Morten St George Theory

[Morten St. George]

The various millets etc in the Tacuina remain the best sunflowerbusters in my opinion. Confronted with these images, so influential and close in time to the VM's creation, I don't see how anyone, botanist or otherwise, could still hold on to New World claims based on the supposed sunflower.

At first glance, the VMS looks like an effort to catalog and describe plants found in the tropics. A closer inspection, however, reveals otherwise. Some of the plants depicted in the VMS are so absurd that they might not even be evolutionary possible, as would be the case, for example, with an ape having three eyes.

Many of the depicted plants combine parts drawn from different real plants, e.g., the roots of one plant are joined with the stalk and leaves of another and then its flower is drawn from still another plant. And, of course, some of the plant parts are purely imaginary.

Overall, plant parts match more frequently with plants found in the Americas than in Europe if for no other reason that there are more plants species in the Americas than in Europe. Efforts by Linda and JP to draw Africa and Asia into the picture do not impress me as there seems to be little evidence of widespread European settlements in Africa and Asia during medieval times.

I find that the turkie corne of 1597, which I compared with the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. plant, was revised for the 1633 edition where it no longer resembles the VMS plant so strongly:



I cannot rule out the possibility that the 1597 depiction was modified (giving it seven curved leaves) to match the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. plant: the fritillary flower in the poet laureate's right hand seems to provide a decoding clue via the marginalia on f17r, so it is logical to assume that the ear of sweetcorn in his left hand should also have some significance.