VMS -- Botany f25v ("dragon" page)...?

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi everyone,

Am I missing the point, or does the "dragon" on f25v probably represent a 
dog (admittedly a particularly badly-drawn one) pulling up a mandrake root 
(roughly as per the medieval myth)?

Looking at the Copyflo print of the page, I can just about make out some 
structural similarities with mandrake - hairy roots, big & generally 
pointed leaves, etc - but the low quality makes me acutely uncomfortable 
about making a positive identification beyond that. :-/

I think that this might be an interesting test case of whether the VMS 
botany was empiric or traditionalist, as mandrake's "human-like" roots were 
often heavily stylised in illustrations, which doesn't appear to be the 
case here at all.

Comments?

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....