Flower images

Another type C claim is imprints of flowers are found on the shroud.

C26) A crown of thorns with stalks and flowers is visible on the TS (Whanger 2000).

https://shroud.com/pdfs/doclist.pdf

Alan Whanger is the primary person claiming this.

Dr. Alan Whanger, the Duke University psychiatry professor who developed the intriguing
polarized overlay method of comparing the Shroud image with early Byzantine icons of the
Shroud face, has recently announced findings from a surprising new area of research. He
claims that in addition to the Christ body imprint on the Shroud he can discern the images of
hundreds of flowers that seem to have been placed in bunches around the body. Of these he
sees “reasonably clear” images of 28 different flowers, small bushes and thorns, all of which
can be found within a 15 mile radius of Jerusalem, but are mostly not to be found in Europe.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/n24part7.pdf

Whanger had asked for assistance from botanist Dr. Avinoam Danin. He also claims flowers can be seen on the shroud.

In 1995, Israeli botanist and expert on the plant life of Israel, Dr. Avinoam
Danin, a Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, was asked by Dr.
Alan Whanger, Professor Emeritus at Duke University in North Carolina, to
confirm floral images which Alan and his wife Mary had noted on Shroud
photographs. They were later joined by Dr. Uri Baruch of the Israel
Antiquities Authority, a palynologist and expert on Israel’s pollen.

https://www.shroud.com/iannone.pdf

Danin published several articles on his findings:

Ten years previously, in 1985, Dr. Whanger was looking at a photograph of the shroud taken in 1931 when he noticed the faint outline of a flower later identified as the inflorescence of the crown chrysanthemum (Chrysanthemum coronarium). Intrigued, the Whangers, amateur photographers, spent thousands of subsequent hours looking at photographs that had been specially enhanced so that the faint images stood out more clearly. They discovered hundreds of flowers, mostly in the vicinity of the figure’s head. Comparing the flowers they found with drawings in Michael Zohary and Naomi Feinbrun’s Flora Palaestina, they succeeded in identifying twenty-eight species of plants.

During the Whangers’ stay in Israel in September 1995, I recognized images of the crown chrysanthemum and the rock rose (Cistus creticus) in their photographs, and became convinced that the material was authentic and that the Whangers’ findings were valid.

https://www.shroud.com/danin.htm

Images of opened flowers, flowering buds, inflorescences, leaves, spiny bracts, stems, and
fruits have been observed on photos of the Shroud and on the Shroud itself. An example
of an inflorescence of a plant from the Asteraceae (Compositae), best fitting in size and
morphology to that of Chrysanthemum coronarium, is presented in Fig. 1. Hundreds of
additional flowers and inflorescences were discovered on the enhanced photos of the
Shroud.

https://www.shroud.com/pdfs/daninx.pdf

I’m not able to find any detailed information on their findings, particularly images that they claim to have found. They did publish a book, Flora of the Shroud of Turin, in 1999. I found one used copy on Amazon, but it’s $650!.

Danin passed away in 2015.

Noted Israeli botanist Avinoam Danin passed away on December 12, 2015, at the age of 76.

https://www.baslibrary.org/biblical-arc … ew/42/3/16

Whanger passed away in 2017.

Alan D. Whanger, 87, of Durham, North Carolina, died at Duke University Medical Center on October 21, following a short illness.

https://www.cremnc.com/memsol.cgi?user_id=2028162

Joe Marino has compiled a list of literature from both the skeptic and authentic sides on botany and the shroud:
https://www.academia.edu/48921695/The_B … bliography