Aconite, or Monkshood script, was based on an idealized pattern of blood-drops on a leaf of monkshood. There were fifteen possible positions for a consonantal blood-drop to occupy, numbered from the far left of the leaf toward the stem, then up the stem from the tip, then from the far right of the leaf toward the stem. The numbering system for consonants is animated here:
The fifteen drops can be seen as representing digits of three five-digit binary numbers, one lying on the left of the leaf, one on the stem, one on the right. Each number can encode thirty-two consonants (0-31) and the entire blood-spattered leaf represents a vowel-less tri-consonantal word (compare Arabic and Hebrew). This is the full list of consonantal codes:
The blood-pattern of a particular consonant is found by converting its number into binary and reading the digits of this binary from right to left. Each 1 digit represents a drop of blood and /h/ (= 00000) is accordingly symbolized by no drops of blood, /’/ (the glottal stop = 00001) by a drop in position one, /p/ (= 00010) by a drop in position two, and so on through to /lh/ (= 11111), which is symbolized by five drops filling all positions.
Here, then, are vowel-less monoconsonantal words for all thirty-two consonants (the first word is h-h-h, the second ’-’-’, the third p-p-p, and so on). Note that leaves alternate between pointing up and down in the standard script. When they point up, blood-drops are read left to right; when down, right to left. The alternation rule makes no difference to reading when the words are monoconsonantal or palindromic, but is followed here for realism’s sake:
Here are words with mixed consonants (the first is h-’-p, the second b-m-ph, the third bh-f-v, and so on). The alternation rule has been abandoned to make the words easier to read:
Vowels followed a parallel system of nine smaller blood-drops lying on two “spurs’ of the leaf or on the base of the stem, but were numbered first from the left, next from the right, finally up the stem:
The position of vowels in a word of Aconite therefore did not correspond to the position of consonants except for the first consonant-and-vowel, both on the left. Otherwise, vowels on the right spur were read after the stem consonant and vowels on the stem-base read after the right consonant.
Here are a series of words with both consonants and vowels (the first is hi’epë, the second bämaphö, the third bhofuvi, and so on):