Re: VMs: Viola tricolor

[william edmondson <w.h.edmondson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ignotum per ignotius


On 25 May 2004, at 10:39, Nick Pelling wrote:

> Hi William,
>
> At 21:37 24/05/2004 +0100, William Edmondson wrote:
> > Misidentification could lead to poisoning - badly drawn plants could 
> > lead to misidentification - that was all I meant.
>
> Again, this assumes that correct identification of naturally-occurring 
> plants is the sole purpose of the herbal pictures. Is it?
>
> > I still haven't seen a good argument/explanation as to why/how poor 
> > representations of well-known herbs/medicinals could be useful.
>
> They may simply be aide-memoires; or (collectively) a way of 
> navigating a large set of small documents; or simply decorative 
> features; or the name of each herb might constitute a key used to 
> decipher (somehow) the text on that page (the picture need then be 
> only the minimally recognisable depiction, not the maximally reliable 
> depiction); or the important part of the plant might be intact but the 
> rest might be deliberately distorted ("visual steganography"); or 
> there may be not just "plain" herbals but in fact several different 
> kinds of drawing at play (for example, the cryptoheraldry we've 
> discussed on-list). The worst thing is that this list barely scratches 
> the surface of the possible explanations that might satisfy your 
> criterion of "usefulness".
>
> Basically, "oranges are not the only fruit". :-9
>
> Further, they are not all "well-known herbs/medicinals": despite 
> Dana's sterling efforts, only a few have been identified with a high 
> degree of certainty (f2v's nanufar / Nymphaea alba / water lily, for 
> example), and so the mystery remains.
>
> Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
>
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Dr William Edmondson
School of Computer Science
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston B15 2TT
UK

Voice: +44-121-414-4763
email: w.h.edmondson@xxxxxxxxxx

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