"You Can Look At The Pictures"...

If you haven't yet been properly introduced to the enjoyable confusion surrounding the Voynich Manuscript, you might well enjoy this very brief New York Times article from 1999 by Michael Pollak, entitled "Can't Read It? You Can Look at the Pictures".

I particularly enjoyed the soundbite from William R. Bennett Jr., who nicely points out that ''The manuscript itself seems to have the attraction of a poisonous flower". And so we're back to that whole Little Shop of Horrors thing again... oh well!

Voynich f56r Sundew...?

Someone with more confidence than I have in Voynichian botanical identification has put an image of f56r on the Wikipedia page for Sundew. Presumably the key feature match was the plant's alien-style sticky tentacles, that bend forward when they're touched by prey to entrap it (yes, it's a carnivorous plant), a mechanism you'll be delighted to know goes by the name of thigmotropism.

Hmmm... what if there are other carnivorous plants depicted in the VMs? All of a sudden, might our manuscript have acquired a "Little Shop of Horrors" cachet? Altogether now: "Feed me, Seymour... feed me now!"