Plants and labels in pharma section

[Diane]

Anton,
Although I realise that most people are happy to see the plants as forming a medicinal herbal, my conclusions were that many of the plants (or groups) shown were not ones being used in manufacture - in which I include medicines, dyes, perfumes and all that sort of thing - but were materials intended to maintain the men and the modes of transport  used in the east-west trade.

Several, as I concluded after analysing the imagery, were plants chiefly used for food, ropes, timber and subsidiary needs (e.g. the lufffa, which I think I identified before Sherwood did, but I may be mistaken) was chiefly used as a sort of carpenter's sandpaper, and the hemp-plant chiefly for its fibre, even in Europe. The hallucinogenic sort was chiefly grown in north Africa, and even in Europe the chief reasons for cultivating hemp in the middle ages was for its use as ship's rope and caulking.

But this sort of distinction between plants which were intended for processing into dyes, medicines, perfumes, incense and whathaveyou, and those which were meant to be consumed en route (food, ship-maintenance etc.) might explain why so many of the labels in the botanical section do not occur in the 'roots and leaves' section.

Just a thought.