Botany

London: James Nelson & Co. 1860., 1860. 4to. pp. xii, 215. with half-title. 42 hand-coloured lithographed plates. with tissue guards. modern half morocco (light stain to lower gutter margin of first few leaves). Third Edition. Including depictions of various types of clematis, anemone, hibiscus, camellia, geranium, acacia, fuschsia, marigold, heath, &c. cfNissen 1236. cfSitwell & Blunt, Great Flower Books, p. 66..

London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown; et al., 1816. Book. Very Good. Hardcover. First Edition. Large 4to (25 x 31cm). Complete with 88 fine hand-coloured engraved plates: numbered. I-LXXXIV and 4 Supplementary plates, engraved by H. W. Edwards from drawings by the author; pp. [xxvii], 20, [2 Index] plus (usually) two leaves of letterpress accompanying each plate; half-title present. Bound in later half speckled calf with marbled paper boards, very good with slight rubbing. Contents clean and tight, marbled end papers, no inscriptions, a little minor foxing, and very light offsetting to a few plates. A very nice copy. Provenance: purchased by the previous owner from Francis Edwards catalogue 1019, dated 1979, item no. 245. "Hooker spent twelve years at Halesworth, during which he produced his British Jungermanniae, with his own illustrations, widely considered to be his most beautiful work. This book established hepaticology as an independent entity and made Hooker's reputation."… Read More

Edinburgh and London: Maclachlan & Stewart; Bladwin, Cradock & Joy, 1823 A very good copy in 6 volumes dating from 1823-1828, with 360 hand coloured plates. Robert Kaye Greville, 1794-1866, had medical training but an assured income allowed him to choose a more diverse life in science and art, and in his public work - where he became a leading voice against slavery. He published his Scottish Cryptogamic Flora in monthly parts, intending it to complete the catalogue of flora in Smith and Sowerby's English Botany. He drew all the specimens himself and these drawings together with the detailed text, form a comprehensive picture of the scottish cryptogamic flora as it was in the early nineteenth century. This copy is in contemporary marbled boards with cloth spines that have been rebacked and had new title labels. The binding is possibly a publisher's one. The boards have general wear but the bindings are sound. New endpapers have been added. Each volume has a half title and title page,… Read More

London: Thomas Cotes, 1640. First edition. Large thick folio, title page, dedication page, preface two pages, author's tributes ten pages, then (ii), 1734 (but actually slightly less as there are several errors of pagination), illustrated with over 2,100 woodcut figures, lacking the extra engraved title page, the 20-page addenda at the rear and the errata leaf, but otherwise complete and very sound. The contents are extremely clean and tight, there is the odd crease and an occasional tiny corner missing but overall in impressive condition. The front and rear endpapers are a little browned and marked, both front and rear hinges are cracked and showing a little silver-fish damage but there is no weakness at all. Full panelled calf, probably eighteenth century but possibly earlier, a little rubbed, a little worn at the edges, scuffed on the upper cover, rebacked fairly recently with a leather spine and red morocco label. Blanche Henrey 286. { Very heavy - extra postage will be required.}. [John… Read More

Bauhini. Bauhinus.herbal.: Joannis Konig Latin text. Folio, a fine engraved title page, pp. (120), 236, (6), 1027, 24, with a fine full page engraving of Bauhin ( engraved by Peter Aubry), over 1000 woodcut illustrations, some age-toning and discoloration, heavy on a few pages (mainly early text pages) but overall a very clean and tight copy internally, original blue speckled edges, half-vellum (probably contemporary ?), titled in ink on spine, rubbed and a little worn, a tear to the spine head, slight wear to the base of the spine, one stab-hole near the lower joint. The Hartland Library copy, with labels on the front endpaper; and probably Sir Frank Crisp's before that. RARE. [Hunt 332. Nissen BBI 1309 . The second edition of the 'Opera' edited by Caspar Bauhin, the final and most complete form of Mattioli's texts. It contains also Mattioli's medical writings, including the most complete edition of the "Commentarii in Dioscoridem", with many notes and additions by… Read More

Venice: Heredi di Vincenzo Valgrisi, 1573. Large thick quarto, title page with woodcut device, pp (172), 971, (i), (11), illustrated with many hundreds of woodcuts of plants and animals, the title page has a very old paper repair where a name had been excised, worm hole affects the lower margin of fourteen pages of the preliminaries, without loss of text, ten pages of the preliminaries have a very old neat paper restoration, very occasional age-spotting and foxing, some occasional browning due to paper quality variations, one light tear to pages 257/258 without loss, one ink smear on page 259, a few ink spots on pages 32/33 with very slight loss of text. Overall, however, this is an exceptionally clean, tight copy. Bound in full speckled calf (probably early twentieth-century), with one gilt line around upper and lower cover, raised bands on the spine; the upper joint is cracking but still firm and sound. The Hartland Library copy, with bookplate, stamp and ticket pocket on the front endpaper. Also… Read More

Very good set of this important French work with over 400 elegant botanicals by Edouard Maubert.
A comprehensive overview of plants and trees used for food, medicine, industry and ornament in the 19th century
Complete in 17 volumes with nine volumes of text and 8 volumes of plates.
Fine engravings by Oudet, Debray, Corbie, Lebrun, Lagesse, Pierre, and L. Noel after botanical illustrations by Edouard Maubert. The plates either showing the entire plant or tree along with details of fruits and seeds, or an elegant arrangement of fruits, flowers, leaves, roots.
The 411 engraved plates mounted on hinges, finely engraved and hand-coloured, presenting over 3,000 useful plants, garden flowers, fruits, trees, shrubs, mushrooms, etc.
The set is divided into five classes:
Traité de botanique générale (2 text volumes, 2 atlases with 53 and 50 plates of parts of flowers, roots, leaves, seeds, cells, plant biology, etc.)
Flore médicale, usuelle et industrielle (3 text volumes, 3 atlases with 50, 50 and 50… Read More

Good copy of a herbal, possibly German from the late 16th centuryLacks title page, first 24 pages of text, first two pages of Latin index, pages 49-64, 321-328 and 385~391.With over 620 woodblock engravings of medical plants, herbs, fruits and vegetables in contemporary hand-colour. No text, but names of plants in Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian and German at the top of the plate. Index in Latin (missing A to D, starts with Eruum), Italian, French, Spanish and German.Perhaps a later pirate copy of Adam Lonicer's Herbarum, arborum, fruticum, frumentorum ac leguminum, Egenolph, Frankfurt, 1546. Lonicer (1528-1586) married printer Christian Egenolph's daughter and became a partner in the firm. From 1551, the firm published herbals under Lonicer's name.Early editions had the plant names printed Latin in Roman and Italic type, and German in Schwabacher type. This copy has up to six plant names in Latin, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Greek.Annotated with ink manuscript captions in English by… Read More

Taurini: Ex Regio Typographeo Three volumes, 1837 - 1843. A partial set of one of the rarest of Mediterranean floras. Illustrated with 96 very fine engraved plates (including 3 bis plates - XXXIII, LXXVII, LXXXVIII], a double-page engraved map of Sardinia (rather foxed), quarto, pp xii, 606; 562. (ii], + plates volume (96 plates of 114), remarkably clean internally, contemporary half calf and cloth, the spines with raised bands and black morocco labels, slightly rubbed and scuffed, a little wear at the corners. The engravings are by by L. Fea,, S. Botta, H. Mil and A. Nizza after drawings by M. Lisa and J.C. Heyland; there is a presentation inscription, in Latin, in the first volume, from the author to Sir Charles James Fox Bunbury. [Lacking the final volume, which was not published until 1857. The fact that the plates volume is here labelled Volume III suggests that Bunbury received these from the author in 1843, and the final volume was never presented. The author was a botanist at Cagliari,… Read More

London: Printed for the author, 1773. Second edition, "corrected and enlarged". Folio, pp iv, ii, 716, with an engraved frontispiece, 60 engraved plates + plates 66 - 80 in the appendix (i.e. LACKING five plates in the appendix), some age-toning internally, the odd blemish here and there, the frontispiece with two earlier minor repairs, a partly unpressed copy which has resulted in a horizontal crease to the last sixty pages or so (see illustration) and a slight depression to earlier ones, bound in a recent half calf with very slight signs of use, with marbled endpapers. Plate 31 is bound slightly out of order, and plate 59 has a small ink scribble in the margin and has the plate number corrected in ink. [Blanche Henrey 805, mentioning a portrait as well as an allegorical frontispiece; the portrait is not present in our copy. Sir John Hill was an English composer, actor, author and botanist. He contributed to contemporary periodicals and engaged in literary battles with poets, playwrights… Read More

Very good copy of a classic of English 18th-century pomological literature.
With 79 beautiful fruit plates drawn by Batty Langley, and engraved on copper by Thomas Bowles, John van der Gucht, James Smith, John Carwitham, etc.
With 79 engraved plates, of which 11 are double (double plates with two Pl. numbers). The fruits include many varieties of apples, pears, plums, figs, cherries and strawberries as you would expect in a British orchard, but there are also many grape varietals (Muscadine, Frontinac, Lombard, Brick, Burgundy, Esperione, Claret, White Raisin, etc.) to remind the reader that wine grapes had been grown in England since the Roman era.
Batty Langley (1696-1751) was an English gardener from Twickenham, who later became a landscape gardener, Freemason, and finally architect promoting the Gothic Revival. Among his many books were An Accurate Description of Newgate (written while he was imprisoned there for debt) 1724, New Principles of Gardening 1728, Pomona 1729, Ancient Masonry 1733~,… Read More

Very good copy of the first four volumes of the second edition of this classic of Enlightenment medical botany
4 volumes edited by Francois-Pierre Chaumeton, Jean-Louis Marie Poiret and Jean-Baptiste de Chamberet.
With 339 (of 360) hand-coloured stipple engravings by Pierre Jean Francois Turpin and Anne-Ernestine Panckoucke
Engraved by Lambert Jr., Boutelou, Mme. Benoit, Bignant, Mlle. Coignet, Mlle. Cornu, Dien, Dubois, Forget, Gautier, Giraud, Goulot, Guyard, Mlle. Louvier, Massard, Phelipeau, Plee, Poulet, Rebel and Victor.
Francois-Pierre Chaumeton (1775-1819) was a French physician and botanist. While working as a military surgeon with the French Army, he studied botany at Strasbourg in 1805 and later moved to Paris to continue his work as a botanical writer and editor.
Pierre Jean Francois Turpin (1775-1840) was one of the greatest botanical artists of the Napoleonic era, along with Redoute and Bessa. When serving in the French army in Haiti in 1794, Turpin met botanist Pierre Antoine Poiteau… Read More

A very good copy of Volumes I and 2 (of 3) of Hooker's seminal work
Complete with 163 fine hand-coloured engraved plates after drawings by William Jackson Hooker, Robert Kaye Greville, Lansdown Guilding, John Lindley, and Archibald Menzies, all engraved by J. Swan.
With over 30 orchids, as well as alstroemeria, banksia, trumpet pitcher, shaving brush tree, cactus, lily, canna, spurge, honeysuckle, begonia, osbeckia, and a dozen ferns and mosses. (Hooker would later specialize in orchids and ferns.)
Complete with all 163 plates, many folding, most with tissue guards.
First and only edition of one of Hooker's rarest and most beautifully illustrated works, including many specimens from Australia, the Americas and the West Indies.
"The Exotic Flora of Dr Hooker is like that of all the Botanical publications of this indefatigable author, excellent; and it assumes an appearance of finish and perfection to which neither the Botanical Magazine nor Botanical Register can externally lay claim." Loudon
"This… Read More

At London, by me Gerard Dewes, dwelling in Pawles Churchyarde at the signe of the Swanne, 1578.. TITLE CONTINUED: their names, natures, operations, and vertues: and that not onely of those whiche are here growyng in this our countrie of Englande, but of all others also of forrayne realmes, commonly vsed in physicke. First set foorth in the Doutche or Almaigne tongue, by that learned D. Rembert Dodoens, physition to the Emperour: and nowe first translated out of French into English, by Henry Lyte Esquyer. FIRST ENGLISH EDITION 1578, of Dodoens Cruydeboeck. A DEFECTIVE AND REPAIRED COPY. LACKS 5 LEAVES, 4 AFFECTING MAIN TEXT AND 1 IN THE PRELIMS (see below), DARKER FACSIMILES INSERTED (see image), 11 pages only of 25 INDEX PAGES AT REAR. 4to, approximately 290 x 180 mm, 11½ x 7 inches. Title within historiated woodcut border with mythological scenes, woodcut arms of the translator Henry Lyte on verso, woodcut portrait of Dodoens holding a flower, 870 woodcuts in the text, colophon with printer's… Read More

1640 BEST English HERBAL 1ed Theatrum Botanicum John Parkinson 2500+ Engravings
John Parkinson is considered to be one of the most important 17th-century botanists and was a foundational English herbalist. His discoveries and herbal treatises propelled him to Royal Botanist of King Charles I, and while his royal position certainly contributed to his lasting fame, his most prestigious contribution was his book 'Theatrum Botanicum'.
This monumental work is considered to be the most complete and thorough English herbal, much in part to the more than 2,500 illustrated figures throughout. first published in 1640, this book contained descriptions of more than 3800 different plants many of which had never been included in a botanical anthology before.
Item number: #24716
Price: $4,950
PARKINSON, John
Theatrum botanicum: the theater of plants. Or, an herball of large extent: containing therein a more ample and exact history and declaration of the physicall herbs and plants that are in other authours
London:… Read More