( Helianthus annuus) ... F33v is the most well-known. It depicts a sunflower ( Helianthus annuus ) according to Brumbaugh and others. Since the sunflower is a native from America, it has been used to date the VMS to the early 1500s and not before the Colombus voyages of discovery. But this view patently ignores the pre-Columbus voyages of the Vikings, the Welsh and the Scottish Templars. Also, botanists make the mistake of comparing today?s big cultivars with sunflower shapes of the late mediaeval and Renaissance periods. The variety of sunflower brought to Europe in the late 15th century is a domesticated variety, grown by Native Americans. It would have had a form intermediate between the big cultivars of today and the wild H. annuus still regarded as a weed in parts of the US.
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