31-12-2018, 04:05 AM
I think the climbing plant on the oak could be a form of ivy (using "ivy" in the general sense for twining/climbing plants).
It might be Bryonia, a common ivy that loses its leaves in winter, but keeps the berries. It might be a sneaky Hedera or Vitus, deliberately drawn without leaves to obfuscate the identity of the plant. I don't think its hops—hop fruits look more like cones than berries. There are other twining plants that have berries (I have a list in my files) but they are not as common.
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Koen, you have a talent for zeroing in on important questions. Whenever you start a thread like this, it's always a topic where I think to myself, "Oog, do I want to give away all the years of research I've done on this?"
But... to answer the question off the top of my head, I think the water lily, knapweed, tragopogon (65v), cannabis, cuscuta (49r), castor oil (6v), althaea, Rumex acetosella (17v), thyme and portulaca, spigelia (15v), calendula or mountain aster (18r), cherry or salvia (25r), malva (18v), telephinium (26r), Prunella (32r), bellis perennis/primula vera (87v), Phu (90r), and viola plants are intended to be naturalistic and are reasonably accurately drawn.
There are quite a few more plants that I think belong in this category (including many of the small plants), but others often disagree vigorously with my IDs, so I'll leave them off the list for now (I started listing them, but it's quite a long list, so I decided to nuke the more controversial ones)...
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I will post two examples of where the distinction between stylized and naturalistic is difficult to determine... In medieval herbals, various forms of heliotrope are sometimes depicted with spiraling leaves, and this is one way to interpret f52v, but it is also a reasonably good match for ostrich fern, so... is it stylized or is it naturalistic? I'm leaning toward naturalistic because of the way the top is drawn (like a fern fiddle-head) and because it doesn't quite follow the same model as in other herbals (the similarity may be coincidental), but I'm not sure...
![[Image: OstrichFern.png]](https://voynichportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/OstrichFern.png)
Here too, in f89v, the leaves look a bit like insects and the globes are exaggerated, but there is a moss that actually looks like this, with big round glossy spore capsules, so is it a stylized or mnemonic drawing, or is it naturalistic?
![[Image: Moss.png]](https://voynichportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Moss.png)
It might be Bryonia, a common ivy that loses its leaves in winter, but keeps the berries. It might be a sneaky Hedera or Vitus, deliberately drawn without leaves to obfuscate the identity of the plant. I don't think its hops—hop fruits look more like cones than berries. There are other twining plants that have berries (I have a list in my files) but they are not as common.
.
Koen, you have a talent for zeroing in on important questions. Whenever you start a thread like this, it's always a topic where I think to myself, "Oog, do I want to give away all the years of research I've done on this?"
But... to answer the question off the top of my head, I think the water lily, knapweed, tragopogon (65v), cannabis, cuscuta (49r), castor oil (6v), althaea, Rumex acetosella (17v), thyme and portulaca, spigelia (15v), calendula or mountain aster (18r), cherry or salvia (25r), malva (18v), telephinium (26r), Prunella (32r), bellis perennis/primula vera (87v), Phu (90r), and viola plants are intended to be naturalistic and are reasonably accurately drawn.
There are quite a few more plants that I think belong in this category (including many of the small plants), but others often disagree vigorously with my IDs, so I'll leave them off the list for now (I started listing them, but it's quite a long list, so I decided to nuke the more controversial ones)...
.
I will post two examples of where the distinction between stylized and naturalistic is difficult to determine... In medieval herbals, various forms of heliotrope are sometimes depicted with spiraling leaves, and this is one way to interpret f52v, but it is also a reasonably good match for ostrich fern, so... is it stylized or is it naturalistic? I'm leaning toward naturalistic because of the way the top is drawn (like a fern fiddle-head) and because it doesn't quite follow the same model as in other herbals (the similarity may be coincidental), but I'm not sure...
Here too, in f89v, the leaves look a bit like insects and the globes are exaggerated, but there is a moss that actually looks like this, with big round glossy spore capsules, so is it a stylized or mnemonic drawing, or is it naturalistic?