heavy hitters in the field) all have somewhat different takes.  My impression is that you sometimes have to regard the whole thing as a specialized kind of iconography: just as we can study the relationship between  different pictures of St Jerome (say) in medieval painting, and can form an impression of what he looks like (large square forehead, balding, red hat, accompanied by a pet lion) while knowing that the actual person might have looked completely different, so we study the plant pictures in herbals, noting similarities between the pictures (which sometimes agree with the written text, and sometimes not) even though the actual plant might look quite different.

With that, even if the plant on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. doesn't look like a waterlily in all respects, it could still be one.