(09-02-2025, 09:45 PM)Koen G wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.As always with VM plant identifications, there are some tantalizing similarities as well as some major differences.
The arrangement of the leaves is slightly different, but I'd say certainly close enough.
The flowers though... Flowers with 5 petals are a common, distinct type, which the VM artists knew. They clearly drew a different type of flower here.
In this post, Marco links to a Buglossa in Auslasser. You can see that this drawing does get these aspects right:
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Thanks for that link!
In regards to the flowers, I accept your point. I'd like to state a couple of ideas why they would not draw them as 4 or 5 petalled leaves and maybe someone here can tell me if there is precedent elsewhere.
This species of plant appears to have many slight variations. Even in the links I posted, there are slightly different looking plant tops. Sometimes there is only 1 flower on a stem, but often there appears to be a bunch of flowers on a single stem.
Here are 2 examples from the links i posted above:
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Additionally, if the plant is to be harvested before or after the flowers are in bloom, that bunch may still be budding or wilted.
Unfortunately I don't know the specifics of how and when Alkanet needs to be harvested for use. That information would be very useful to rule out some of my speculation.
Either way, if this species was wide ranging and well known, the illustration may also be a sort of average/amalgamation of that species of plant. As I mentioned, there is some variability within this species, not to mention the differences between these images and the one that Marco/Scarecrow posted here. However, I can readily imagine someone looking at the VM illustration and simply saying "ah yes, one of those bushy plants with the blue flowers that we use for red dye". In that case, the leaf shape, blue flowers and red roots may be enough to convey what it is. If the person can read the VM manuscript, it would be even more clear (presumably).
I did try to find some examples of Alkanet in a manuscript in the same presumed time period as the VM but fell short. It would be interesting to see if there are variations in its depiction throughout time.