Tag Archives: Voynich manuscript

Voynich Location – The Fantasy Scorpio

12 Jan 2016

Discerning a Big Picture from Small Clues

The zodiac pictures in the Voynich don’t appear to have much to do with zodiacs, they are mostly surrounded by ladies in loges, but the images themselves are recognizable as traditional zodiac symbols.

The depiction of Sagittarius in the Voynich manuscript as having legs and a crossbow is unusual and is, for the most part confined to a certain time and place, with the time being contemporaneous with the creation of the VMS. Since details like this may offer clues to the identity of the author or provenance of the document, it seemed worthwhile to examine some of the other symbols as well.

The Scorpio Zodiac Symbol

Folio 73r features a lizard-like yellowish-green creature with a long tail and a line in its mouth leading to a drawing of an 8-pointed star. It is surrounded by successive circles of texts and naked women.

It’s assumed this is Scorpio because it would fit the overall theme of zodiac symbols on adjacent pages. Whoever labeled the creature in a hand that differs from the main body text of the VMS, apparently thought so too, and labeled it novembre.

Many medieval European ideas about astrology and astronomy came from concepts expressed in Arabic documents.

Scorpio is based on the constellation Scorpius, a clump of stars with a long curving chain of a tail that resembles a scorpion, a venomous creature in the same family as spiders. You might not guess it was cousin to spiders, because it resembles a crustacean more than a spider (picture a crayfish with an upcurved, pointed tail). Depending on the species, the scorpion has six or eight legs plus specialized pointed claws called pedipalps, and a distinctive claw-like stinger at the end of the tail.

Today, scorpions have spread to almost every part of the world. In the middle ages, however, they may have been infrequent (or absent) in northern latitudes because illustrators who did a good job of drawing the other zodiac symbols sometimes created fanciful versions of Scorpio, or perhaps retained a different concept of the animal that the Scorpius constellation resembled because they were unfamiliar with the creature after which it was named.

That’s not to say that all northern Scorpios were difficult to recognize as a scorpion, many were quite accurate, as can be seen by the examples above that range from about 1425 to the later 1400s, but there are a few that deserve attention because, like the Voynich Scorpio, they could easily be mistaken for lizards, mammals, or dragons.

Unusual Depictions of Scorpio

The following chart illustrates some unusual depictions of Scorpio that would be difficult to recognize unless they were labeled as such or included with the other traditional zodiac symbols for context.

Naturalistic Scorpios are far more common than examples like these. Note that the origins of unusual Scorpio symbols trends more to the north and west than Sagittarius with a crossbow and legs. There is noticeable clustering of Sagittarius in the southern German and northern Swiss area. In contrast, the unusual Scorpios range from Germany and Switzerland to France and England. The two examples from England look more like mythical creatures (perhaps dragons) than any natural animal.

I haven’t yet found any reptilian or mammalian Scorpios from eastern Europe or the Mediterranean. They may exist, but if they do, they are not common. There are some that are debatable because they are not of expert quality. I tried to steer away from illustrations where you really can’t tell whether Scorpio’s quirks were a deliberate choice or attributable to weak drawing skills, and concentrated on those that were drawn well enough or deliberately enough to classify them as one or the other.

The date range of odd Scorpio symbols is not as tight as Sagittarius. Sagittarius with legs and a crossbow tends to occur very close to the time the VMS was created (estimated to be in the early 1400s). Unusual Scorpios, however, range from about 1200 to the early 1500s and since they are rare, are more broadly separated in time. In fact, only one Scorpio in this sampling is contemporaneous to the VMS.

Drawing Conventions

There are three examples that cluster around the German-Swiss border that resemble turtles and which don’t resemble the VM Scorpio at all. Give the scarcity of turtle-Scorpios and their geographic proximity, you might expect them to originate around the same time, but they were actually created about 100 years apart.

The two examples that most closely resemble the side-on posture, orientation, and lizard-like qualities of the VMS were created about 70 years earlier and about 80 years later than the estimated time of the VMS. There’s little likelihood that the brownish Scorpio with stegosaurus-like bumps influenced the VM since it was probably created later and has numerous legs, but it’s possible the one from the mid-1300s did if it was stored in a library or other location where people had access to the manuscript.

The green one from c. 1475 was probably created after the VMS, but note that both the VMS Scorpio and the green Scorpio from France have spots on their backs. There are a number of lizards, native to Portugal, Spain and southern France that are green with spots. Perhaps there was an oral tradition for the names of the constellations that influenced the choice of a lizardy creature that actually lived in north or central Europe.

Other Astrological Traditions

When you consider that most Scorpio symbols in the 15th century looked fairly realistic, even those from the north, you have to wonder why the Voynich illustrator chose this form. In some cultures, the stars that form Scorpius are perceived as a palm tree or as a bird, by why a lizard or mammal?

I considered that depictions of Scorpio in the north might be influenced by Nidhogg, a Norse serpent constellation that shares some stars with Scorpio but the resemblance is slight. The serpent is very long and doesn’t have legs. So, it appears that the Voynich manuscript, as it does in so many respects, serves up another mystery, one deserving of further study.

J.K. Petersen

Postscript 23 Jan. 2018: I have added two more images to the map from manuscripts that originated in the mid-14th century—one from Thérouanne and the other with shelfmark H 437 (which was brought to my attention in a post by Marco Ponzi).

I am not certain where H 437 originated, but the Picard-dialect translation of the Bestiary has been variously attributed to Richard or Pierre de Beauvais sometime in the early 13th century. H 734, the c. 1341 version, is housed in the Montpellier library but possibly originated farther north.

There isn’t room on the map to include the reptilian scorpios from other media dating back to the 11th century, but I have referenced sculptures, stained glass, and mosiac images in previous blogs about the constellation (I was not able to include images of all the sculptures due to copyright restrictions).

Postscript 2 Feb. 2018: I’ve been trying not to clutter this image too much, but I managed to squeeze one more example on the map (from c. 1230), and I have added a version number. I have many “dragon” scorpios from England, but since they are somewhat different from most of the reptile/amphibian drawings from France, I have opted to include only a few for reference.

As mentioned in the original blog on Scorpius, the green arrows are for reasonably established origins, with brown for those that are not completely certain.

You can click the thumbnail to see a larger version.

Voynich Folio 116v – A Charming Discovery

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The Strange Formulas in the Voynich Manuscript Partially Revealed

I recently experienced the thrill of discovery—information to confirm a hunch, and new information that might pull back the Voynich curtain just a crack.

I discussed the last page of the Voynich in previous blog entries from 2013, where I speculated that it might be a charm. All I had to go on at the time was a hunch, based on its formulaic nature.

I have since discovered examples of charms that reveal something about the content and format of a charm that strengthens the identification of the VM last page.

German Charms and Healing Prayers

My introduction to charms happened by accident prior to posting the example on the left in 2013. I discovered this charm on the fly leaf of Der Neusohler Cato. I didn’t know it was a charm at the time, it just felt that way to me… and it really caught my attention due to its similarities to oladabad and other cryptic text written on the last page of the Voynich manuscript (it might help to refer to that page before reading this one).

After discovering the Cato fragment, I searched the Web extensively for other variations of the word abracula or abgracula and found none. Two months later I tried again without success. And then I basically forgot about it.

A couple of years later, in 2015, I discovered the shield-shaped charm shown to the right and noticed immediately that the Cato charm uses the same “abgracula” or “abracula” or “abraculauß” (variations are common) as the shield charm.

The shield charm was revealing because there was information included around the edges of the shield, in a mixture of old Germanic and Latin, that were not included in the Cato fragment and… the blend of languages is similar to the Voynich manuscript. This shield charm, and a couple of others that I’ll illustrate below, gave me an exciting clue as to the nature of the text at the top and bottom of Folio 116v.

Abgracula/Abraculauß/Aburacula/Abraculuß

From looking at examples, I discovered that abracula, possibly derived from Abraxas, is a very specific charm word for the reduction of fever, one that was used in Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries (I don’t yet know if it was passed down through oral or written history prior to the 1400s but will continue to watch for examples).

I also discovered there’s a formula for presenting the charms.

To clarify this, I’m including two manuscript clips from the same document from the Heidelberg region dating to the second quarter of the 16th century.

Note the same basic charm word (or “chant”) Abraculuß and the way it is broken down with cross symbols between each of the letter groups. Thus, it gradually becomes Abracan (quite similar to Abracadabra), Abracu, and finally Abra followed by several crosses and additional text in German. This may be a short form of the full charm.

A few pages earlier was a more extensive description of the same concept:

There is German text on the first line to introduce the purpose of the charm, then the charm word Aburacula successively broken down (with crosses in between, possibly to indicate signing the cross) and then some more explanatory information in German about how to apply the charm.

Note that both these reductionist charms are for fever (loosely spelled “fieber” and “fiber”).

The lengthier example instructs the user to write down the words and then, it’s difficult to make out all of it, but if “hencken” is old German or Yiddish for hängen, then it says to hang it around one’s neck for nine? days, along with some further instructions.

Why is this significant?

Look at the format.. first there is a description of what the charm is for, then the charm itself, then instructions for anything else that needs to be done with the charm (such as writing it down and wearing it for certain number of days).

Now look at the final page of the Voynich manuscript. At the top is something that looks like pox leben or pox leber. Pox isn’t really German (pocken is more usual), but this is old German which sometimes has influences from other languages and perhaps “pox” refers to small pox or chicken pox and leben or leber could mean “life” or “liver” as I mentioned in my previous post from 2013. If so, then it may indicate, in some way, what this charm is for treatment of the pox or the liver, for example.

So, if this is a charm in the traditional German style, the text at the top describes the malady for which the charm is useful, then the charm follows and then there are further instructions on how to apply it.

Charm Varieties

Does this mean the VM text is a charm? It’s possible, not all charms were reductionist charms, some used words or abbreviations, names of saints or bits of prayer. Here’s an example of a non-reductionist charm that is closer to the Latin-like format of the VM text:

Note the words at the end of the second line + Nox pax mox + (nox is night and pax is peace). They are reminiscent of the VM six + inarix + morix + vix +.(six and vix have meaning in Latin, the other two I don’t know).

Here’s one for fever that is entirely charm words within the crosses (basically nonsense syllables):

Aglamandis was also used as a charm word (or chant) in the same document.

Discovering these charms helped me understand the Cato fragment better. There is some torn-away text underneath the Abgracula charm that says that the charm is for fever and should be worn for thirteen days. I didn’t know this text related to the Abgracula text until I knew more about charms.

Even with all these tantalizing clues, I don’t know for certain if the text on the VM last page is a charm, but more and more it appears that it might be. It’s also possible that something else is encoded in the general form of a charm, a subtext hidden within the larger context.

What I can say is that the format and content of the text follows that of medical charms from the same approximate time period and region as Sagittarius with legs (in the zodiac section)—thus adding some circumstantial evidence that might help unravel the as-yet-unknown early provenance of the Voynich manuscript.

J.K. Petersen

Postscript June 2018: This example may also be of interest. The wandering monk, Gallus Kemli collected a number of astrology and health-related items and this one includes a mixture of languages, and power words with crosses between them. The text is written with typical Latin abbreviations (I have expanded them to make them easier to read).

One thing that stands out for Voynich researchers is the use of a common cipher to write the purpose of the charm (against pestilence) in which consonants are substituted for vowels. This form of simple substitution code is very easy to read as is shown in the image below:

My original posts of more simple charms (a word repeated and reduced), are at this link (2013) and at this link (2015).

The Charm of the Voynich Last Page 30 Dec 2013

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The Strange Formulas in the Voynich

The Last Page of the Voynich was introduced in a previous blog entry and is notable not only for its enigmatic content, but also for the way it differs from the rest of the document—in writing style, content, the balance of the text on the page, the size of the parchment, and the quality of the parchment, which has holes and seams.

The style of most of the writing is significantly different from Voynichese, less round and careful, and perplexingly combined with a couple of words in Voynich script. The relationship between the text and the drawings is not clear, if there is one. The crosses between the “words” is unique to this page.

It’s remarkable that a page with so little content can generate so many questions.

Medieval Charms and Healing Prayers

I alluded briefly to the fact that syllables like oladabad/oladabas and the crosses between the words are reminiscent of medieval charms characteristic of northern Europe. Even the “+” shapes at the beginning of several words (if it is, indeed, an “+”) are common to many charms and combination charms/prayers.

I also mentioned having found a coded word on the fly leaf of Der Neusohler Cato that really caught my attention due to its similarities to the last-page text of the Voynich Manuscript.

I guessed that the coded word at the beginning of Der Neusohler Cato might be a charm/symbol and that it might have a similar function to the text on the last page of the Voynich almost two years before I found time to read about medieval charms. My hunch was based on its sound and character.

When I finally looked for more information on charms, late in 2012, I discovered a few examples in Leechcraft (Pollington, 2000) with crosses and apparent nonsense words (or words whose meaning has been lost) and a few months later a more specific discussion in Middeleeuwse witte en zwarte magie in het Nederlands taalgebied (Braekman, 1997) which describes charms/healing prayers that contain a mixture of Latin and sometimes incomprehensible “charm” words. You can look up the document online—here are two examples:

In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

+ Ire + arex + xre + rauex + filiax + arafax + N

In particular, note these ending patterns:

+ Ire + arex + xre + rauex + filiax + arafax + N

They’re not identical to the Voynich, but they have a similar character.

And a second example from Braekman:

+ aladabra + ladabra + adabra + dabra + abra + ra + a + abraca + [the person’s name]

The breakdown of the word abgracula on the fly leaf of Der Neusohler Cato to a single symbol made me wonder if the final “coded” symbol was intended to be engraved on a pendant, amulet, or weapon. That might be, but apparently there’s another reason I didn’t anticipate that is mentioned by Braekman. He points out that charm-words are often broken down from larger to smaller units to represent the breakdown of the malady as it subsides. He uses the well-known “magic” word abracadabra (ha brakha dabra) along with another word, ararita, as examples. The crosses are associated with healing and apparently things are helped along by signing a cross in between chanting the magical words.

Many healing charms from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance have a Christian character but it has been my feeling from the beginning that the Voynich Manuscript is not specifically a Christian document despite the occasional cross held in the hands of female characters. The ring and Christian-style cross were common symbols across cultures in those days and may simply be a literary device. Many of the VM drawings have pagan characteristics and the entire enigmatic puzzle-like character of the document points to cultures that keep their secrets close the chest or encode it in some way. The Zarathustrians, Gnostics, and Jewish Kabbalarians come to mind.

Whether the Voynich was encoded because it contained taboo subjects related to sexuality (particularly women’s sexuality) or because it was hard-won knowledge intended to be passed down only to someone “deserving” (perhaps an heir) is not clear. Either way, the secret is still mostly a secret after half a millennium and is providing more food for thought than the Voynich author could ever have imagined.

J.K. Petersen

Feb. 20, 2017 Addendum: I stumbled across a Hebrew blessings phrase, “Ha-Brachah-dabarata” once again, from another source, some time after writing this blog and when I said it out loud (again), it still rings true as the possible origin of A-braca-dabra. Also, some of my research indicates that the charm word Abracula may be derived from the name Abraham (pronounced with a hard-h that sometimes gets transcribed as a hard-c).

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 95r

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Description

Plant 95r fills most of the page, especially toward the bottom. There is an eight-line block of text across the top of the page that is worked around the top edges of the plant.

The plant has trifoliate leaves at the end and an overall odd-pinnate arrangement, with each group of leaves opposite the other.

The flower stalk is fairly thick and has been left unpainted. It divides into four narrower stalks with round shapes that resemble berries with a knob or spot at the end of each one. The spots are colored a pale yellow. The “berries” are arranged opposite and are fairly closely spaced. They might also be flower knobs—there are a few plants that have “knobs” rather than petals, but there’s no calyx present and no rough areas, pistils or stamens, so it seems more likely these are fruiting bodies rather than flowers.

The elliptical leaves have been painted a fairly even color of medium green except for one on the lower left that has a bit of brown mixed in. The leaves on the left are joined across the stem, as is the top set of leaves on the right. The ones bottom-right have some stem showing between the leaves.

The leaf margins are very interesting, different from any of the other Voynich plants. They look more like hairs than serrations—and not straight hairs, but hairs with a very slight curve at the ends. But are they hairs or are they stylistic interpretations of serrated edges? In some ways they resemble hairs, but a couple of the leaves on the left look like they might be curved serrations.

The base of the stem has a few fibrous “hairs” but is not overtly fibrous and the top edge of the upper roots have some fibrous hairs or protrusions, as well. Is this perhaps a plant that has roots slightly protruding from the soil?

The roots are fairly broad, medium-thickness and branch fairly evenly toward the bottom. They have been painted a reasonably consistent color of brick red.

Prior Identification

Edith Sherwood has identified Plant 95r as elderberry (Sambucus nigra), possibly due to the “berries” at the end of the stalks.

Sambucus nigra does tend to have an odd-pinnate arrangement of leaves, but the group of three at the end of each elderberry branch is not as tightly fused as Plant 95r and the berry-stalks of Sambucus nigra branch frequently to create a more umbellate shape, rather than running out from the stalk in long, more singular stems.

While Sambucus nigra and Plant 95r superficially resemble each other (and we don’t know how accurately the VM illustrator portrayed plants), I believe there are plants more closely resembling 95r than Sambucus nigra.

Other Possibilities

Poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix), and its close relative poison ivy, are both similar to Plant 95r, including odd-pinnate leaves and long stems with opposite-spaced berries that have a dot in the center, but the leaves are not as fused as the VM plant and the leaf margins are unlikely to inspire an illustrator to draw unusual leaf margins with a hair-like shape. Also, the VM illustrator created a large open dot and took the time to color it pale yellow. The dots on poison sumac and poison ivy tend to be small and dark.

Oregon grape (Mahonia aquifolium) has long clusters of tightly-spaced berries and odd-pinnate leaves that sometimes look almost fused at the stem. The leaves are spiny and sometimes slightly ruffled and thus the leaf margins might be depicted differently by an imaginative illustrator, but the VM plant doesn’t “feel” like Mahonia aquifolium and M. aquifolium is a west coast plant unlikely to have been seen by a medieval European.

Lantana is an African and tropical American plant with opposite leaves and “berries,” and the leaf margins have a somewhat curved appearance from some angles, due to the slight ruffles in the serrations—it’s definitely possible that the leaves of some species of Lantana might be depicted as seen in Plant 95r—but Lantana doesn’t match in other ways. It tends to have shorter fruiting stalks in tight clusters that grow from the leaf nodes, rather than long fruiting stalks emerging from the ends of the branches. While it’s tempting to include Lantana as a possibility based on the leaf margins alone, the arrangement of the leaves and fruits isn’t similar enough to VM 95r to make it a strong contender.

Actaea spicata (baneberry) resembles Plant 95r more closely than any of the previously mentioned plants. The leaves are odd pinnate, the terminal leaves are sometimes so tightly clumped that they are fused-trifoliate, the leaf margins are raggedly serrated (one could almost call them lacerate), and the berries extend beyond the leaves from the ends of slender stalks.

Most varieties of Actaea have a small dark dot or an indentation in the fruiting bodies, but there are some that have a slightly raised, rounded protrusion.

Even with all these similarities, I wouldn’t call Actaea a perfect match. The leaf margins are different from many plants, but perhaps not enough to warrant such an unusual interpretation by an illustrator, and Actaea berries do not usually have a significant protrusion, but Actaea should probably still be considered as a possibility.

Posted by J.K. Petersen

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 90r

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Description

Plant 90r fills most of the page from top to bottom—in fact, it barely fits on the page and one wonders if the parchment at the top has been trimmed.

The leaves are medium green and painted with a light touch, with some a little lighter green than others and a few with a slightly yellow-green tint. Note how the paint has been applied more carefully than in may of the VMS illustrations. The painting of the roots is less sloppy also.

The leaves are lanceolate, opposite, and odd pinnate. The stem is slender and upright and divides into three at the top, with fluffy flower heads cupped in dark green calyces.

The roots are slightly curved, medium brown, relatively uniform (as roots go)—the kind of roots that are found on many buttercup plants (in other words, no lumps, not distinctly a tap root, and without a distinctive rhizome) except that the top of the root is thick, like a thumb.

There is a sprinkling of small black spots on this page that look like worm holes.

There are two blocks of text near the base that divide across the stem of the plant.

Prior Identifications

Edith Sherwood has identified this plant as fleabane (Conyza bonariensis), probably based on fleabane’s fluffy seedheads, but the resemblance is only superficial. The VM drawing might be seedheads, but it might also be the flowering phase of the plant and, if so, it doesn’t match as well because C. bonariensis has a fairly tight small flower like a groundsel—it’s shaped a bit like a microphone rather than being broadly open. Even if the VM plant is in the seed stage, it still doesn’t match C. bonariensis very well because fleabane fluffs out into a ball with the calyx hidden within the fluff, like a dandelion.

C. bonariensis does match Plant 90r in that it has narrow lanceolate leaves, but that’s where the resemblance ends. Unlike C. bonariensis, the leaves of 90r are not branched and they are not opposite. They are not odd pinnate either. Furthermore, the roots are not a good match. C. bonariensis has a fairly beefy tap root that doesn’t branch significantly until a few inches below the ground. Plant 90r has kind of a thick nub that splits into fingers rather than a tap root.

There are a number of plants that more closely resemble the VM plant than C. bonariensis.

Other Possibilities

You could argue that Plant 90r is Spanish thyme (Thymus mastichina), a culinary and medicinal plant that grows in Portugal and Iberia. Like Plant 90r, it has fluffy greenish-white heads, branching stems, and opposite leaves. The problem with T. mastichina is that it doesn’t branch as evenly as Plant 90r. The fluffy heads do sometimes split into three (though not as evenly as 90r) but more often they are tiered. The top end of the root isn’t as thick as the VM plant either.

There is a tall spindly plant called Cephalaria uralensis that grows in eastern Europeand Russia. It is related to teasel and has odd-pinnate lanceolate leaves that branch opposite each other, directly from the stem, as they do in the VM plant. It has round, fluffy, creamy-white flowers with long stamens. It might be a good candidate for Plant 90r except that the flower stems are distinctively long (very long) and it has a fairly thick tap root.

Another cousin of the teasel is Scabiosa canescens, a charming flower with leaves that branch almost exactly like Plant 90r, and a fluffy flower head that turns into an almost spherical seed capsule with protruding sepals. There is usually only one flower at the end of the stem, but sometimes it branches into three lower down on the plant (with long stems like Cephalaria uralensis). A flower that grows in fields in France, Scabiosa arvensis, is similar. Both of these, however, have tap roots.

Is it possible to find a plant that matches the flowers/seedhead, leaves and the root?

An Old Medicinal Herb

There is a plant that comes very close to Plant 90r in significant ways. It has lanceolate odd-pinnate leaves growing opposite along the stem, stems that split near the top, often into three or more flower heads. Some species have a root with a thumblike knob near the top before it splits into finer roots.

Valeriana is a fairly variable species, but several have odd-pinnate leaves that are a good match for Plant 90r, possibly Valeriana phu, V. sylvatica, or V. dioica. It’s notable that the herbal tradition for depicting this plant in medieval times is to show it splitting into three flower heads even though in nature, it often has more.

Valerian has a very long history as a medicinal plant and is still a staple in many medicine cabinets. It also has some toxic properties and must be processed and used with care.

It would be hard to say whether Plant 90r resembles Valeriana or Scabiosa more closely. The main difference is the root. Scabiosa has a distinct tap root whereas Valerian sometimes has a tap root that is knobby near the stem but then branches more broadly. Depending on how literally one takes the VM drawing, one might lean toward Valeriana. Also, given Valerian’s significant history as a medicinal herb, it would not be surprising to find it in a health-related compendium.

Plant 90r may not be Valeriana (or Scabiosa), but it’s more likely to be either of these than Conyza bonariensis.

J.K. Petersen

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Addendum: I found another picture in my files that illustrates why I’m leaning toward Valerian phu as an ID for Plant 90r. It’s drawn by Elizabeth Blackwell, known for her accuracy in portraying herbs.

Note the fine-textured odd-pinnate leaves that branch to either side (Scabiosa also has this), the three-branched heads of white blossoms, and the three green protrusions cupping each flower head. The root is moderately thick with many root hairs. It matches well with the VMS drawing.

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 54v

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Description

Plant 54v stretches from bottom to top on the right half of the page, with a block of text added to the left very close to the edge of the plant, almost overlapping the leaves and flower spike.

The stem is slender and reddish brown. The medium-green leaves are opposite and hastate (they look like fish), with short reddish petioles.

The root has a bead-like string of tubers painted reddish-brown and the top of the stem has a long drooping flower spike with buds, seed capsules or berries with a spot or perhaps a reflection? at the end.

The buds or “berries” are painted blue and are slightly oval and droop down toward the bottom of the page. Whether the droop is there to fit the plant on the page or if this is the way the plant grows is difficult to determine from the drawing alone. In some herbal illustrations, a tall plant is represented by running it along the top of the page or by creating a “break” in the stem to show that it would continue upwards if not broken. The VMS plant drops down along the edge.

Prior Identifications

Edith Sherwood has identified this plant as Russian sage (Perovskia atriplicifolia), a south-central Asian plant loosely related to what we normally call sage (Salvia). I hate to be blunt, but I can’t see any commonalities between Plant 54v and Russian sage, either in the shapes of individual parts of the plant or in growth habit.

Perovskia atriplicifolia Curtis

P. atriplicifolia has tall slender stems and small, deeply lacerated leaves that are quite feathery (not fish-like at all). The stems are whitish green, somewhat downy, and the flowers a soft violet-blue. Russian sage is a handsome bushy plant with a tap root, whereas Plant 54v has leaves that grow up along the stem, rather than being bushy toward the base like P. atriplicifolia.

The leaves of Russian sage are distinctly different from the sorrel-like leaves of Plant 54v, as can be seen from the photo below.

The only apparent similarity is in the spike of bluish buds or flowers or berries. Russian sage doesn’t have berries, but it does have bluish buds. And, like the Voynich plant, the spikes are quite long but… Plant 54v has a single spike, whereas Russian sage typically branches, so even the spikes differ in a number of ways.

The Fishy Leaves

The illustration below shows the elliptical, sometimes deeply lacerated leaves of Russian sage compared to the VMS plant and, on the right, two plants with fish-like leaves.

Russian sage (left), VMS plant leaves (center). Note that the Russian sage leaves are elliptical and many of them deeply lacerated. The hastate fish-like leaves of R. acetosella (second right) and Solanum (right) are more similar to the Voynich plant than to the ones on the left. Both are common plants. (Leaf pics courtesy of Missouri Plants).

Other Possible Identifications

Based on the shape of the leaves and stems, the two most obvious candidates for Plant 54v are some form of sorrel (e.g., Rumex acetosella) or Solanum (possibly Solanum dulcamara), a form of nightshade. Both are well represented in herbal manuscripts and both have long fruiting heads and hastate leaves. Sorrel is considered edible and medicinal and Solanum, which has distinctive berries, has many traditional medicinal associations. Note in the picture to the right that sorrel leaves are generally near to the ground, but I have seen varieties with leaves growing up along the stem, as well.

The problem with making a definite ID (or choosing between sorrel or nightshade) is that both have leaves that are arranged alternately, and they don’t have distinctively knobby roots. I don’t think these differences are mistakes on the part of the VMS illustrator, I think whoever drew the plants was making an effort to express details accurately even if they are sometimes symbolically expressed, but what does that leave in terms of alternate IDs?

First I should mention that Plant 17v (left) has similar characteristics to 54v—opposite hastate leaves, a long fruiting spike, and a long bead-like root. It’s drawn larger than 54v and has a tendril at the end of the spike, perhaps indicating that it’s a viny plant.

Sticky sage (Salvia glutinosa) might qualify for Plant 54v—it has somewhat hastate opposite leaves, red stems, and a long fruiting spike—but the VMS plant has smooth leaf margins, while sticky sage leaves are quite deeply toothed.

Looking Farther East

Cinnamon vine (also known as Chinese potato or Japanese yam) is a better candidate than any of the previous plants. It has hastate opposite leaves (moreso when the plant is dried), distinctive red stems, fruiting spikes and a lumpy tuber that can reach three feet in length. In fact, cinnamon vine (Dioscorea batatas) qualifies quite well for Plant 17v except that the hastate leaves aren’t as pointy and narrow as 17v.

Cinnamon vine originates in Central and S.E. Asia, so it’s hard to know when it was introduced to the western world, but there is at least one old herbal illustration notated in Greek that resembles cinnamon vine, so perhaps it, or one of its relatives, came west with traveling merchants. It is an important food crop, known to the west as the yam, and is now known throughout the world.

Home Again

There is a plant native to the Mediterranean area with opposite hastate leaves, that has a thick root (though not as knobby as VMS 54v).

Greek sage (Salvia triloba), also known as Greek oregano, has distinctive downy fish-like leaves with smooth margins, and violet-blue flowers on long spikes. Like most sage plants, it does tend to branch, however, but should perhaps be considered as a candidate for 54v.

It’s possible that the plant labeled Salvia maior or Salvia maggiore in many of the old herbals (left) is Greek sage, as a number of them show the distinctive fish-like leaves of this species of Salvia.

What Else is There?

We’re not out of options yet. There’s another plant that deserves consideration. In fact, it may even resemble 17v more than 54v, though it’s similar to both and worth discussing here.

Atriplex prostata with reddish stems and opposite, hastate leaves courtesy of Georges Laroche, Fleurs des Champs

Orache or “fat hen” is a common plant in Europe and temperate North America that adapts well to disturbed locations. When dried (as a herbarium specimen), the leaves are distinctively hastate. The leaves are sometimes alternate, sometimes opposite, attached to reddish-brown stems. Many species of Atriplex have longish fruiting spikes. It’s an adaptable plant, sometimes bushy, sometimes spindly, depending on the species and the environment. It often grows in the same locations as Rumex plants.

Most Atriplex plants have broadly hastate leaves, but there are some with very narrow leaf-ends, similar to VM 54v. The challenge is to find a species that has both narrow leaf-ends and opposite leaves on the same plant. We also have to consider that there may be species that have disappeared over the last 600 years since the VMS plants were drawn.

Summary

As with many VMS plant IDs, it’s difficult to narrow it down to one plant, but sometimes it’s possible to narrow it down to two or three likely candidates. If the VMS plant is very literal, then a narrow-leaved spindly variety of Atriplex might be the best choice in terms of hitting all the bases. If it’s a simplification (showing only one branch rather than many), it might be Solanum dulcamara or Greek Sage. If the opposite leaves are accurate, it’s probably not Rumex acetosella, even though it resembles sorrel in many ways, but if the leaves are drawn opposite for convenience or for visual effect, rather than for accuracy, perhaps Rumex is a possibility.

And then there’s Cinnamon vine—reddish stems, knobby flowers and darker, knobby seeds, big lumpy tubers, and opposite hastate leaves—other than having broader leaves, it resembles Plant 54v in most respects. If Dioscorea were known to the VMS illustrator in the 15th century, it’s perhaps the best choice.

I’m not staking my hand on a specific ID for this plant, at least not yet. I don’t think there’s enough information to narrow it down to just one, but I think Russian sage is out of the running.

J.K. Petersen

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 49r

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Description

Plant 49r fills most of the page from top to bottom and left to right. In fact, it inhabits the page in a dynamic and sinuous way that conveys an exuberant sense of life. The leaves are rounded, scalloped, and painted a deep green. The stems are light brown, the roots darker brown, and there are two spotted snakes or worms interwoven through the root bumps.

The plant has a viney wavy stem curving around a mostly straight central stem, with flower heads alternately spaced. Some of the flowers at the top are shown in more detail than others, possibly because the petals have not appeared yet (or have withered) on some. The primary color used for the flowers is red or a softened red, with dark blue used to color the parts that look like petals. One flower (or calyx) near the lower left remains unpainted.

There is more text on this page than on many of the plant pages, appearing in three chunks at the top of the page, the middle left and lower left.

Prior Identifications

Edith Sherwood has identified this plant as the blue Nile lotus (Nymphaea caerulea), a plant with psychoactive properties that grows in subtropical areas. From an herbal compendium point of view, it would not be surprising to find the lotus represented, the only problem being that the VM plant doesn’t look like a lotus.

The 49r flowers have somewhat bell-shaped calyces that are quite different from the spreading elliptical petals of the lotus flower. Nor do the round scalloped leaves look like lotus leaves if you consider that the VMS plant on folio 2v demonstrates that the VMS illustrator was quite capable of drawing a naturalistic plant that strongly resembles a lotus. The roots of 49r don’t look like lotus roots either. Lotus roots are quite distinctive in the way in which the rhizomes spread and leave “scars” from older leaves dropping off.

Other Possibilities

So what can Plant 49r tell us if we examine the drawing a little more closely?

First of all, ask yourself, what kinds of plants have a tall, straight central stem with rounded scalloped leaves near the tops and fairly thick roots? Let’s say for a moment that shrubs and trees are more likely to be shaped this way. Note that there are no flowers along the main stem or within the leaves (note: I suspect the reason the top of the “shrub” is leaning left is because it’s too tall to fit on the page if it is drawn straight up).

Now look at the viney stems that meander around the central stem. They have alternately spaced calyces and flowers and no leaves. I think it’s possible there are two different plants on this page—a vine and its host—and there are not many leafless vines, which helps narrow the possibilities for identification.

Dodder

The plant on this page could be dodder (Cuscuta), a spaghetti-like vine thought by some to be related to morning glory. It likes to climb and twine. Dodder is leafless (it has tiny scales, but not leaves as we usually recognize them) and grows mainly in tropical, subtropical, and temperate environments.

Dodder is parasitic and can be a menace to crops. It has earned names like strangleweed and devil’s hair but also less sinister names such as love vine due to its intimate clutching of its host. Sometimes it twines around stems and sometimes it forms a canopy on shrubs or trees—it depends partly on the species of dodder and on the growth habit of the host. Cuscuta europaea will cover a shrub like a big pink blanket.

Different species of dodder tend to parasitize particular hosts. Thus, there is flax dodder, tomato dodder, acacia tree dodder, and others. There are also some that are less fussy.

Dodder finds its host through chemical trails—the plant version of a sense of smell. When the seed sprouts, it grows along the ground (sometimes just under the ground) until it reaches a host, then twines itself into the stems or branches. If it doesn’t find a host within a few days or weeks (depending on the species), it will die.

Dodder’s bell-shaped flowers come in many colors, including pink, orange, white, yellow, and beige. Usually the petals are short, but sometimes are long. Sometimes the flower clusters are sparse, sometimes thick.

Relationship to Plant 49r

Which brings us back to Plant 49r and the creatures that look like snakes winding through the roots at the bottom of the page.

These may not be snakes at all. They may be worms or mythical serpents. But assuming they are snakes, they can mean many things in medieval lore. Snakes are sometimes allegorical, referring to the serpent in the garden of Eden, sometimes they are morphed into dragons, and sometimes are meant to be literal. In herbal manuscripts they usually represent one of the following: the shape or name of the plant (snake-root, snake lily, snake-weed, etc.), the function of the plant (e.g., to treat snake bite), a propensity for the plant to attract snakes, or the fact that the plant is toxic in some way, like we use a skull-and-crossbones.

We cannot say with certainty why the VM illustrator drew snakes winding through the roots, but dodder is dependent upon the host’s root system, since it has no roots of its own, and new dodder sprouts winding along the ground, seeking a host, look very similar to small snakes. Both of these aspects may have inspired the way Plant 49r is drawn.

It is worth noting that C. europaea and C. epilinum (flax dodder) are well represented in European herbal manuscripts. In northern manuscripts, the depictions often show flax or shrubs as the host. In the Mediterranean, trees are sometimes used.

The VMS author had quite a bit to say on this page, considering that many plant drawings have much less text. If the text relates to the plant in some way (we don’t know that it does), maybe the text is longer because both plants are being described.

Summary

I can’t say with certainty that Plant 49r is dodder. If it is, it is more likely to be C. europaea (or some species that is attracted to shrubs or trees), than flax dodder. Across the globe, most dodders have beige, white, or yellowish flowers, but C. europaea is somewhat unique in being pink, the color that would most closely fit the red used in the VM. It’s also possible that the VM color is fanciful, since I’m not aware of any dodder with blue petals, but I’m inclined to take the color fairly literally (within the constraints of 15th century pigments) because the colors of Viola and Ricinus and many of the other plants are applied correctly.

Also, it’s not entirely clear whether there are two plants or one on this page (see Plant 35v for another example of a drawing that may represent two plants), but I felt it was important to provide a dissenting opinion to the idea that it is a lotus plant and to encourage viewers to look more closely at the arrangement of different parts of the plant to consider whether there are, in fact, two, and how that might change our perception of the drawing.

J.K. Petersen

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 35v 21 July 2013

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The VMS plants are more detailed than many herbal drawings of the 15th century, but this has not made identification easy. Some appear identifiable at first glance while others require study. The text is not helpful because, as yet, it has not been deciphered and even once it is, there’s no guarantee the text has anything to do with plants.

Description

It would take far too much space in one blog to trace herbal traditions that precede the VMS that may have influenced the way the plants were drawn but, at the risk of making even this post too long, I would like to offer an observation about the plant on folio 35v, which suggests, along with other clues, that the Voynich illustrator was familiar with some of the traditional texts.

Folio 35v shows a tall plant stretching from the top to the bottom of the page, with roots that reach almost all the way from left to right. There is either a single block of text on the left, or two blocks closely spaced.

The crenelated green leaves on the trunk of the central stalk, and at the top, resemble oak leaves and the roots are reddish brown. The central stem and the winding stem are roughly painted a slightly lighter shade of green.

If you look at it a little more closely, you can see that there may be two plants on this page. I’ve mentioned this possibility in my description of Plant 49r, as well—that the Voynich images are not necessarily all drawings of single plants.

What appears to be a second plant winds its way around (and through) the trunk of the taller plant and has berrylike clusters at fairly regular intervals. The knobs are mostly aqua-blue, a color that doesn’t occur often in the VMS. A few are a slightly darker blue or red. Note that the berries are painted more carefully than the trunk and vine stems, as though the lighter ring around the edge was intentional.

It’s possible that this is some kind of vine and perhaps the tree in the center is a host (either in the sense of providing a support for growth or in the sense of a parasitic host).

It’s difficult to identify the vine from a handful of berries. They might be grapes, they might be something else, they might be buds rather than berries. Also, notice the absence of leaves. In my post on Cuscuta, I suggested the vine might be paired in the drawing with its host plant. That’s possible here too. It’s also possible that the leaves drop in the fall while the berries remain. There are many plants that can be seen in winter with berries and no leaves. There’s simply not enough information to know, unless… we get some help from herbal tradition.

The Twining Vine

A vine from the Juliana Anicia Codex that follows the same basic format as that of De Materia Medica of, Dioscorides.

Assuming for a moment that the twining plant is a vine and that the round knobs are berries rather than buds, we can look at other depictions of vines in the old herbals to see if any are similar. What we discover is that some are thickly matted, some twirl in one direction tight against the host stem, and some wriggle through the air toward the top or side of the page (e.g., Pseudo-Apuleius). Most have leaves, or leaves and flowers, but some are shown with berries. Harley 4986 differs from most by emphasizing the berries, but doesn’t otherwise resemble Plant 35v.

So it would seem, at first glance, that the VM plant doesn’t follow previous traditions unless we delve a little further.

Herbals Originating from Other Regions

There is a picture of common ivy in Harley 4986, in which the berries are emphasized to the point of looking like grapes, but the drawing is not otherwise similar to Plant 35v—it includes leaves, doesn’t noticeably twine, and doesn’t include a host. Morgan M.873 twines the vine around the host and includes berries but doesn’t show any leaves on the host.

In Harley 1585 (pictured left), an herbal manuscript from the Florentine area, and Ashmole 1462, (copied from H. 1585), there is a vine worth noting because it almost forms a figure-8, but it’s not a great match for the vine on Folio 35v in other ways, even if it’s closer than the ones previously mentioned.

Herbals That May Have Influenced the VMS

In Liber de herbis et plantis an extensive, well-constructed herbal from the 1300s, we find a number of features that might have inspired Plant 35v. The vine twines around a host, there are clumps of dark-colored berries and, an important detail, the host has crenelated oak-like leaves. Plant 35v resembles the Liber de herbis diagram in many ways.

The ivy in Sloane 4016, a carefully drawn herbal from c. 1440, is presented in the same way as Liber de herbis except for the shape of the leaves and is probably copied from it or a source common to both.

The biggest difference between Plant 35r and the drawing in Liber de herbis, is that the VMS plant includes roots and does not include leaves. The other significant difference is double-vine twining from opposite directions around the host. Since it seems unlikely that the VM illustrator would concidentally use an oak-leaved host that is drawn so similarly to the one in Liber de herbis, we can surmise that he may have seen this drawing or one of the herbals it inspired.

Could the VMS Plant Have Been Independently Conceived?

The VMS Plant is difficult to identify without leaves or a label, so we don’t know for sure if it is Hedera. One could argue that the vine in the VMS might be one that is attracted to oak trees, as poison oak is in North America, but it follows the same conventions as the vines depicted in other European medieval herbals and they are all labeled Hedera (usually Hedera helix or Hedera nigra) and Hedera species are quite happy to climb any vertical surface that is near the young plant.

Since Hedera is not parasitic, it can sink its hooks into almost any host, including a bare wall, and isn’t specifically attracted to oak trees. Thus, the choice of an oak-leaved host in the drawings is more likely to be based on herbal tradition than the propensity of the plant.

Herbal Tradition or Original Work?

Sloane 4016 (left) was created around 1440 and probably post-dates the Voynich Manuscript, but its forerunner Liber de herbis et plantis, probably predates the VMS by several decades.

If Liber de herbis influenced the VMS, it’s natural to ask where it was created.

It originated in the southern Holy Roman Empire in the region of Lombardy, land of the “long beards.” The kingdom of Lombardy went into decline but still stretched from the Piedmont region in the west to Austria in the east during the late 14th and early 15th centuries. Italy as we know it didn’t exist until the later 1800s. Some researchers have categorized herbals from this time and place as “northern Italian herbals” but I prefer to think of them as Lombardic.

Is Plant 35v intended to be a Hedera species? We don’t know. It’s noteworthy that Hedera has a darker more roughly-textured knob in the center of each berry such that light reflects more readily off the smoother surface around it. Could this account for the way the berries in the VMS are drawn with lighter rings around the edges?

Was the VMS influenced by Lombardic herbals? Possibly.

Based on extensive observation of the VMS document and its various drawings, I’m inclined to think the author of the VMS was a creative person who danced to a different drummer—either someone from a different culture who brought along a fresh viewpoint, or an individual with a unique way of seeing things. If the illustrator based the drawings, in part, on other herbals, it’s difficult to know for sure, as they have not been slavishly copied, and that is part of its attraction. If the drawings were standard copies of earlier work, there would be less of a mystery, and less to explore.

J.K. Petersen

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Postscript, 12 Feb. 2016:

There is something I appear to have overlooked when I first wrote this article. I didn’t include the ivy drawing in Egerton 747 because I initially perceived it as a different style of drawing. It’s a twining example of Hedera nigra, but it doesn’t twine around an oak-like tree. Or does it?

Let’s look at the drawing more closely. You’ll notice that it’s two plants and that it’s twining around something that looks like an upright shrub with deeply serrated leaves. Some herbals show ivy twining around a bare trunk. In nature, Hedera will twine around almost anything. In this picture, the leaves of the host plant are quite small, which is why I initially assumed there was no relationship between Egerton 747 and the herbals that show a larger oak-like plant as the host.

Recently, I realized that a later artist might interpret the deeply serrated leaves as crenelated leaves and may have morphed the concept in Egerton 747 into the oak-like tree in the other herbals, especially if the artist lived in an area with oak trees.

Egerton 747 is one of the early herbals, thought to have been created between c. 1280 and c. 1310 for use as a physician’s reference, and is known to have influenced some of the later herbals. Whether it influenced the style of drawing that led to the oak-like leaves is difficult to know, but the possibility should be considered and perhaps the text that accompanies some of the illustrations can help sort it all out.

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 25v

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Description

With the exception of the tip of one leaf, most of Plant 25v inhabits the space below a block of text.

This is likely an aerial view of the plant, since it’s not often that plants show this shape and form of symmetry in a horizontal direction, although both possibilities should always be considered. To the bottom right is a creature that could be interpreted a number of ways. It might be a dragon or other critter nibbling on a leaf or it might be the proverbial dog pulling out a mandrake plant to save its master from harm.

The leaves are green and the roots somewhat harshly painted brown. Just as the blue scales/florets in Plant 32r look like they may have been colored with overly-dry pigment, the roots of 25v have a similar “scratchy” quality, as though pigment were applied with a course, inappropriate brush, or with left-over grainy or perhaps overly dry ink.

Perhaps the most important and significant feature of the drawing is that parallel veins are carefully indicated. Even if the paint is crudely applied, the illustrator took care to draw in the veins. The margins are also reasonably smooth.

Details

Leaves: The large elliptical leaves are drawn with distinctly parallel veins. The more recent ones are successively smaller than the older leaves nearer the stem.

Stem: It’s difficult to tell from the orientation of the drawing whether the whorl of leaves emanates from the ground or some distance up the stem. There is a short stem indicated above a knob that would be at some point on or near the ground. Whether the stem is in the picture to enable the illustrator to turn the plant 90° to show the leaf whorl or whether the plant has a short or medium-length stem, is difficult to determine from the picture alone. It’s likely that the stem is short or very short or probably it would have been drawn it longer, as in Folio 7r.

Roots: The roots are somewhat thick tendrils, numerous, and roughly painted a reddish-brown. They may also be deep, considering the illustrator ran off the bottom edge of the page.

Animal: It’s tempting to see this as a scaly dragon, or cross between a dragon and a turtle, especially since we don’t know to what extent the VM author is teasing the reader with clues that are clarified by reading the text. It’s also possible it’s an oddly rendered symbolic dog, pulling out a mandrake plant, especially since the plant somewhat resembles the mandrake and the creature appears to have paws rather than claws or hoofs.

Looking at it again, however, it could also be seen as a sheep and the scalloped shapes that appear to be scales might be whorls of fuzzy wool. It’s difficult to tell if the lower limb is another leg or a fuzzy tail. If this is a sheep, it’s hard to explain the paws, since sheep have hooves. Perhaps a better understanding of the plant can reveal more about the enigmatic creature.

Prior Plant Identification

Edith Sherwood has identified this as Isatis tinctoria (Woad), a common European dye plant mainly used for creating blues, sometimes in combination with other dyes. It also has some history as a medicinal plant.

Here are some reasons why Isatis tinctoria may not be a good choice to represent Plant 25v:

I. tinctoria initially has some leaves at the base, but it quickly puts up a stalk with alternate, clasping leaves, and a branched flower head. The VM illustrator readily added stems and flowers to most of the other drawings, so it strikes me as unlikely that important details for identification such as stalks and flowers would be omitted from the Plant 25v drawing.
I. tinctoria typically has a large, main tap root, rather than a cluster of thick roots.
I. tinctoria leaves tend to be more lanceolate (more slender at both ends) than Plant 25v.
Significantly, I. tinctoria has a very distinct, whitish center vein, with the smaller veins radiating out from this central vein. I. tinctoria does not have parallel veins.

I. tinctoria (left) has medium-sized lanceolate leaves with fine veins radiating from the distinctive central vein. The leaves alternate up the stalk and many of the higher leaves clasp the stem. The basal whorl leaves do not typically overlap to the extent shown in the Plant 25v. In contrast, Plant 25v (right) has large elliptical leaves at or near ground level, significant overlapping, and distinctly parallel veins. (Woad leaf detail courtesy of Matt Lavin, Creative Commons)

Thus, I. tinctoria differs from Plant 25v both in overall structure and details. There doesn’t appear to be much basis for identifying 25v as woad.

Other Possibilities

Convallaria, Polygonatum, Maianthemum and Disporum species have parallel veins, but a very different structure from 25v, with leaves growing in rows along a stem. Echinacea has long been listed as a medicinal plant in herbal literature, and it has a combination of parallel and radiating veins, but the leaves are narrower or smaller than 25v (depending on the species) and arranged in opposite pairs along the stalk. Cypripedium has erect, sparse leaves. Some of the lilies have parallel veins, but the leaves tend to be narrower, the bulbs are rounded, and a central stalk with a flower is almost always present. Trillium has parallel veins, and the leaves are often large, but as the name implies, the leaves are grouped in threes and the leaves are higher on the stalk than Plant 25v.

It would be well to consider plants with whorls of leaves closer to the ground that show the whorl shape for a while before they send out tall central stalks.

Mandragora, on the left has a thick man–like root, often with two or three “legs” and ruffled leaf margins. Veratrum, on the right, has smooth leaf margins, parallel veins and thinner roots, with more tendrils. Both have distinctive basal whorls.

The little critter with Plant 25v certainly suggests the possibility of a Mandragora (Mandrake) plant. It has large leaves near to the ground and a myth to go with the human-shaped root, but mandrake has thick knobby brownish roots somewhat shaped like parsnip. The leaf veins are not parallel and the margins are distinctly ruffled. Plant 25v appears to have relatively smooth leaves.

Plantago major and Plantago media (Plantain) have relatively large leaves in relation to their overall structure, parallel veins, and don’t always send up fruiting stalks early in the year. When growing in the open with a minimum of crowding from other plants, the leaves can sometimes be quite thick. Later in the year, there is a long narrow stalk with spiked blossoms. Plantain has a multitude of roots near the top but some species (e.g., Plantago media) have a tap root.

Like many of the plants mentioned, Plantago has long been listed as a medicinal plant in herbal literature. The shape of the leaves is similar to 25v except that the leaves become narrower toward the stem. Depending on the species, Plantain tends to be more cuneate or lanceolate than 25v but looking at it from the top, sometimes the overlapping leaves will hide this.

Veratrum viride (false Hellebore) has large overlapping leaves, a short stem, and parallel veins, but it also sends up a central stalk with smaller leaves and spiked green flowers. Veratrum album and Veratrum lobelianum have roots very similar to 25v, but the leaves tend to have longer stalks between the groups of leaves.

Left, detail of Veratrum fimbriatrum © Bob Rutemoeller. This is a rare California variety, so it is not specifically a candidate for 25v, but it shows Veratrum from the top. Veratrum nigrum is a Eurasian variety and has the same distinctive parallel veins and basal whorl. Clintonia borealis also has similar characteristics, although the leaves are not as deeply veined. Right, Plantago media botanical illustration, another plant with a basal whorl and parallel veins.

Gentiana purpurea or lutea (right, photo by Ghislaine) should perhaps be considered. Before it sends out distinctive tall, colorful stalks, G. lutea has a fairly thick basal whorl, parallel veins, and relatively smooth leaf margins (though it can also be ruffled, depending on the species).

Summary

I don’t think woad or the mandrake plant are the best candidates for 25v, and I don’t think the critter at the base of the plant is enough to justify the plant as Mandragora, since it can mean many things, but the jury is still out as to which plant is the best choice.

The species of Gentiana that are most similar to the VMS drawing (e.g., G. lutea or G. purpurea) tend to have thick tap roots like dock or parsnip, so they don’t fit all the characteristics of Plant 25v. Veratrum nigrum, however, has a profusion of tendril-like roots, as do several of the Plantago species (e.g., P. major and P. lanceolata) but there isn’t enough detail in the drawing to determine whether Veratrum or Plantago might more closely match Plant 25v.

True hellebore (above) and false hellebore (Veratrum) both have distinctive whorls of leaves but those of Helleborum are not parallel like VMS Plant 25v.

If the leaves start a short way up the stem, as seems to be the case with the VMS plant, then Veratrum might be more the more likely candidate, since Plantago leaves tend to hug the ground.

Some species of Helleborum have a thick semi-whorl of leaves partway up the stem (see right), but the veins are not parallel. It is important to note, however, that the whorl of the VMS plant might be up the stem a ways, as there is a knobby stem showing under the whorl.

In some ways, the VMS plant incorporates characteristics of both hellebore (Helleborum) and false hellebore (Veratrum) but it’s probably a stretch to suggest complicated scenarios like combination plants. The Viola plant and several others are accurate enough that we can probably assume each drawing represents a single plant or, if there are two, that they can be distinguished from one another fairly easily.

Both Plantago and Veratrum (false hellebore) have enough characteristics in common with Plant 25v to be viable suggestions and both are commonly included in medieval herbal illustrations.

Posted by J. Petersen

Postscript, Feb. 2016: When I originally posted this plant ID in 2013, there was another plant I didn’t mention as an identification for Plant 25v because the leaf margins are serrated (almost spiny) rather than smooth. But maybe I should have, as it also has whorled leaves and parallel veins.

The pic on the right is from herbal manuscript LJS 419 and is labeled Salsificha, which we know as salsify or by the botanical name of Scorzonera. It is an edible plant grown as a commercial crop.

Note the partial stem between the roots and the leaf whorl similar to the way the VMS plant is drawn, and the bushy basal whorl (in this case, seen from the side). In life, the color of the root is dependent on the species, but at least one variety has reddish-brown roots and, like the VMS plant, salsify has parallel veins. Salsify is also known by names such as serpent root and viper’s grass, partly due to the long carrot-like shape of the root.

As the VMS illustrator was quite careful to distinguish between smooth and serrated leaf margins, I think the detail might matter in terms of trying to identify the VMS plants and that’s why I originally left it out of the line-up.

Here are some photographs from Wikipedia showing a detail of salsify leaves, alongside commercial crops of the plant that are grown as a food item. You can click on the image to see a bigger version.

Voynich Large Plants – Folio 6r

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Voy6r Description

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

Edith 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.

So 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.

I 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.

Plant 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

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.

You 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.

So 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

I 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

Voynich Portal

Ruminations about the mysterious 15th century "cipher manuscript"

Tag Archives: Voynich manuscript

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Description

Prior Identifications

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Other Possible Identifications

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Summary

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Prior Identifications

Other Possibillities

Thinking Less Big

Summary