Comparison of the structure of plants in the VMS and other medieval Manuscripts.

[MarcoP]

 The Trento herbal also features strange animals as roots. Is the manuscript as a whole available online somewhere?

Hi Bernd,
unluckily, the Trento Herbal is not available online (at least to my knowledge). The manuscript was published by Michelangelo Lupo in 1978. In a footnote, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. mentions that the published edition includes a contribution by Lupo himself about the subject of this thread (recurring structures used to represent plants in different manuscripts).
   

About the illustrations You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: #1, #3, #4 and #5 are closely related, all copies of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.; the root has that characteristic shape with three "branches". As you say, #3 features a flower that is seriously wrong, more similar to Arum than Paris.
#5 has the same text as the Trento Herbal (#3) but in Italian rather than the original Latin. #5 has another major error, since Paris only makes a single flower/fruit.
#2 is a good illustration, consistent with the generally accepted hypothesis that Vitus Auslasser based his drawings on actual specimens.