Oh dear no, its an absolutely perfect illusion. But its not a perfect illusion of specifically an elephant but a perfect illlusion according to how the caster thinks it looks.
And even a person who knows what a real elephant looks like wont automatically be able to say that its a illusion and not real because they cant know that it was meant to look like an elephant(unless the caster was silly enough to actually say so or something of course, but thats besides the point really).
Magic. As i´ve said before its real physics+. Ie, its real physics PLUS whatever is needed to accomodate the setting.
Which is why i normally dont bother. It is after all a construction aimed to create a gameterm explanation.
Most certainly not. Your arguments might force illusions to become mental effects though.
CrIm will only glow in the dark if whatever its made to look like also would.
Coherent? Hardly. Its a good attempt at providing a reasoning but it creates some big fails as well.
One of which is my earlier question, there´s no light combined with a see in the dark spell(no matter how its done), my version of illusions still work, yours dont exist meaning that if its dark any casting of visual illusions fail, except we dont know. Its a Schroedinger box problem, and thats really not something that belongs as part of any game mechanics.
Yup, there are some downsides, but really the big advantage isnt with using it for food anyway, its using just 1 or 2 spells, to speedgrow the plant and to shape it as you wish allowing you to create almost anything with just that/those spells. And even have it last.