Compound plants in the VMS ?

[bi3mw]

One could interpret these drawings as being a clever combination of roots from one plant and leaves from another to communicate a particular message.

If one breaks down the individual plants into their components ( root, stem, leaf and flower ) and sees each of these parts as an independent "unit", then your assumption is quite justified. The repeated combination of plant parts to (imaginary) plants would then possibly be the consequence.

Perhaps also the "Doctrine of signatures" plays a certain role.

Here is an example from Giambattista della Porta' s "Phytognomonica". This is of course much too late for the VMS, but Paracelcus, for example, had the same theesis for the representation of plants ( and he was probably not the first ). Della Porta illustrated this very clearly. One can see what it's all about.

Wikipedia:

The doctrine of signatures was already widely used in antiquity and was already widespread in a prototypical form as a way of thinking in the late Middle Ages, but in its concrete written formulation in Europe it goes back to Paracelsus and the Neapolitan physician and alchemist Giambattista della Porta (1538-1615).

   

Giambattista della Porta, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. , 1588, page 163