Compound plants in the VMS ?

[RenegadeHealer]

It is very likely that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is the actual first plant, but its ID is far from agreed upon. The water lily is f2v. Apparently You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is also accepted as knapweed, so there might be some initial clustering going on.

Whoops, you're right, Koen. I stand corrected.

From what Wladimir Dulov has taught me about medieval parchment and codex construction, it's very much within the realm of possibility that any given quire was originally an octavo, cut from a single cow skin, four pages wide and two pages high. If this was indeed the case for Q1, then one side of the uncut parchment would look like this:

f3r  |  f6v  |  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  |  f2v
---------------------------
f4v  |  f5r  |  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  |  f1r

And the flip side would look like this:

f2r  |  f7v  |  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  |  f3v
---------------------------
f1v  |  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  |  You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.  |  f4r

Unfolded, the upper row of each side would look upside down, and the bottom row right side up. After each side of the octavo was drawn, it could be folded in half once the long way, then twice in half the short way. The creases represented by red lines in my diagram would be stacked and sewn together, while the creases represented by black lines would be cut.

If this is indeed how Q1 was made, then I can't help but noticing f2v, the "water lily"i would be right above the first page f1r. If the uncut parchment sheet were laid out on a table, the scribe could have been writing the introductory page while the illustrator sat directly across from him drawing the water lily.

Repeating this whole reverse engineering process for Q2, I think you'll find that two of the other highly likely identifications (viola on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and marijuana on f16r) would be right next to each other on the same bifolio. Further research is necessary, but it looks quite possible to me that the plant drawings with the most verisimilitude do indeed cluster at the beginning of Herbal A.