Addendum: I didn't make one thing clear enough.
If they aren't recipes, then there aren't many possibilities left.
1. Everything is a hoax.
2. The plants are just a cover for a completely different secret text.
3. Some other language and/or code can “inflate” this low-level information into a reasonable context.
4. Parts of plants are described because they don't need that much information, and a list-like structure would make a lot of sense here.
Well, as long as we don't know, we have to assume one of these possibilities. My decision here is the fourth.
If they aren't recipes, then there aren't many possibilities left.
1. Everything is a hoax.
2. The plants are just a cover for a completely different secret text.
3. Some other language and/or code can “inflate” this low-level information into a reasonable context.
4. Parts of plants are described because they don't need that much information, and a list-like structure would make a lot of sense here.
Well, as long as we don't know, we have to assume one of these possibilities. My decision here is the fourth.