Leonardo’s studies of plants indicate that his knowledge of botanical structures far outweighed the leading authorities on the subject at the time.

The main study on this sheet is a Star of Bethlehem. The careful detail with which the plant has been recorded demonstrates Leonardo’s reverence for the complexity and perfection of its forms. The leaves convey a dynamic sense of the spiralling movement that fascinated Leonardo, as attested to in many other drawings. The other plants are thought to be a crowfoot, seen to the left of the star, a wood anemone to the right, and below, the flowers and seed-pods of a euphorbia.

The drawing, which is one of Leonardo’s most beautiful nature studies, is connected to the lush vegetation in the foreground of the lost Leda and the Swan. While only a selection of the flower and plant species that may have been included in Leonardo’s painting are included in copies, the Star of Bethlehem appears in the foreground of every version. Perhaps because it is a perfect expression of the theme of Leda – the beauty of nature and its procreative powers.

In Leonardo's words
People who are little reliant upon nature are dressed in borrowed clothes, without which I would rank them with the herds of beasts