Tag Archives: VMS plants

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 46v

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14 February 2020

This is one of the VMS plant IDs I left blank in 2013 because I simply couldn’t find an explanation for the root shape. The plant has always looked to me like Tanacetum (or maybe Achillea), but I wanted to figure out the root before posting and was never completely sure if it was an angel, a bird, or something else. Now I realize it might not matter… there might be enough references in the style of the flower to help us understand the meaning behind it.

But first, let’s look at the VMS drawing…

Plant 46v

VMS Plant 46v

Plant 46v is drawn toward the left of the page, as though space were left for more text that was never added. The text itself is a bit unusual. There is a right-side column that extends downwards and almost runs into the plant rather than following the shape of the plant. It looks like the text may have been added in two passes, a chunk on the left and a narrowing chunk on the right.

The drawing is fairly large and clipped at the bottom. The size of the flowerheads appears to be exaggerated (perhaps to show the details?). The stalk curls in a way that is not common to very many species—it might be mnemonic or stylized. A few of the individual stalks end abruptly, without flowers, an intriguing detail that might be important.

Coloration

The painting is rough, but the choice of colors indicates some thought. The stalk has clear green on the bottom, shading to a pale grayish-brown on the upper stalk, with blue on the individual flower stalks, and a darker blue for the calyx. The root is a medium brown with a light section where it connects to the stalk, and two red patches on either side.

The leaves are somewhat fernlike, with slight tails, and carefully drawn individual leaf serrations. The leaf stalks are concentrated at the base. On the leaves themselves, almost hidden by paint, are some lines that might represent hairs, veins, or ridges.

In fact, the whole drawing seems somewhat stylized (not just the root, but also the flower stalk and, to some extent, the leaves). To me, the root looks like an angel or maybe a bird and other researchers have suggested it might be a bird. What is provocative about it is the round circle in the “neck” and the red lining on the “shoulders”. These are not accidental details. The round part almost looks like an attachment point, as one might see in a tool or a piece of folding portable furniture.

When I look at the drawing from a distance, it reminds me of Tanacetum or Achillea. Both are in the aster family and have button-like flowers and serrated somewhat frondy leaves. The flower-heads and the serrated leaves in the VMS drawing seem consistent with these plants, but a Voynich researcher had another idea that I think has merit…

Prior IDs

I don’t agree with Edith Sherwood’s 2015 ID. She suggested Geum urbanum (wood avens), which is a plant in the rose family, but the flowers of G. urbanum are not the same shape as the VMS drawing. They have five petals that splay out (see below-right), and the flowerheads are more discrete, and they do not tend to cluster on the same stalk. The palmate leaves don’t match the VMS drawing very well either. She has an earlier ID (2008) suggesting a different plant (Inula conyza), which fits the drawing better, so I’m not sure why she changed the ID.

I think the button-like flowers in the VMS drawing look more like asters than roses, and the VMS leaves are clearly not palmate (there are other VMS drawings that have well-defined palmate leaves, so clearly the illustrator knew how to draw palmate leaves).

Other IDs

On the Voynich.ninja forum, Ellie Velinska mentioned costmary (Tanacetum balsamita). I like this ID. Costmary has finely serrated leaves and button-like flowers. I think Velinska mentioned a bird in the root, but I had been thinking it might be an angel. Either way, it looks more mnemonic than natural.

In Renaissance-era herbals I have noticed that costmary is sometimes listed under the older name of Chrysanthemum balsamita. Costmary is the Bible-leaf plant (the fragrant leaves are dried and used as bookmarks), and the French name for costmary is Herbe Sainte-Marie (referring sometimes to Mary Magdalene, other times to Mary, mother of Jesus). It was used medicinally in the Middle Ages, and also as a flavoring (hence the alternate name ale-cost).

Velinska’s ID of costmary fits well in almost every way. I wanted to endorse it, but there is one troubling detail…

Costmary is an eastern plant. It is common in Asia but was not introduced to Europe until about the 16th century. It did exist in a few places in the Caucasus, but may not have been abundant, as there were other more common species of Tanacetum that grew in this region, and plants are always competing for habitat. So I tried to find costmary in medieval herbals to see if I could support Velinska’s idea, but found it difficult to find any examples. Those that most resemble it are probably sage, but for the record, here is what I found…

Tracking Down St. Mary

There are many plants called Sancte Maria/Santa Maria (including Dysphania ambrosioides, Solomon’s seal, and some species of Thymus) and the Linnaean system didn’t exist yet to help distinguish them. Most of the medieval drawinngs labeled Santa Maria show forget-me-nots or Solomon’s seal, or do not include flowers (which usually means the flowers are not a prevalent or useful part of the plant).

In medieval herbals, drawings labeled Santa Maria tend to depict leafy plants (which, unfortunately, are very numerous and hard to distinguish from each other), but it’s possible some of them are sage (Salvia), which is often drawn without flowers and called Santa Maria.

Comparison of a leafy medieval plant called Santa Maria with a botanical drawing of sage.
It’s possible this leafy plant, which is labeled Sancte Maria, is one of the common species of sage. The flowers were generally not included in the drawings, which makes it difficult to make a definitive identification, especially when there were several different plants with this name, but if it is sage, then the dog-muzzle style flowers would not be a good match for a VMS costmary ID.

There are numerous plants in medieval herbals with flowers that are similar to the VMS 46v. Feverfew, chamomile, and Tanacetum vulgare are common, but they are usually labeled in a way that they can be recognized and I have not found one that can be unambiguously pinpointed as Tanacetum balsamita.

A New Drawing of Santa Maria

medieval plant drawing labeled Santa maria
Santa Maria, BNF Lat 17848, c. 1440s

Then, while looking through my copious files on medieval plants, I noticed that around the middle of the 15th century, a new drawing labeled Santa Maria shows up in a number of herbals. I couldn’t find it in the older references. Could this be costmary?

Unfortunately, the drawing doesn’t look like costmary, which is an aster. The mystery plant has a single long stalk with flame-like flowers (other versions of the drawing also have orange or red flame-like flowers). It looks more like Gladiolus or Salvia than costmary, so if it is costmary, it’s quite a bad drawing, even compared to other medieval drawings, and since most of the herbals have reasonably accurate drawings of tansy and feverfew (which are similar to costmary). I’m inclined to think the drawing on the right is not costmary, but maybe one of the red salvias.

Other Possibilities

The Tanacetum plants, in general, are a good match for VMS 46v. Many of them have frond-like sawtooth leaves and button-like flowers and, as mentioned, similar plants like tansy and feverfew are commonly found in medieval herbals. For the VMS plant, I was leaning more toward tansy than feverfew, but there are some varieties of feverfew that have shorter-than-usual petals and button-like centers, so it cannot be entirely eliminated.

I’m tempted to include Arabis collina on the list of possibilities. The leaves are a good match and the flower-stalk curls, but unfortunately, the flowers are wrong:

There is another species to consider. Achillea (also known as yarrow) has clusters of button-like flowers and finely serrated or frond-like leaves (depending on the species). It is widely distributed across Asia and Europe, and has much in common with the VMS drawing.

Achillea comes in several colors, including pink and red, but most varieties are yellow or creamy white. On some species, the flowers are like tansy, other times they are like chamomile. The leaves are sometimes feathery, sometimes more solid, and there are even woolly varieties. This plant is often included in medieval herbals under the name Millefolium:

Botanical illustration Achillea millefolium yellow.

Cotula is another possibiity. It has button flowers (there are quite a lot of asters with button flowers, sometimes called “rayless asters”), but the leaves are typically slender and smooth-margined, so the leaves are not a good match. Acamptopappus species also have button flowers, but it’s a desert plant (and American in origin), and the leaves are quite slender and small.

So I am still uncertain about the identity of 46v, if examined from a naturalistic point of view, and even thought costmary might not have been known in Europe in the early 15th century, it’s still one of my favorite IDs because the idea of an angel in the root would fit well with the name. A bird would too, if we are thinking in terms of Mary’s ascension and bird-drawings of the Holy Spirit.

But what about the curled stalk?

This is a question I’ve been wrestling with for some time, and another reason it has taken so long to post this blog. Is the curled stalk a characteristic of the plant, or is it a decorative embellishment?

There are plants with curled stalks (Arabis, Heliotrope and many others), but they don’t usually have rayless flowers, and the stalk on the right of the VMS drawing has exactly seven flowers (a number important to medieval society).

I’m leaning toward 46v being a stylized drawing, especially when I see decorative floral elements in manuscripts such as the ones below (I have flipped them so they face the same way as the VMS flower). In terms of iconography, take note of the clipped stalks:

VMS 46v flower stalk compared with examples of decorative floral motifs in the Luttrell Psalter
Top-left, VMS 46v. Top-right and bottom, decorative aster-like floral motifs from the Gorleston Psalter.

A Connection to Medieval Cosmology?

I kept wondering why the VMS illustrator spun the flower stalk in a loop and put seven flowers on the right stalk and one on the left. I knew it was common for medieval and post-medieval emblems to include seven stars representing the “seven planets”. In medieval cosmology, the earth was the center of the universe, orbited by seven “stars”.

Does the flower on the left represent the earth, and the seven flowerheads on the right the seven “stars” (or “planets” as they were conceived at the time), which were defined as Moon, Mercury, Lucifer/Veneris, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn?

Liber Floridus medieval cosmology
The seven “planets” from a medieval point of view as depicted in Liber Floridus as Sun, Moon, Mercury, Lucifer (Veneris), Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. These were all considered to be revolving around the Earth.

Here is a later example from Anatomia Auri (early 17th century) that I wanted to include because it combines medicine, astrology, cosmology, and alchemy. This astrological diagram focuses on Leo as the sun sign (notice the sign for Leo in the center by each of the sun’s cheeks) and, like earlier medieval drawings, shows the six other “planets” together with the sun:

Anatomia Auria Leo astrological symbol ringed by "planets".

Why did I pick this one from the early 17th century rather than one from the 15th century? Because the Leo sign by the sun’s cheeks reminded me of this diagram on VMS 28v, which was discussed extensively by K. Gheuens and others on the Voynich.ninja forum due to the emblematic shape and the mysterious figures in the center.

I think the writing in the center could be interpreted in several different ways, possibly the way Gheuens suggested, but one of the ideas that crossed my mind was that the portion on the right might be an upside-down Leo symbol, similar to those on the cheeks of the sun-sign in the diagram above.

VMS plant 28v rayed plant with letters inside

But getting back to Plant 46v, is it possible the flowers represent the earth on the left and seven “planets” on the right in the medieval earth-centric universe? Or is it something else?

In Kabbalah, the number one is the source, origin; seven is family, harmony, which might fit with an angel-root, but less so with a bird.

If the root is an angel, then perhaps the flowers on the right represent the angels of the seven churches, which are depicted here with each one holding a star:

The angels of the seven churches, standing on a cloudband, each one holding a star. Sometimes a key of Solomon is drawn along with the seven angels, and the stars are sometimes likened to the seven medieval “planets”. [Source: BNF Français 13096]

Sometimes the seven stars of the seven churches are shown on one side, with the key of Solomon on the other:

BL Add 15243 key of Solomon and the seven stars of the seven churches.
The key of Solomon, with Latinized initials for Alpha and Omega? on either side of the nimbed God. The seven stars represent the seven churches and may also refer to the seven “planets”. [Source: BL Add 15243]

Unfortunately, it’s hard to narrow down a specific analogy because symbols of 1 + 7 are rather common. It might be a mnemonic for stars, such as the Pleiades (the seven sisters) and their father Atlas. The Pleiades are roughly arranged in an arc, with their father to one side:

Star chart of Pleiades (the seven sisters) and their father Atlas.

Or there might be a religious analogy…

There is an image of the Virgin and child in the Pauper’s Bible that places the Virgin in the center of spiraling rings of water (the fountain or “font” analogy was adapted from water imagery in Pagan times).

You might wonder what this enigmatic drawing means (especially when one sees spiral images and a lot of water in the VMS, as well). It’s a mnemonic, in the Llullian tradition, representing a prayer that was widely included in Books of Hours. The fountains spiraling between Mary and the outer edge are invocations to the Virgin, representing her as the “fount” of mercy, grace, consolation, indulgence, etc.:

A mnemonic for a prayer common in Books of Hours that includes an invocation to the Virgin Mary [Source: Pauper’s Bible, BSB Clm 8201 1414/1415].

Thus, we see a focal point (Virgin and child) with seven comet-like “fonts” (funds, or fountains) in a spiral. It doesn’t look like the VMS plant, but the themes and elements are similar.

The Pauper’s Bible also has a large number of candlestick-like plant images, similar to those I mentioned in a previous post about The Desert of Religion and similar to those by Ramon Llull, as in this one enumerating key points of the philosophy of love:

Tree of the Philosophy of Love, Ramon Lull, c. 13th century [This version from the Biblioteca Diocesana de Mallorca]

Here are similar plant forms in the Pauper’s Bible that are used to express religious categorizations, concepts, and sometimes mnemonics:

Plant-like instructional drawings in the 1414/1415 Pauper's Bible from Bavaria.

Some of the VMS plants also have candelabra-like qualities, but they do not have labels on the leaves, so it’s difficult to know if they have a similar purpose.

In alchemical diagrams, an assumed relationship between astrology, the seven “planets”, plants, and candlesticks (a metaphor variously used for religion, heat, or light) and chemical processes (especially those of distillation) are frequently diagramed in a highly symbolic way, as in this example from Anatomia Auri:

Anatomia Auri symbolic diagram of the orobouros, plants, stars, eage, sun and moon.

Summary

I think two things are especially important to consider about VMS Plant 46v…

  • The first is the apparently symbolic root, and the spiraling, broken-off flower stalks. They are more decorative or mnemonic than naturalistic. Viny plants are common in the borders of medieval manuscripts, but my research so far indicates this style (with the spiral stalks with a few broken off) was especially prevalent in English/Northern French manuscripts of the 13th to 15th centuries. But unlike the VMS drawing, the manuscript flower stalks were mostly decorations and a single plant did not usually occupy a full page.
  • The second is to note that the drawing in the Pauper’s Bible is specifically mnemonic, in a way that was probably inspired by the works of Ramon Llull or one of his followers. It is designed to inform and to remind.

It’s easy to consider the root as symbolic, but perhaps the VMS flower is symbolic as well. Maybe the text that accompanies this specific drawing is not about plants. Maybe it is a description of a constellation (like Pleiades). Maybe the root is an eagle and the drawing is about alchemy. Or maybe Plant 46v represents a prayer and there is an angel in the root.

J.K. Petersen

Postscript: After posting a blog, I always notice a few hours later that I’ve forgotten something I intended to include.

This time, I left out the explanation for the oddities at the base of the plant stalk if the plant combines symbols from Christianity and alchemy. The eagle is a prevalent theme in alchemical diagrams and birds frequently represent ascension and the holy spirit in Christian imagery. So…

If 46v represents alchemical or Christian themes (or both), then the red shoulder and the odd round circle at the base of the stalk might be the blood of Christ (wine is a fermented product) and the “host” (the body of Christ as per Catholic tradition). In addition to possibly representing the “host”, the “o” might also double for the hole driven through Christ’s feet and hands at the crucifixion. I have sometimes seen this represented in medieval drawings as a simple “o”-shape.

Or perhaps it’s a symbolic representation of the philosopher’s stone (which was sometimes drawn in the claw of the alchemical eagle) or the pelican piercing its breast to feed its young (one of the common alchemical distillation jars was called a pelican jar due to the curved shape of the glass pipes that fed back into the main jar). In medieval illustrations, the pelican never looked like a real pelican, it was always drawn like a songbird or a small crane.

© Copyright J.K. Petersen Feb. 2020, All Rights Reserved

Six of One, Half Dozen of the Other

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In a recent Cipher Mysteries blog, Nick Pelling wrote: “I believe that most Voynich researchers would agree that – very unusually – a single plant seems to appear in three separate places in the manuscript: f17v, f96v, and f99r. “

Although I’m a fan of Nick’s blog, I don’t agree! My immediate reaction was, “No way!”

  • Plant 17v has hastate leaves and more upright growth habit (possibly an upright plant or climbing vine).
  • Plant 96v has sagittate leaves and is probably tall (and might be a climbing variety and might not).
  • Plant 99r has heart-shaped leaves and a viny habit (possibly a semi-climbing vine that grows more horizontally than the first plant) and a differently shaped root from the first two.

This cannot be dismissed as mere differences in drawing style. Some details are defining, others are embellishments… to a botanist, these specific details are identification keys and I’m quite sure the VMS illustrator cared about the difference because the leaf margins and veins of many of the plants are carefully drawn to make the same kinds of distinctions. The various plant drawings are also specific as to whether they are solitary, viny, or clumpy. Whoever drew them knew a few things about plants.

Comparing the Three Plant Drawings

I spent months studying the VMS drawing style and how certain specific parts of the plants were differentiated before trying to identify them. Whoever drew them, especially the more naturalistic ones, cared about anatomical features. From a botanical viewpoint, these drawings represent three different leaf types and three different growth habits.

Note the way 96v is bent—it’s almost folded in half. In botanical drawings (and dried specimens), if the plant is too big to fit on the page, the illustrator will bend them to show that the plant has a long stalk. It doesn’t always mean it’s a vine, it sometimes means it’s a tall plant. Note that 96v does not have any tendrils and the stalk is not wiggly like the other two:

Plant 17v and 96v are superficially similar, but the plant on the left has hastate leaves, the one on the right has broader, more sagittate (arrow-shaped leaves). These distinctions are important for identification. They might be the same plant family (possibly Rumex), but it’s unlikely that they are the same species.

Plant 99r has heart-shaped leaves, a shape that is very common to tuberous vines. There are quite a few plants that could be represented by this drawing (see examples below), a number of which are in medieval manuscripts.

The first two examples might be from the same plant family, but probably not the same plant species. The first might be a viny plant, and the third is probably a viny plant. The second is more likely an upright plant. The first might not even be a vine—the “tendril” might not be a tendril—it might be the stalk that is extended to create a face as a mnemonic or tribute.

Visual Examples

The following chart includes botanical drawings with hastate leaves:

Now note that Plant 96v is different from 17v and 54v. It has broader, less “pinched” leaves, more sagittate than hastate (it’s probably a species of Rumex or Atriplex, although Smilax and a few other species could also be considered):

Plant 99r is different again. It is distinctly viny with heart-shaped leaves (possibly a viny Rumex, Polygonum, Bryonia, Dioscorea, or Convolvulus):

To Sum Up

I assembled these charts very quickly—grabbing examples that were on hand, due to time constraints—it’s really more of a comment response than a blog, but hopefully it’s enough to illustrate important differences that exist between the three VMS plant drawings.

There are instances of drawings in the big-plants section being duplicated in the small-plants section (I have compiled a list of them), but I think these three specific drawings are probably different species and hopefully the examples illustrate why.

J.K. Petersen

Copyright © 2018 J.K. Petersen, All Rights Reserved

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 18v

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This is a plant ID I posted 4 1/2 years ago. As some readers may have noticed, I uploaded many plant IDs in July 2013, but took down more than half of them about a week later because I was eager to solve the VMS and felt I might be giving too much away, but since the VMS has not yet been solved, as of Feb. 2018, I’ve had a change of heart and have decided to post them again as I have time. I haven’t changed the original text because I haven’t seen anything in the interim that alters my opinion about this plant.

Description

Plant 18v features a large drawing occupying most of the page. There is a ten-line block of text to the right at the top.

The stalk is quite upright and lightly painted. The leaves are a fairly solid green and fan-like, with about six rounded tips per leaf. The way they are attached to the stalk is variable—sometimes alternate, sometimes opposite. Some plants are like this, but most tend to lean toward one or the other.

The root has two sections, more bulbous near the stalk, with a long rhizome at the base. It is selectively painted a light reddish-brown and includes a long “tail” that might be characteristic of the plant (some plants have extended rhizomes that are more slender) or which might be symbolically related to the identity of the plant. There are protrusions from the rhizome shaped a bit like a caterpillar.

Prior Identifications

Edith Sherwood has identified this as columbine (Aquilegia alpina), perhaps because colombine leaves are somewhat fingerlike, but I don’t think it’s a very good fit. Colombine leaves do fan out, but they are also trifoliate, which the VMS leaves are not, and colombine does not have an elaborate, extended, branched style/pistil. In fact, one of the distinctive characteristics of colombine is that the flowers nod and have spurs extending toward the sky, something that is not expressed in any way in the VMS drawing.

Other Possibilities

I only have a few candidates for Plant 18v and I’m not satisfied that the first three are close enough, but I’ll mention them, for the record:

  • Plant 18v leaves are very similar to Lady’s mantle (Alchemilla vulgaris), a plant with a woody rhizome included in many herbal manuscripts, but if the VMS depicts Alchemilla, then the tiny clusters of flowers have been greatly magnified and modified. It doesn’t seem likely that Alchemilla flowers would be drawn this way. VMS Plant 23r is much more similar to Alchemilla than 18v—with fingerlike leaves, branching flower clusters, and the thick matted growth pattern clearly expressed in Plant 23r.
  • There is also a species of Convolvulus (known to many as morning glory or bindweed) that has fingerlike leaves and a number of protrusions within the petals, but unlike the VMS drawing, it’s a viny plant that grows lower to the ground, and the style/pistil doesn’t resemble the VMS drawing.
  • Geranium molle (dove’s-foot cranesbill) also has fingerlike leaves, but the leaves are more elaborate than the VMS and, like Convolvulus, the plant is somewhat viny and low-growing. Geranium molle does, however, have a branched style/pistil with little knobs on the end (I prefer to stay away from botanical terms because “knobs” are not always stigmas and anthers), so perhaps it’s not unreasonable to keep Geranium molle as a possibility, but it’s not at the top of my list because the overall shape of the plant and complexity of the leaves is dissimilar to Plant 18v.

Some species of hibiscus have five distinctive rounded red enlargements at the end of the pistil. [Image detail courtesy of Jawahar Swaminathan]

I can only think of one plant that specifically has finger-like leaves, a fairly thick root, and five branched reddish blobs at the end of the style, and one has to imagine that the petals have been stripped away, or that it’s late in the year when the petals retract so you can see the structures inside the blossom.

Different species of hibiscus have somewhat variable leaves, but quite a few of them have fan- or hand-shaped leaves.

If you peel away the petals on Althea (Malva), the plants commonly called hibiscus and hollyhock, the pistils of some species might be drawn like Plant 18v, and the leaves are a pretty good match as well. On some species the red knobs are close together, as in the photograph above, and in some they are splayed apart, as in the VMS drawing.

Althaea rosea, a hollyhock that grows in the Balkins, has a long row of protrusions along the pistil, similar to a bottlebrush. The leaves are palmate, but not quite as fingerlike as Plant 18v.

Malva maritima has more fingerlike leaves, and quite an elaborate style/pistil attachment with a starlike whorl of five leaflets. It also has protrusions at the end of the style/pistil, but does not have the very distinctive red matchstick-like ends protruding beyond the fuzzy parts that we see in the VMS drawing.

Hibiscus rosa-sinensis (left), a hibiscus that grows in Malaysia, has a particularly distinctive protrusion, with five branching knobs and a bottlebrush spray. The ends are bright red, as in the VMS drawing, but H. rosa-sinensis does not have fingerlike leaves, they are elliptical, so it’s not quite a match.

Malva neglecta has more fingerlike leaves but lacks the five distinctive red bulbs at the end of the style.

As with many VMS drawings, it’s hard to narrow it down to a single species, but Althea/Malva strikes me as being more similar to the VMS drawing than other kinds of plants and the distinctive five-branched style/pistil is not common in the plant world and thus is a good detail for remembering the plant.

I did find one other plant with a similar pistil, split into several bulbous ends, but the leaves were not a good match for the VMS, so I’m leaving it on the backburner for now.

J.K. Petersen

P.S.: The New World passion flower has a distinctive branching style/pistil, but the plant, as a whole, tends to be more viny than the VMS plant drawing, has variable numbers of branches on the style and doesn’t usually have the distinctive matchstick-like red knobs as are found in hibiscus. Also, the leaves of most species of passion flower are trifoliate and those that are more fingerlike don’t quite have a fan shape, each leaflet is usually more separate from the others. The fruits of passion flower are also quite distinctive and are frequently included in botanical drawings and the VMS plant doesn’t include fruit.

For those interested in botanical history, the passion flower was thought to be a species of clematis for a couple of centuries after the New World was colonized by Europeans. They do look similar in a number of ways, but Clematis is actually more closely related to the buttercup (Ranunculus) than to the Passiflorae.

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 6r

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Voy6rDescription

Plant 6r fills up most of the page from top to bottom and left to right. It has palmate green “wiggly” leaves alternating on a central stalk, and what appears to be a fairly prominent central vein (somewhat reminiscent of several members of the Lactuca family).

The stem is slender and has a spike of seed capsules  with distinctive openings at the ends. There’s also a very odd yellowish bump on their backs. They are colored a pale yellow and have little lines radiating outwards.

The roots look more metaphoric than naturalistic to me. At first glance they reminded me of jellyfish or hair tendrils like those on a doll’s wig, or maybe skeins of yarn. I wondered if this might be an aquatic or wetland plant, since the roots look like they might be suspended in water.

Prior Identifications

Sherwood6rEdith Sherwood has identified 6r as Acanthus mollis, a well-known plant commonly called Bear’s Breeches, probably due to the spiny claw-like leaf margins. Acanthus has a very distinctive leaf that has inspired countless decorative elements in architecture and furnishings. Corinthian columns are often carved with Acanthus motifs.

I can see why Acanthus might be offered as an ID. The leaves are odd-pinnatish and it has a tall flower stalk. Even the roots might be a good match, but somehow I didn’t get that satisfying, “Yeah, that’s it!” feeling when I looked at VMS 6r next to the picture of Acanthus. Acanthus has a basal whorl and the VMS plant has alternate leaves, the Acanthus leaves are serrated (spiny) and the VMS leaves look softer and wigglier, as though they might be ruffled rather than spiny, or as if viewed through water. I felt there might be a better ID.

Other Possibillities

The first time I saw Plant 6r, the leaves struck me as somewhat palm-like or philodendron-like except that the seed pods (assuming they are pods and not buds) are out of proportion to palm trees and not at all like any philodendron I know, so neither of those seemed like good paths to follow.

JellyfishRootSo I looked for marine plants that might match the root of 6r, since it reminded me of jellyfish or anything that might be suspended and moving in mildly active water. Not all aquatic plants are rooted in the substrate. Some of them float in water or have little bladders to walk on water. I didn’t have much success in finding anything that looked substantially like 6r. A number of aquatic plants are included in herbals, sometimes even seaweed, but I couldn’t find a combination of roots, leaves, and seed capsules (or buds) in the plant world that satisfied all the characteristics of Plant 6r.

Because the VMS illustrator drew most of the plants to fill the pages regardless of their relative size in real life, it’s hard to get a sense of scale. I didn’t want to overlook a plant due to assumptions about its size.

ResedaCapsuleI turned my attention to terrestrial plants, a subject I know better than aquatic plants, and a plant with distinctive seed capsules came to mind.

I didn’t think it could be Plant 6r at first because this plant usually has a tap root rather than divided roots, but then I recalled my first impression of the VMS root was not only of a jellyfish, but also of tendrils of hair or skeins of yarn… and that’s when I remembered that Reseda is one of the oldest dye plants in the Mediterranean region. Reseda was used to color silk and wool with yellow tones and sometimes to tint medieval manuscripts. Freshly dyed wool is hung out in skeins to dry. Could the roots be suggestive of yarn wafted by the wind? Was the pale yellow color of the roots a reference to plant dyes?

There are many species of Reseda, some with lanceolate leaves and some palmate. Many of them originated in Eurasia or around the Mediterranean and a number of them are valued for their natural dyes as well as for their fragrance. Reseda lutea, and Reseda luteola are probably the two most popular species for dyestuffs. Both have ruffled leaves and long flower spikes with distinctive seed capsules and both have a prominent white vein in the leaves.

ResedaAlbaPlant 6r resembles the leaves of Reseda alba more than most of the others. R. alba is endemic to north Africa, Eurasia, and possibly parts of Pakistan or eastern India. It too has distinctive seed capsules, with a reddish “mouth” and bumps that become more prominent as the seeds ripen. The roots of R. alba tend to branch a little more than some of the others, but it is still essentially a tap root and thus doesn’t match the VMS plant unless Plant 6r’s root is intended to be metaphorical.

R. alba was prized for its fragrance and, in the past, for its medicinal properties, but not so much for its dye as other species of Reseda. Reseda was known to the ancients. It is represented in old manuscripts such as Materia Medica, Circus Instans, and the herbal of Leonard Fuchs.

Assuming for a moment that Plant 6r might be Reseda, what are those bumps on the seed capsules? The seeds do push out along the sides when they ripen, but they don’t poke through and they aren’t as yellow or reflective as the lines in the VMS drawing seem to indicate. I don’t know whether the bumps might be suggestive of the heat coming off of dye pots or if they are meant to suggest the scaly round flowers that come out before the pods, but they obviously were important enough that the illustrator drew several of them.

While Reseda seems like a good candidate, I’m never completely satisfied until I’ve explored other options, so I asked myself, could those seed pods be spore capsules?

Thinking Less Big

Fissbryoides

Fissidens bryoides photo copyright Michael Lüth, hosted by the USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database.

Because the leaves and roots of Plant 6r reminded me of aquatic plants, I looked up various wetland species and paid particular attention to mosses, as they have sporophytes that somewhat resemble the distinctive pods of Plant 6r. Mosses are quite variable and many have palmate leaves. Some of them, like Fissidens bryoides (right) develop distinctive reddish tips as the sporophytes ripen.

The spore capsules of Funaria hygrometrica resemble the VMS plant even more than F. bryoides—they are somewhat irregularly shaped and, as they ripen, the “beaks” fall off and they are left with red tips that don’t have fuzzy ends. Isothecium alopecuriodes and Helodium paludosum also have palmate leaves and long spore capsules, but the capsules tend to be brown rather than green and they don’t have distinctive red tips.

VoyPlant84vYou might question whether there would be moss in the VMS, but some mosses and lichens (e.g., Muscus pulmonarius) were included in medieval manuscripts, particularly species believed to have medicinal properties.

If you look at another VMS plant (Plant 94v shown right), you’ll see that it too could potentially be moss, not only because of the seed heads that resemble sporophytes, but in the way it is clumped and the plants somewhat connected at the base, a common characteristic of moss. Thyme-moss has elliptical leaves and oval spore capsules similar to VMS 94v and might be worth consideration.

Plant6rDropletsSo it’s possible that Plant 6r is moss but what could explain those odd little bumps? I puzzled over that for a long time until I saw a photo of moss that was taken after a rainstorm or perhaps early in the morning when the plants were covered in dew. Each capsule had a tiny drop of water on its back that glinted in the sun, and some of them magnified the texture of the spore capsule, which becomes yellower and more wrinkled as it ripens. Could it be water? It seems as though water would slide off the two spore capsules on the left, so maybe it’s not water.

There’s another problem with identifying this as moss. There are multiple sporophytes on one stem. That’s unusual, but not unprecedented. I’ve lost track of the botanical name but I believe I found at least one moss with more than one sporophyte per stem. If I locate it again (assuming I’m not remembering it wrong), I’ll upload the name. Suffice it to say that the spore capsules are usually in singles so, if this is moss, it’s either a composite drawing, or a rare species.

Summary

KunstJellySmallI don’t have a definite ID for this plant. The VMS plant could potentially be either Reseda or moss, even though they’re quite different from one another.

It’s tempting to lean toward Reseda and call the roots a metaphorical allusion to yarn, but many species of mosses grow in wetlands and the roots might be drawn that way to represent a watery habitat. Or… it could be a plant I haven’t yet considered.

J.K. Petersen

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