Pre-1960's tentative herb identifications

Introduction

According to D'Imperio, early tentative herb identifications for the Voynich MS herbal section were made by the botanists O'Neill and Holm (1). Their work has not yet been seen in its entirety, but both are quoted by Theodore Petersen in his hand transcription of the MS (2), and O'Neill published a 3-page summary in 1944 (3). Furthermore, Ethel Voynich ("ELV") appears to have used Th.Petersen's lists and other sources to create her own list of tentative identifications.

O'Neill tentatively identified two American species (capsicum and sunflower), whereas Holm has identified only European species. Holm is called a Dutch botanist by D'Imperio (4), but by chance I found out that he was a Danish botanist and worked at the Catholic University, i.e. the same Unviersity as Th.Petersen. That would then also explain how Petersen could get a hold of a list of his identifications, as mentioned by D'Imperio. The archives of the University still hold material from Holm, and it is conceivable that his Voynich MS work is still preserved there (5).

The Petersen hand transcription is preserved in the Marshall Library (Friedman collection). Notebooks left by ELV are kept both in the Grolier Club Library in New York and in the Beinecke Rare Book and MS library of Yale Unviersity. From cross-references it is clear that Petersen and ELV discussed herb ID's with each other.

The first table only lists tentative ID's for all herbal pages. Some ID's have also been given for the pharmaceutical pages, but these are rare, and may be presented in a different form later.

Th.Petersen has made many other marginal notes of interest, and those related to the herbal illustrations are included in a second table below. Beside reference to Holm, he makes reference to a number of sources:

Table of tentative herb identifications

Table of marginal annotations by Th.Petersen

Note: this page is not fully completed. My copy of the hand transcription of Theodore Petersen is occasionally very hard to read.

Notes

1

See D'Imperio, section 3.3.1

2

For Th.Petersen, see also here.

3

See O'Neill (1944)

4

D'Imperio, p.14

5

See >>description of Holm materials at CUA.

6

This is to be verified