[Just for fun] Favorite Plant Tournament!

[Mauro]

I voted f2v, only because it always reminded me of a leaf of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. mingled with a flower and stem of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (wikipedia shows mostly pink-coloured Convolvolus flowers, but wild ones are all white).



(The reniform leaves of Asarum are very distinctive among European plants, and ihmo very cool. I can only remember You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. having similar leaves)

Personally, I favor the idea that the plant is based on something like the word “waterlily” (or You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.) and mixes nymphaea/nenufar with a lily flower.



Asarum is a good match for the leaf, but not for the horizontal root.

The flower of Convolvulus (Volubilis in medieval herbals) doesn’t have clearly separated pointy petals. Lily is not perfect, but a better match, in my opinion.

Comparison images from the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. made in Milan for King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary.

The flower reminds me of Convolvolus mostly for the voluble stem, and for the pronounced calyx. If I'm not mistaken, Liliales do not have a differentiated calyx and so should be excluded (unless it's a lily flower merged with the calyx of some other species). Now that I think of it, it could also be a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. flower: Campanula are usually blue-purple, but plants with white flowers are not a rare find, and Campanula has a calyx and petals separated at the tip (but many more flowers could fit the same description I think).

I suggested Asarum for the leaf because I love that plant: it's very common where I live, yet nobody knows about it because it hides in shady places and the flowers (which are hairy and have a quite unusual, beautiful dark purplish colour) stay hidden under the leaves, which are themselves very beautiful. A humble gem among plants. But any plant with reniform leaves will do for f2v, including Nymphaea and Nuphar (there are not that many plants with reniform leaves, actually).

But all in all, I don't think it's possible to identify any plant (or a part of any plant) with certainty from VMS illustrations (with the possible exception of Viola tricolor which at least looks like the real thing, who knows). The most I can say confidently about You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. is that no European plant combines reniform leaves with a such a flower, it comes from imagination and not from nature.