Lastly, before starting a new thread in Imagery, after dwelling a lot on prima materia and the colour green, I wonder about the rest of the VMS and if this could hold true throughout. I’ve never paid attention to the plants; I have no expertise or interest, and decided early on they might be mnemonic devices. But after G. Koen’s survey of the colours blue and yellow finding them vastly out of proportion to the colours real plants would display, making them fantastical, I wonder if we should not instead be concentrating on the greens, almost entirely in the leaves, which with a few exceptions look the most real to me anyway.
The authors might be identifying the best parts of plants to serve as prima materia for distillation purposes. I haven’t surveyed the plants, but a brief look at the “small plants” section shows an astonishing variety of leaf shapes, and moreover leaves seem to make up a disproportionate number as compared to blooms. I’ve also heard that identifying plants by leaf appearance is more reliable than blooms, because no species of leaf is quite like another and even in fall and winter they can be identified when flowers aren’t blooming.
Just a thought.
The authors might be identifying the best parts of plants to serve as prima materia for distillation purposes. I haven’t surveyed the plants, but a brief look at the “small plants” section shows an astonishing variety of leaf shapes, and moreover leaves seem to make up a disproportionate number as compared to blooms. I’ve also heard that identifying plants by leaf appearance is more reliable than blooms, because no species of leaf is quite like another and even in fall and winter they can be identified when flowers aren’t blooming.
Just a thought.