Author Archives: J.K. Petersen

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 13r

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The Pot-Bellied Plant

As odd as it may seem, with its strange shapes and big round belly, I consider this one of the more easy-to-identify plants. The flowers, leaves, and root are pretty accurate with the exception of the color of the flower sheaths (perhaps the blue is used here to indicate shadows).

Plant 13r is a little stubbier than some of the VMS plants—it doesn’t quite stretch to the top of the page. In fact, the whole plant has a jolly, rounded look to it.

There is a clump of flowers at the top similar to the blooms on a plant called “pussytoes” (Antennaria) except that the VMS flowers are colored dark blue and a grayish brown and the sheath extends farther up around the flowers than Antennaria. Note the little dots across the tops, indicating their texture and relative flatness (pussytoes are more rounded and do not typically have fat roots or ovate leaves).

Below the flower stalk is a mat of rounded two-tone leaves with fine serrations and a number of larger slits (the kind of notches one often sees in plants that are aging).

At the base of the stems, there is a bole with a number of cut-off tops where there may have been leaves or stems in previous years and, at the bottom, there’s a big red pot-like root, tuber, or corm, with thick tendrils arcing out to the sides.

I’ve mentioned boles in a previous blog and I think one or two of the common reasons for including boles in a plant drawing might apply to Plant 13r, as well.

Prior Identifications

I didn’t even look at prior identifications for this plant. It’s like the VMS Viola or Tragopogon in the sense that it’s drawn naturalistically and is easy to recognize—it’s not likely to be very controversial. It’s a semi-aquatic plant called Petasites or “butterbur”—a cousin to Tusilago farfara (which is quite a bit smaller, and not as bushy, but is often found in medieval herbals).

Petasites is primarily a wetland plant, in the aster family. Some species have flowers organized in tight, rounded groups like Plant 13r, others have long spikes. As the plant ages, the stalk tends to lengthen or the flowers to spread out. The VMS plant has a typical arrangement, with a cluster of small microphone-shaped fuzzy flowers that are similar to those of groundsel. They vary in color from white to pink.

The leaves can vary. They may be sagittate (spear- or shield-shaped), or shaped like the wings of moths, indented like maple leaves, or rounded, like the VMS plant. Those that are rounded have finely toothed leaf margins.

Of the various species, the leaves of Petasites ovatus, Petasites vulgaris, Petasites hybridus and Petasites amplus probably resemble the VMS leaves most closely. When they first emerge, the leaves of these species are fairly round. As they grow and age, some become more shield-shaped, and the edges start to ruffle and tear. P. ovatus (as its name implies) tends to retain its rounded shape (see right).

Many of the larger Petasites species have a thick swelling where the stalk connects to the root and red roots are not uncommon (see left). The size of the root depends partly on the habitat.

You’ll notice that the VMS plant is painted with two-toned leaves, green on one side, brown on the other. Two-toned leaves are not uncommon in Petasites. For example, Petasites albus has leaves that are green on the top and distinctively white on the underside,

The uses of the plant are twofold: the roots of certain species were considered medicinal in medieval times and are still sold for their flavonoids, alkaloids, and other components. Flowers and young shoots are sometimes cooked and eaten.

Common names for the species with more rounded leaves include butterbur, bog rhubarb, devil’s hat, pestilence-wort, and umbrella plant.

There’s nothing really mysterious about this plant except that it shows up less often in medieval herbals than its smaller cousin colt’s-foot (Tussilago farfara).

 

J.K. Petersen

© Copyright 2013 J.K. Petersen, All Rights Reserved

This article was originally posted July 2013, put back in draft mode a couple of weeks later, and made live again in August 2017. I have not changed any of the text or illustrations. Like the VMS viola, it’s a straightforward ID that was probably made long before I started identifying VMS plants (late 2007, 2008, early 2009), and probably after, as well. I’m more interested in the plants that are difficult to identify, particularly those with symbolic components.

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 9v

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VoyF9vDescription

There is significant controversy (and consternation) over the identities of most of the Voynich plants. The illustrator was reasonably good on details, but short on artistic skills. That’s not to say the drawings are bad—they are better than many of the herbal-style drawings of the time—but they don’t yield their secrets easily, even after centuries of study.

One plant that has escaped most of the controversy is the flower on Folio 9v. I haven’t searched the Web extensively for plant IDs for this page, but the few that I’ve seen all state that this is probably Viola tricolor. I readily agree that it looks like a viola and V. tricolor, a common wildflower, should certainly be considered, but I don’t think we can assume it’s V. tricolor without considering other possibilities.

Alternative IDs

VarvensisWhiteThere is a field pansy called Viola arvensis that matches Plant 9v quite well. It is broadly distributed in Europe and North America and has leaves similar to Plant 9v. Many violas have rounded or heart-shaped leaves that don’t match the VM drawing at all, but V. arvensis has a mix of lanceolate and spidery palmate leaves very much like Plant 9v. V. arvensis is often white and yellow or light blue and yellow, but some variations lean toward violet-blue with yellow. Like Plant 9v, V. arvensis branches lightly and has leaves alternating up the stem at some distance—an important detail since many violas have basal whorls and tend not to branch.

Despite its promising characteristics, Plant 9v probably isn’t V. arvensis. In real life it tends to be a bit squatter than this botanical drawing, which is stretched out to show details, and it is more often white than blue. But the key difference is the shape of the flowers. The shape and proportion of the petals varies from one species of viola to the next and V. arvensis flowers have a double pair at the top and a broader tongue-shaped petal at the bottom. Plant 9v, in contrast, has three at the top, rather than four.

The Corsican violet (V. corsica) and Viola dubyana both have many characteristics in common with V. arvensis and their colors range from violet-blue to a light purple. Due to the color, both these species match 9v a little more closely than V. arvensis but, once again, the shape of the flowers is wrong.

Odd Anomalies

But wait a moment.. there’s a mystery in the making. Viola tricolor doesn’t match either, even through the leaf shapes, the spacing of the leaves, the roots, and the color are a good match. As with the previous flowers, there are two pairs of petals above and a broader one below. Even an extensive search of other viola species fails to turn up an example that matches all the characteristics of the VM plant—the leaf shapes, growth habit and flower shape/colors.

Sorting out the anomaly. Could it be that the flowers on Plant 9v were drawn upside-down? If they are reversed, they would be a good match for any of the above species. This little detail, which I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else on the Web, surprised me until I thought about it for a few moments. I’d love to believe there is some mystery message in the orientation of the flowers but…

F9vViolaLettersBefore offering an explanation for this anatomical curiosity, it’s worth noting that there is text hidden behind the blue ink in one of the blossoms. I did some Photoshop adjustments to see if the obscured text could be seen more readily and I think I can make out the letter p on the two lower petals (at least) and what appears to be “por” on the upper one. I’ve noticed annotations on other plants, the letter “g” on a leaf that was painted green and the letters “r o t” (German for red) on the unpainted stem of plant 4r. If this says “por” then it may mean purple (or violet) as por is an abbreviation for purple in several languages.

ViolaTricolorMany varieties of Viola tricolor, and the Corsican viola, are distinctly purple and the fact that the VM plant is painted blue (the trace of purple in the above example is a Photoshop artifact from trying to make the text more clear) might be due to the painter’s limited palette. Since 15th century pigments were mixed from a variety of natural materials, it took some skill to blend them. Even if the color combination was correct (e.g., red and blue to make purple), the chemical balance might not work and the result could be a muddy mess. The person blending the colors also had to have a sense of which colors to mix.

So, it’s possible that the annotation means purple, but purple pigment was not available (or too much work to create), or that por stands for something else.

A Mystery or a Practical Explanation

VoyF9vReversBut getting back to the strange upside-down flowers… soon after I discovered the Voynich manuscript, I noticed some of the more identifiable plants may have been painted from herbarium samples. They have a flattened aspect that is not characteristic of plants drawn from life. This is particularly noticeable in the leaves. If Plant 9v had been gathered and flattened and the viola flowers flipped up to prevent the hooked part of the stem from breaking when pressed in the natural direction, that might account for the odd reversal. The person who painted them may not have cared if the upper or lower part of the flower was painted yellow or may not have noticed the petal reversal in the underlying drawing. As has been mentioned a few times, the person who painted the plants is not necessarily the same as the person who drew them.

So, there may not be any mystery hidden in the reverse orientation, but it’s a tantalizing clue to the creation of the manuscript if the VM plants (or some of them) are drawn from gathered specimens. It means someone took the time to press them and to do so in a way that reveals the fronts of some flowers and the backs of others, a good practice when creating botanical drawings so that the shape and size of the sepals can also be seen.

 

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Voynich Large Plants – Folio 9r

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The Plant with the Whirligig Leaves

Plant 9r fills most of the page from top to bottom and features a distinctive seed stalk with a long straight, reddish stem, wiggly seed pods extending to both sides, with red seeds as they might look inside their pods.

The leaf stems are also red, each one featuring a distinctive “rotating” bird-like leaf that must have been quite challenging to draw. I’m fascinated by these leaves, which are more intricate than most of the VMS plants. Each has four long protruding beak-like bumps with graceful curves and rounded ends. Between them are ruffled edges reminiscent of feathers or something else with a bumpy texture.

The root is quite thick and painted brown, with carefully distributed double tufts of hairs and a large flat bole that was left unpainted.

In botanical illustration, boles are usually shown for plants that are grown from root stocks (like roses), or which can be generated from tubers (like potatoes), or which are cut down regularly to encourage new growth, as with quite a few plants that die into the roots in winter and re-emerge in spring. They also sometimes represent aquatic plants (with the “bole” being the surface of the water). I don’t know what it means on the VMS plant, but I suspect that this might be a plant with a very thick or fibrous root with stalks that die back or are cut back in the winter.

Prior Identifications

Edith Sherwood has identified this plant as Ricinus communis (castor oil plant), but I strongly disagree with this ID. Ricinus has large round greenish-blue seed pods that are similar to spiny chestnut pods. It does not have pea-like seeds extending outwards in long slender pods. Also, ricinus has very distinctive star-like leaves that really don’t look like those of Plant 9r, even if you stylize them.

What convinces me even more that Plant 9r is not Ricinus is that there is quite an accurate drawing of Ricinus on VMS folio 6v. Plant 6v could be either Ricinus or chesnut, but the way the seeds are drawn (at the end of a long stock rather than at the ends of multiple branches) is a bit more similar to Ricinus than the various chestnut species. Either way, it is evident that the VMS illustrator could draw Ricinus or chestnut-like pods quite well and Plant 6r does not look like Ricinus.

Usually I have multiple IDs for any specific VMS plant. Even if you know the plant (e.g., viola), each plant can have several varieties, and it’s hard to pin down an exact species from an amateur drawing. Plant 9r is different. I do have a few alternatives, but only two really grab me and match well to the characteristics of the plant. One is from Eurasia, the other from east Asia. But first, a third alternative that matches less well but does include a reference to birds…

Alternate IDs

Stinking crane’s bill (Geranium robertianum) is a widespread Eurasian plant with red stems, very intricate leaves, red seeds, and roots that are a little thicker than the stem. It’s not a perfect match to Plant 9r, however. The seeds are individual, with long beaks that look like the heads of cranes. The VMS plant has branching pods with many seeds in each pod—quite a different arrangement.

It’s tempting to think the bird-like leaves might be a mnemonic for the common name “crane’s bill” or “dove’s foot”, the leaves do have a rather bird-like appearance (they remind me of flying egrets), but it’s hard to believe that the VMS illustrator would display pea-like pods for a plant with beak-like seeds. Also, crane’s bill (known as Herb Robert in the culinary world) is a small delicate plant and does not have a thick base or a prominent bole.

Two Plants with Better Possibilities

There are two plants that look very much like Plant 9r. I’ll describe the east Asian plant first…

Plume Poppy [Courtesy of Jari Särrkä]

Macleaya or “plume poppy” doesn’t resemble poppy flowers as we know them, it’s more reminiscent of bushy big-leaved plants like wild rhubarb, but is actually in the poppy family, and is similar to Plant 9r, with long attractive plumed red stalks and crenellated leaves with many extra divots in the leaves. It also has a fairly robust base to support a plant that reaches 6–7 feet in height.

Plume poppy stems are not red but the toxic sap that oozes out when the stem is broken is orange.

The plume poppy does not have pods, so one would have to argue that the VMS seeds represent branching plumes rather than pods, but I’m leaning toward pods, which means there is another plant more similar to Plant 9r than plume poppy…

The plant that seems to hit the most marks is Russian kale.

Russian kale is a popular culinary plant in the mustard family, which is highly variable in shape and size. Russian kale is usually harvested when the leaves are young and the plant is small and bushy, but it can grow quite tall and tree-like, with thick stems. The stalks range from bright red to reddish-purple, and the leaves have very intricate, lacy and sometimes deeply incurled leaves. It is a north-temperate Eurasian plant and thus more likely to be in the VMS than a plant from eastern Asia like the plume poppy.

What is particularly interesting about Russian kale, besides the very complex leaf margins, is the seed pods. It has long pea-like pods with seeds that create lines of bumps within the pods, and they are arranged on a long stalk very much like the pods on Plant 9r. They even have a gentle S-curve shape that matches the VMS pods. The only part that doesn’t match is the color. Kale seeds range from a charcoal-brown to black, not the red color of the VMS plant.

Rheum Pic (added Mar. 2021)

Most varieties of kale have leaves that grow from a central rosette, but there are a few that branch like the VMS plant, and there are others called “tree kale” that are shaped like mini palm trees (check out Google Image Search for “tree kale” to see some interesting variations). Tree kale might explain the large bole.

It’s not a perfect ID, however. Kale is a biennial. It’s not a perennial like rhubarb that dies back and grows up again from the same stalk each year. I’m tempted to include rhubarb (right) as a possible ID for 9r, but it has the same problems as plume poppy (the seeds are not in pods) and there’s another VMS plant that resembles rhubarb more closely than this one.

The Plant 9r Rorschach Test

I cannot make sense of the leaves.

The lacy edges of kale leaves do somewhat resemble the VMS leaves, especially if you try to flatten them as herbarium specimens but, if Plant 9r is kale, why did the illustrator draw them in such a decorative and regimented way? I also find it hard to get the idea of birds out of my head because they remind me so much of egrets, but they may be something other than birds, like long-tailed sheep or running lions rampant. Note how the leaf on the bottom right looks like natural kale while those on the left almost have legs and heads with wings or garments.

Summary

I tried to find some alternate names that might explain the apparent symbolism in the leaves. In French, kale is known as chou frisé, in German it’s Grünkohl (essentially the same as in Scandinavian languages). Other languages have variations on kel or col—all of which refer to cabbage in rather pedestrian terms. In Greek, it’s λάχανο, in Russian, it’s капуста with various modifiers. In some languages it’s referred to as the plant that is torn (probably a reference to the leaf shapes).

None of these seem to shed any light on the decorative leaves or help to confirm if the plant is kale.

So I’m a bit stumped. I think it’s a reasonably good match for Russian kale, but I don’t fully understand the significance of the leaves. I’ll leave it to your imaginations and if a better idea crosses my mind, I’ll upload it as a postscript.

J.K Petersen

 Copyright 2013 J.K. Petersen All Rights Reserved

Originally posted July 2013. Returned to draft mode a couple of weeks later (I was hoping to figure out the meaning of the leaves). Reposted August 2017 without changes to the original post except to crop the pictures (yes, you guessed right, I still haven’t figured out the leaves but I haven’t stopped trying).