A Treasure’s Trove Unsolved Code: Clue #3

Not all treasure hunts end with all answers being revealed. A Treasure’s Trove of 2004, and Alchemist Dar, both published by Michael Stadther, are some which left a few questions.

Recently, Randy of The Beacon Star generously sent me a clean copy of Clue #3! Mine was all marked up and not very presentable, so I was very thankful Randy had a great copy.

Clue #3 of A Treasure’s Trove remains UNSOLVED today! The Stadther hunts are over, but the solution to Clue #3 was never revealed.

Will it ever get solved? Here is a copy of it:

The solution to A Treasure’s Trove armchair treasure hunt required the use of a Polybius Square. (for explanation of that hunt go here: A Treasure’s Trove – or for specifically the cipher go here: Codes and Ciphers: Polybius Square)

Clue #3 seems like it could be solved by something similar to the Polybius Square. It seems likely the flowers shown beside the Grid provide the information in which to pinpoint letters within the Grid- spelling out a message.

The box is 10×10. It’s been thought it could be 4 – 5×5 Grids. The flowers along the side would have to provide info for which grid, and then two other bits of info for which column and row. It is interesting each stem side could be seen to hold leaves 1-5.

The amount of Petals goes from 0-9, and we might have to deal with colors of those too.

There are 5 different colors of Petals:

RED, ORANGE, PURPLE, BLUE, YELLOW.

Then, as mentioned, there are the amount of LEAVES.

There are 100 letters in the Grid, with all letters of the alphabet being present at least once. With the 19 pairs of flowers on the side, it’s possible any message of 19 letter/ or 38 letters (if each stem acts alone) is hidden.

The petals might indicate which 5×5 to use. It’s possible, like those images asking ‘how many triangles’, how many 5×5’s are there in the Grid above. There are more than 4. That could be KEY and what the petals do?