Hi William,
At 14:21 08/06/2004 +0100, William Edmondson wrote:
I really think we do have to be careful about being over-interpretative.
Many of the VMS drawings are vaguely reminiscent of plants we know (and
evolution won't have wrought many changes to herbally useful plants, in
my view, because relevant seeds would have been kept for growing on the
species). But they really do seem to be drawn by someone who has never
really looked at plants. Or maybe someone who did look - but drew from
memory in the absence of specimens (dry or otherwise). In short - the
plant drawings do not seem to be a record of things known, rather they
seem to remind of such records - or are intended to look like such a
record (and because the text is uninterpretable such reminding adds
verisimilitude....).
Systematically suggesting reasonable herbal matches (the path that
Dana has diligently followed for some time now) is far from being
"over-interpretative": in fact, I'd say it is actually trying to
construct a practical basis by which the kind of conclusions you
mention may (eventually) be drawn.
I completely accept that f5v may well look nothing like the wild
strawberries in your garden, but how good is your knowledge of
European wild strawberry varieties from half a millennium ago?
Cheers, .....Nick Pelling.....
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