f17v

[-JKP-]

I looked at my notes, and I have a list of possible IDs for 17v.

1. A couple of the Rumex species are a good match for the leaves and seeds, but I downgraded Rumex for a while because I thought the leaves were always a basal clump, until I found some growing in this area that send up vine-line shoots, so it's still on the list. It does not have tendrils at the ends of the stalks, but the seeds at the top do sometimes drop off first, leaving a bare stem, and I've always wondered if the tendril shape and the double stem above the root were meant to be mnemonic rather than literal. The roots are a pretty good match. Usually they have tap roots or clumps of roots, but I found a photo of one with a rhizome with successive clumps.
   
2. There are some Chenopods that are similar to 17v, with hastate leaves, red seeds, and some species, like some of the salt bushes, are viny. The end of the seed stalks of some species can be very wiggly, suggesting similarity to various profiles of animals or people. As with Rumex, the seeds at the top sometimes drop off, leaving tendril-like ends.
   
3. Smilex is on my list, although the leaves of Smilex are not quite as hastate as the ones in the VMS drawing. It's a vine, it has tendrils, and the grape-like berries are red. The one that resembles the VMS most closely has distinctive hairs on the leaves, however, and those aren't shown on the VMS, but maybe the hairs are represented differently. The hairs on Smilax aspera, for example, resemble beard stubble, so perhaps the tendril that resembles a face with a long beard is a mnemonic. The reason I hesitated on Smilax, is because there's another plant in the VMS that might be interpreted as Smilax, which has leaves more similar to Smilax (plant 96v).
   
4. I considered the various Vitis species because they are all vines (and some have red fruit) and the tendrils are long, but the leaves of most of them are palmate, not hastate, so that narrows it down to only a few that might fit.
   
5. Muehlenbeckia sagittifolia (which used to be called Coccoloba or Polygonum) is viny, has hastate leaves, and spikes of pink/red round flowers. When I saw this plant, I realized the round shapes that look like seeds or berries in the VMS drawing could also be round reddish flowers like those of Muehlenbeckia.
   
6. Some of the Cissus plants might qualify, they are viny, with berries, and some of them have hastate leaves, but they tend to grow in Asia and Australia.
   

So... I've never been able to narrow it down to one species, because it depends on which parts of the plant are meant to be literal and which ones are mnemonic.