[Other] The Voynich Garden

[merrimacga]

Anyone can input to the table by making a proposed identification or (if registering themselves) they can vote or add comments.

The data you currently see at this time is mostly that which has been preloaded in order to present all the past proposals by Voynich researchers back to E. Voynich. We've collected this data from several sources, including but not limited to, Rene's website. 

We are continuing to collect more and to refine and correct that already loaded.

First, I love this project. I think it may really help with getting a consensus on VM plant identification. I'm wondering though if someone else has tried something like this before (i.e. a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for VM plants, and, no, I checked and they don't have one). I know others besides Rene have compiled tables of plant IDs, probably overlapping each other. I'll look for some and post them in this thread as I find them again, just in case.

I do have a suggestion to improve the data you collect. Instead of one vote agree or disagree each plant, could you make that an overall agree/disagree match and then add additional criteria that can also be voted agree/disagree? That is to say, when I look at one of the VM plants, I gauge how much of a match it is:

• Does the VM plant appear to be one plant or two separate ones (if two separate, each plant should be considered separately but there is a lot of debate as to whether any VM plant images might be two plants instead of one)?
  
• Does the VM plant appear to be a tree, a vine, a moss, a fern, a flowering plant (I'm probably missing a few aspects in this list)?
  
• What kind of root system does the VM plant appear to have?
  
• If the VM plant is flowering, what are the aspects of the flowers (cluster/no cluster, point up or down, type of petals, type of receptacle; I consider color but I also consider colors in the VM plants to be suspect and not a good aspect or at least a lesser important one for matching)?
  
• What shape are the leaves in the VM plant?
  
• What are the leaf edges like in the VM plant?
  

Almost invariably, any plant I try to match to a VM plant will match to at least some degree on certain aspects and not so much or not at all on others. So whether I truly believe a plant is a potential match (I'm never 100% certain) is always highly dependent on how much of a match it is in each of the above aspects with certain aspects being less important, if even applicable, than others depending on the VM plant's appearance. I think this is an important consideration for any consensus rather than just a simple overall agree/disagree.

Another suggestion I have is to include more data on each plant and to consider extinct plants as well as extant. When did it enter the taxa (that is, earliest entry, even if under a previous or alternative name)? Where was it first discovered and where would it have been considered native and where introduced in the Middle Ages or the Renaissance? What environment does it thrive in? Was it a commodity and if so how rare or common? Often I find a proposed plant is not enough of a match to consider further but it is enough of a match that there could be a potential plant match, extinct or extant, in the same family or genus worth exploring and considering. I'm a big fan of cross-referencing proposed plants with the academic, professional and amateur botanical sites (click You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. for a list I put together in another thread), as well as Wikipedia and also other herbal manuscripts. Including some of this data for each proposed plant will help inform and validate opinions and votes, instead of encouraging snap judgments that might be based more on a picture than a description or a feeling rather than scientific data. Voters don't have to be botanists but they should give careful consideration.

Just a few thoughts I had. I'm looking forward to helping out with this project.