The Modern Forgery Hypothesis

[nablator]

Absolutely yes -- it could be a coincidence. There are many books of herbs from that era. There may be books also including stars.   And almost all of them include "other things", but, in particular, things relating to alchemisty. It would not be at all surprising for another book to match that description equally well.

But how many of them depicted "exotic plants which have escaped observation here in Germany" (Barschius to Kircher 1639)? Given how unrealistic many illustrations were in herbals, they had to be really weird (as many in the VM are) to be called exotic...