VMs: Viola tricolor

[Jorge Stolfi <stolfi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

William, perhaps you looked at a commercial garden variety.

This is the image I had in mind:

  http://www.lysator.liu.se/runeberg/nordflor/pics/227.jpg
  http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~stolfi/voynich/misc/f9v.jpg

Considering the limitations of the VMS artist, the match seems pretty 
good to me:

  - Leaves change shape from base to top (a rare feature).
  - Top leaves have very characteristic "lobelets".
  - Lobed leaves are attached directly to the stem, without stalk.
  - Sometimes a lobed and an unlobed leaf are attached to the same point.
  - Stem is thicker in the middle than at the ends.
  - Flowers are placed singly at the end of long stems.
  - Flowers have four small side petals and a larger central one.
  - The largest petal is almost heart shaped.
  - Sepals are narrow triangles and their tips show up between the petals.
  - Modest multiple roots emanating from a short central stem.
  - No tubers.
  
The most significant differences that I can see are that, in the
modern pic, the leaves at the very bottom are rounded; whereas the
bottom leaves of f9v are still spear-shaped, like the middle ones of
the modern pic. Also, in f9v the flower stalks are attached at the
very tip of the branches, rather than just below the tip.  And, of course,
the flowers are upside-down.

The two flowers at the bottom are rather unlike those at the top and 
those of the modern pic, but perhaps the author was trying to draw them
as seen from the side -- and obvously he was not very well versed in the
art of perspective.

So I still think that the match is as good as we could hope it to be.

All the best,

--stolfi

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