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Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
- Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
-
Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
Diane > 26-02-2017, 01:59 PM
I'd like to ask members about which sources they have found most helpful in studying the Voynich plant-pictures.
I should also mention that it would be most unwise to rely too heavily on Minta Collins, Medieval Herbals: the illustrative tradition.
To quote from Alain Touwaide's review of 2004:
Quote:Medieval Herbals does not fulfill its promises and falls short of the expectations it ambitiously raises. Moreover, the combination of lacunas and mistakes in the information and the inappropriateness of Collins’s method generates misleading conclusions, particularly on the mechanisms of the creation and diffusion of herbals. Nonexpert readers will probably be favorably impressed by the book because of its lavish illustrations, the quality of its presentation, and the renown of the series in which it appears. They will not be aware, however, that Medieval Herbals reinforces the defects of the earlier literature that it criticizes, introduces many mistakes, and in the end provokes more confusion and presents more misleading information than it corrects.
So what other works do members recommend and rely on, themselves? -
RE: Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
-JKP- > 27-02-2017, 02:44 AM
(26-02-2017, 01:59 PM)Diane Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'd like to ask members about which sources they have found most helpful in studying the Voynich plant-pictures.
I should also mention that it would be most unwise to rely too heavily on Minta Collins, Medieval Herbals: the illustrative tradition.
To quote from Alain Touwaide's review of 2004:
Quote:Medieval Herbals does not fulfill its promises and falls short of the expectations it ambitiously raises. Moreover, the combination of lacunas and mistakes in the information and the inappropriateness of Collins’s method generates misleading conclusions, particularly on the mechanisms of the creation and diffusion of herbals. Nonexpert readers will probably be favorably impressed by the book because of its lavish illustrations, the quality of its presentation, and the renown of the series in which it appears. They will not be aware, however, that Medieval Herbals reinforces the defects of the earlier literature that it criticizes, introduces many mistakes, and in the end provokes more confusion and presents more misleading information than it corrects.
So what other works do members recommend and rely on, themselves?
I rely on botanical drawings, botanical specimens (both live and herbarium speciments), my prior knowledge of plants (which has been a lifetime interest), and I have gone through every digitized medieval plant book I can find numerous times (to the point where I have many of the plants memorized). I also read the text that goes with them in Latin, Italian, middle English, etc.
I own more than 100 books on plants, wildflowers, and herbal medicine, some of them going back to the 19th century, along with facsimiles of a few of the historic books (e.g., Circa Instans).
I have downloaded several timeline "maps" of illustrative traditions offered by different researchers. They tend to agree in overall pattern, but not always in specific details and some include more manuscripts than others.
I have been involved in a decade-long project to create a botanical reference database cataloging more than 21,000 species of plants. It includes botanical illustrations, photos of actual plants, including each part of the plant for identification, medicinal information (both folk lore and contemporary), ancient Galenesque and Pliny designations (hot/cold/wet/dry), preferred habitat, origin, distribution, a list of which parts of the plant are used for what purposes, and the names of the plants in up to 56 languages. It currently includes more than a quarter million images that can be searched and sorted by any of the properties associated with the plant. -
RE: Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
Davidsch > 14-03-2017, 04:44 PM
21.000?...then it would be ezy pezy for you to identify most VMS plants, or at least the most common roots. -
RE: Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
Koen G > 14-03-2017, 05:09 PM
(14-03-2017, 04:44 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.21.000?...then it would be ezy pezy for you to identify most VMS plants, or at least the most common roots.
It's not because one has a vast experience with real plants that one can identify ancient plant drawings made in a culture entirely different from one's own. -
RE: Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
-JKP- > 14-03-2017, 09:51 PM
(14-03-2017, 04:44 PM)Davidsch Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.21.000?...then it would be ezy pezy for you to identify most VMS plants, or at least the most common roots.
LOL! They're drawings by a nonexpert artist, not photos, and some of them have mnemonic parts, rather than naturalistic ones, which means the morphological information isn't in the drawing and you have to try to determine the name or use of the plant without having the whole drawing of the plant.
Also, it's possible some of the parts of the plant (ones that are not important to the use of the plant) may have been left out. I think that may explain some of the oddballs. For example, if the roots and leaves are used, the flower may not be shown. Many plants have the same basic roots and leaves which means identifying the plant without the flower (or without an accurate flower) can be difficult.
It's quite a challenge. I can narrow some of them down to three or four species, but the difference in species can make a complete difference in the name of the plant and how it was used. Medieval drawings of primroses and daisies (Bellis) are almost identical, but the plants are not the same. Gramina (e.g., couch grass) was often drawn the same as Acorus (a plant that resembles an iris) even though they have almost nothing in common except for skinny leaves and a lumpy rhizome.
Medieval plant names are just as confusing. Brictannica sometimes meant Britannica, sometimes Betonica, and sometimes Veronica—completely different plants. Palma Christi was sometimes an orchid, sometimes Ricinis. In some regions unrelated plants that are purplish-blue were all called Viola, even though they were several different species.
Plant names were different before the New World was discovered. Erd Apfel used to mean Cyclamen (pigs eat them). After the potato was brought to Europe, the name was used for the new plant, so one has to be careful to check the etymology of the name. And so it goes.
If an expert botanical artist like Elizabeth Blackwell had painted them, we would have identified 99% of them by now, but she didn't. Botanical art didn't really exist yet, except in the borders of a few French or Flemish illustrations. Plant drawings were related to function, tradition (Galen, Pliny, Pseudo-Apuleius, etc.), and visual memory aids. Some of the old herbals appear to have been created by medical students. You learned the use of the plant and then you made a quick sketch of it.
Another difficulty is determining whether a plant was known at the time the manuscript was created. For example, botanists are still not 100% sure people in Europe or the southern Mediterranean were aware of nightshade (it's primarily a New World species). What the ancients called "solanum" does not match descriptions of what we call nightshade and it's not certain whether the Indian and far eastern nightshades had yet reached the west with the possible exception of eggplant.
Sugar cane is another example. There's a definite image of sugar cane (called Canna or Cannamellis) in some of the herbals. It's a far eastern plant but it turns out the Persians (who had contact with the Chinese in the 6th century), brought it west earlier than other plants that were not known until the 16th century.
The real change in botanical imagery came in the mid- to late-1400s, when people started studying the plants rather than just copying old drawings, and collecting herbarium specimens. Even then, it took another century before the visual accuracy of the drawings became more important than textual descriptions by Galen and Pliny (and visual mnemonic devices). The invention of the printing press may have been an important factor in the improvement of the drawings. If you were going to print 500 copies of a book and make some money selling them, you could afford to hire a decent artist to create better drawings. -
RE: Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
davidjackson > 18-03-2017, 08:19 AM
I use JKP
On a more serious note, I'm more interested in the manuscript tradition than the actual herbal comparisons, as I don't have a very good artists eye. Books such as Pollington's Leechcraft are indispensable . -
RE: Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
Davidsch > 18-03-2017, 08:17 PM
@JKP:
I've made an estimate on the herbal books I hold here in my private physical collection, if there are 50 herbals in each book, and I have about 100 books on herbals, that makes 5000 descriptions of herbals together. These are all books older than the year 1900.
Then there is the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. which holds about 6000 German and old English synonyms of Helmut Klug, the Philip Neal page You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.holds 192 Latin names & pictures. We have the local You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of biolib of course and the Dioscoridis Materia Medica of MS 652 and the Vieann plants and plant names, which were written in Greek and latin together. That list holds about 750 names, and there is of course much more, but most people here have an higher degree in plants than myself. (And of course there is the plant DNA database which holds ALL plants on this planet) Then, I want to show that a small blog on the exploding cucumber (I've also mentioned it somewhere else here on ninja) is fun to read, here on the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
Finally, again, I want to say that it is and will be impossible to identify any herbal in the VMS based on plants or plant pictures.
If there is a chance to do it, it will come from the text, not from pictures. But of course, have fun looking at the pictures! -
RE: Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
-JKP- > 19-03-2017, 02:33 AM
David, you just reminded me that I also have about 40 eBooks from the 16th to 19th centuries with old plant names, medical remedies, and sometimes discussions of the attribution of the plant name to the plant (critical evaluation of ones that were slavishly copied were discussed by some of the later authors who knew more about plants).
Whenever these old herbals reached a new region, there would be plants that weren't known, or some that were known, but they were uncertain if it was the same species and whether a different species would have the same medicinal properties.
I can't remember the title offhand, but there's a very good one by an English author with a knowledge of plants (something many of them didn't have) who goes through each plant typically included in the old herbals and discusses whether or not the attribution of the name to the plant is correct and, if not, what plant might be meant by the diagram/name. -
RE: Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
Davidsch > 19-03-2017, 12:36 PM
You mean the famous Culpeper?
That is a funny story, I've bought a facsimile of a Culpeper book and I noted every section. Then I made an analysis of all the words that are in the section and especially the initial words of the section. I believe the words "herbal" and "there"and "here" were most common. Nothing more came out of it. -
RE: Plant Pictures - Sources and references - query
bi3mw > 29-03-2017, 04:14 PM