[hcarvalhoalves]

Well, he's trying to recognize the plants and work out backwards from their known names, but there's a lot of assumptions and glossing over involved in this approach.

1) A figure hints at a sunflower, but the idea is refuted based on the supposed location and date of this manuscript (sunflower is native from the American continent).

2) Another figure was recognized as "coriander", that looks nothing like it, but they went with it anyway because the transcript was possible.

It looks like a botanist is more likely to figure out this manuscript than a linguist. The other theory that this manuscript is about plants from the american continent [1] is less flawed in my opinion. It could also explain why it's in an totally unfamiliar script, as it could be a pre-Spanish language, or an attempt from a foreign to codify it.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7199751

[trycatch]

Agree, it's hard to look at this [1] and say with a straight face that "coriander" was "convincingly identified". Short googling leads to half a dozen of alternative identifications.

[1] http://www.edithsherwood.com/voynich_botanical_plants/plant....