30-08-2020, 05:43 AM
I know nothing about plants but a little about medieval memory techniques, and wonder if you have considered the colour gold on the plants as part of your mnemonics. My own suspicion is that this is a medieval magic teaching text making heavy use of the Law of Correspondences and signatura rerum, and thus the plants were likely copied from somewhere (already almost unidentifiable) as types, and then manipulated stylistically (or with additional images) to enhance their correspondences as well as the student's memory. Alchemists and even medical practitioners naturally would highlight areas of the plant they might think contained the prima materia for long or universal life with gold both as a teaching technique but also I would suggest as a mnemonic technique. Not all of them will have gold on them but I bet the ones that do is not so much following realistic coloring as identifying important areas of the plant.