I'd like to offer a possible explanation for at least part of this folio. The story goes as follows:
Over at the comments on my blog, Rene was talking about weasels. My mind kind of drifted off at this point, and I ended up wondering which funny stories medieval bestiaries would tell about the weasel. It appears that one of the things weasels do is
conceive through their mouths and give birth through their ears. According to You are not allowed to view links.
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A graphic representation of two weasels mating in this fashion is a marginal drawing in You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. (England, 1310-1320). The weasels have clearly different body lengths, which makes them a fine parallel for the zoomorphic root of our plant:
Now I would have let this slide if it weren't for one thing: the root animals' genital appendages are intertwined. Which is mating-but-not-really-mating while joining their heads.
So the animals might be mating weasels.
Next, which plants are associated with weasels?
Pliny mentions the herb rue, but in my opinion this does not look like the You are not allowed to view links.
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But there was something else. I remember that when we were discussing the enigmatic Trinity herbal, I saw a plant with an anecdote about birds and weasels: sticados citrinum. Marco kindly translated the passage as follows:
Some call it "herb of the birds" because a certain bird puts some of this herb in its nest. Similarly, also the weasel does the same in its nest, because the weasel and that bird know | its [of the plant] virtue.
Again, the image does not look much like the VM plant (see You are not allowed to view links.
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But, and now I get to the point,
sticados apparently means
lavender. This does not explain the VM plant's round leaves at all, but strangely it does explain the flowers - remember that the VM does not utilize a lavender-like color.
Image top right credited as: Lo sticados, dal codice “Historia Plantarum”, fine XIV secolo
Bottom: Lavandula stoechas
So if there is a link with weasels and lavender here (and that's a big if), then it would mean that the plant image is composite... any ideas?