f18v...Dioscorides...something about those leaves

[Bernd]

Dioscurides Neapolitanus
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Another extremely similar Smilax aspera with crossed stems

   

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My proposal would be to collect plant images from all available Dioscorides copies and sort them by names as they appear in the books. Then compare images for similarities and differences.

I can't believe the Vienna Dioscurides isn't fully available online!
I think it's the oldest surviving copy, created around 512. It contains plant illustrations from different sources. According to the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., one group looks natural and 3-dimensional whereas the other appearts flat as if copied from pressed source material. And while well drawn, some illustrations look nothing like the plant they are meant to depict or even contradict the text. The copist probably never saw the plant and more or less faithfully copied the original, sometimes making mistakes or mixing up plants. Literature cited is:
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.: Medicina Magica. Metaphysische Heilmethoden in spätantiken und mittelalterlichen Handschriften. Graz 1972; 2. Auflage, Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Graz 1978, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., S. 35–39.

Doesn't this remind us of the VM?
As I said, copying manuscripts was a lossy and 'noisy' process, we can think of it pretty much as the evolution of genetic material. There are copy errors, deletions, insertions, transpositions and recombinations and corrections with every iteration. Some of these lower, some increase overall quality. The Vienna Dioscorides was a copy of an older document and the source of the VM maybe was one or several additional copies away from the original. This explains some but by far not all oddities of the VM. Especially not the flowers.