"The great Dragon rifeth vp with a straight ftalke": A Possible Model for the Unicorn's Tree

The Unicorn tapestries in The Cloisters are remarkable for their realistic and stylized depiction of plants. E. J. Alexander and C. H. Woodward discussed the woven flora in a two-part paper originally published in "Journal of New York botanical garden" in 1941. Yet much of these splendid tapestries remains enigmatic, especially those plants that can be identified with certainty but are essentially out of place among vegetation dominated by oak and holly that is typical of temperate northern Europe: the orange, the pomegranate, the date palm, and the strawberry tree, to name just four. [Publication Abstract]