Philosophical tree and flower · Lexicon

From the book

The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I

Attributed to Abraham the Jew · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordThe philosophical tree is a structured image of mineral generation. Fixed mountains or stones supply roots and matrices; mercury supplies growth; gold and silver are its fruits. The flower on a mountain introduces the same field of matter and preparation.
In the manuscriptDifferent passages distribute bark, leaves, flowers and fruit with slightly different wording. Their common purpose is to explain fixed support, nourishment, manifestation and the anticipated harvest.
TranslationThe edition preserves the unexpected assignments, including flowers called leaves in scan 49 and repeated minerals in scan 85. It does not silently rebuild a standardized botanical diagram.
A place to readManuscript 31r, scan 85: the tree leads to a direct statement of sulfur’s fixity, quicksilver’s growth and salt’s manifestation of tincture.

Meaning

The tree explains how a fixed product can nevertheless grow and multiply. Roots attach it to stable matrices; a body conveys generative and nutritive power; its several parts display differing mineral conditions; fruits make the result visible. The analogy is not simply that metals resemble plants. It assigns distinct supports and functions within the manuscript's account of generation.

The flower adds appearance and promise. Its blue stem, golden rays and white and red blooms express the conditions of crude matter, while the later explanation says that mineral salt foretells the hoped-for harvest. Visible color and form thus serve an expectation of what the prepared subject can produce. Their force depends on the text's explanation rather than on a universal symbolic color key.

The three principal accounts do not use an entirely invariant inventory. Scan 49 calls flowers its leaves; scan 51 gives leaves gold and flowers red and white; scan 85 distinguishes bark, mineral leaves, vitriol flowers and golden or silver fruit. These related sequences should be compared rather than silently reduced to one list.¹⁷²

Use in the book

At 15r, scan 49, the new explanation begins with a beautiful flower above a mountain, its stem blue, flowers white and red, leaves embroidered with golden rays. The north wind blows violently against it. The same paragraph calls mountains or rocks the philosophical tree's matrices, mercury its stem, minerals its bark and metals its fruits. Fixed matrices and a fixing spirit give fixedness. The reader is given both stable matter and an active power that fixes.

At 16r, scan 51, the mountain is the alembic's body and the flower the matter to be fulfilled in nature. The root is lead, the stem silvery blue, leaves gold and flowers red and white. Saturn's earth is the root of metals; blue mercury, the metallic tree's stem, is called precious salt of nature containing golden and silver fruits. The passage's overlapping material names are its own explanation of prepared matter, not an invitation to substitute ordinary botanical constituents.

The account then connects the flower with a rosebush rising from a fountain against an evergreen oak, with the Hesperides' guarded golden tree, and with the biblical tree. At 16v it joins tree of life and tree of knowledge, then explains the wind-battered golden branch as sulfur sublimed to the top of the vessel. The ascent of compact gold requires cold mercurial water to open and rarefy it. The tree therefore participates in both generative and operational interpretations.

At 30v, scan 84, oak, roses and flowers explicitly signify quicksilver reduced to water as the principle of growth and nourishment. The next page develops the metallic tree more fully. Stones serving as wombs become its roots, because gold's fixedness requires fixed supports. Quicksilver is its body and communicates sprouting, germination and fruitfulness. Imperfect minerals are bark, minerals leaves, vitriols flowers and gold or silver rich fruits.

The conclusion at 31r gives the most useful functional distinction: earth or sulfur is the first principle of gold's fixity; quicksilver is the principal cause of growth, nourishment and increase; salt is the medium bringing concealed tincture to light. Fruits are its certain proofs. This statement helps the reader connect the elaborate image with precise roles, while leaving the varied earlier naming visible.¹⁷³

The tree's relation to the garden and rosebush is consequently close but not redundant. The tree emphasizes articulated growth and proof by fruit; the garden adds access, recognition, flowing water and the conditions under which the philosopher may gather the roses. Each entry follows the feature the passage actually develops.

Places to read

Manuscript 15r · Scan 49The mountain flower and philosophical tree introduce matrices, mercury’s growth and fixed support.
Manuscript 16r, 16v · Scans 51, 522Root, stem, metallic harvest and golden branch lead to the vessel and the north wind.
Manuscript 30v · Scan 84Oak, roses and flowers express the generative power of water.
Manuscript 31r · Scan 85The fullest metallic tree assigns separate roles to sulfur, quicksilver and salt.

Translation

Philosophical tree and metallic tree translate the two source phrases rather than merging them under one editorial title. Matrices is rendered wombs or generative receptacles according to context; fixed and fixing distinguish stable support from a power acting on another subject. Végéter, pulluler, germer and fructifier retain growth, sprouting, germination and fruiting as related but separate actions.

At scan 49 the English preserves 'the flowers its leaves'. At scan 85 it preserves a second, unqualified minerals after imperfect minerals. These readings may be awkward within a reconstructed botanical hierarchy, but they are part of the available witness. The positive functional summary at the end can be explained without correcting either clause.

arbre philosophique

Attested: H001-S049. The image with fixed matrices, mercurial stem and metallic fruits.

arbre métallique

Attested: H001-S051; H001-S085. The mineral generation-image developed through roots, body and fruit.

les fleurs en sont les feuilles

Attested: H001-S049. The manuscript’s unexpected assignment, retained literally.

les vitriols, les fleurs

Attested: H001-S085. The vitriols assigned to flowers in the later tree account.

les fruits sont les preuves certaines

Attested: H001-S085. The manifested tincture’s result supplies evidence through fruit.

Source note

The three accounts at scans 49, 51 and 85 are related but do not distribute every part identically. Preserve their actual wording, especially flowers-as-leaves and the repeated minerals, when comparing the image.

Scan 85 expressly separates fixity, growth and manifestation of tincture. These functions provide secure positive definitions even where an earlier part-list is irregular.