26-10-2026, 03:25 PM
(25-10-2026, 09:28 PM)ololololo wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Stolphi assumed that the plants appeared composite because they had been redrawn from pharmaceutical sources; their overall appearance was unknown to the author. The explanation is good, but it seems as if one doesn’t need to go to China to find it...Yes. The idea is that the sketches in Pharma were copied from some ur-book that showed mostly the parts of the plant that were relevant for medicine, and maybe a few more parts that were relevant to identify the plant. Thus, if the root of the plant was used, the ur-book would show the root -- possibly cut so as to show internal structure -- and maybe a few leaves and/or flowers and/or fruits. And these would be attached directly to the root, or drawn over it, to make it clear that they were a single plant rather than two distinct plants.
But when the Scribe expanded those sketches into the full plants of the Herbal section, he misunderstood that convention and drew the leaves coming out of the cut root, etc .
That hypothetical ur-book format apparently was not common for European herbals of the time; but that, by itself, does not imply that it was "Chinese". It could have been merely an unusual European herbal.
All the best, --stolfi