Diane,
What I was trying to convey is that it has long been observed (and by "long" I mean at least since the first mailing list, perhaps before) by those trying to carry out plant ID's, that for many folios, part of the illustration seemed to match one plant, while other parts matched another. So if someone says "the flower looks like plant x but the leaves look like plant y" then that to me is basically equivalent to saying that the drawing is a composite, or that it appears composed of parts of various different plants.
Regarding grafts, I did not make any assertions about the likelihood of that. Instead I merely explained that this has been suggested as an explanation, not only for the type of observations I mention in the paragraph above, but also for the specific phenomenon we see in the inconsistent diameter of stems, generally near the root.
As you can see this is recently discussed on S. Bax's site
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and also on this forum
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But the observation is much older, and it is not a preconceived idea, but an explanation that was proposed to account for the phenomenon I describe in the first paragraph of this post.
If you check the ML search engine on this site you will find posts about "grafting" going back as far as 1998.
In a November 2001 post, ReneZ explains that Gabriel Landini had proposed the idea "many years ago".
I'm not sure if I linking to these old posts will work so I'll just copy/paste one of the discussions I unearthed from the mailing list back in 2001 (excerpts so this doesn't get too long):
...
Grafting should be kept in mind and may solve some of the botanical questions
seen in the VMS. Experiments in hybridization/cross pollination may also have
been employed.
Regards,
Dana Scott
Nick Pelling wrote:
> Hi Dana,
...
>
> Gerry Kennedy and his co-author dropped by my house the other evening:
...
> One thing Gerry mentioned I thought I'd pass on to you: he was quite
> convinced that many of the VMS plants showed signs of them having been
> grafted... I know that Theophrastus discussed grafting, so it wasn't
> exactly new in 1480, but was it in active use in European gardens then? Who
> were the grafters of the day? Were there schools of graft? :-)
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
Again just to be clear, I am not arguing in favor of there being grafted plants in the Voynich, but simply drawing your attention to the fact that this is an explanation for the Voynich plants' composite appearance that has been around for a while, and considered by many researchers.
Whether or not they actually used the word "composite" is a technicaliity, they are obviously referring to the same idea of a drawing incorporating parts of various plants.
It may even be older than that but I don't have all of my resources with me at this time to check.
What I was trying to convey is that it has long been observed (and by "long" I mean at least since the first mailing list, perhaps before) by those trying to carry out plant ID's, that for many folios, part of the illustration seemed to match one plant, while other parts matched another. So if someone says "the flower looks like plant x but the leaves look like plant y" then that to me is basically equivalent to saying that the drawing is a composite, or that it appears composed of parts of various different plants.
Regarding grafts, I did not make any assertions about the likelihood of that. Instead I merely explained that this has been suggested as an explanation, not only for the type of observations I mention in the paragraph above, but also for the specific phenomenon we see in the inconsistent diameter of stems, generally near the root.
As you can see this is recently discussed on S. Bax's site
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
and also on this forum
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. .
But the observation is much older, and it is not a preconceived idea, but an explanation that was proposed to account for the phenomenon I describe in the first paragraph of this post.
If you check the ML search engine on this site you will find posts about "grafting" going back as far as 1998.
In a November 2001 post, ReneZ explains that Gabriel Landini had proposed the idea "many years ago".
I'm not sure if I linking to these old posts will work so I'll just copy/paste one of the discussions I unearthed from the mailing list back in 2001 (excerpts so this doesn't get too long):
- Subject: Re: Gerry Kennedy...
- Date: Wed, 07 Nov 2001 06:58:47 -0800
- From: "Dana F. Scott" <>
...
Grafting should be kept in mind and may solve some of the botanical questions
seen in the VMS. Experiments in hybridization/cross pollination may also have
been employed.
Regards,
Dana Scott
Nick Pelling wrote:
> Hi Dana,
...
>
> Gerry Kennedy and his co-author dropped by my house the other evening:
...
> One thing Gerry mentioned I thought I'd pass on to you: he was quite
> convinced that many of the VMS plants showed signs of them having been
> grafted... I know that Theophrastus discussed grafting, so it wasn't
> exactly new in 1480, but was it in active use in European gardens then? Who
> were the grafters of the day? Were there schools of graft? :-)
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
Again just to be clear, I am not arguing in favor of there being grafted plants in the Voynich, but simply drawing your attention to the fact that this is an explanation for the Voynich plants' composite appearance that has been around for a while, and considered by many researchers.
Whether or not they actually used the word "composite" is a technicaliity, they are obviously referring to the same idea of a drawing incorporating parts of various plants.
It may even be older than that but I don't have all of my resources with me at this time to check.