old botany book

January 28, 2001

I saw this on ebay and thought I would pass it along. Looks great if you

have some extra cash on hand.

NEW

CYCLOPÆDIA OF BOTANY

AND

COMPLETE BOOK OF HERBS

FORMING A

HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION

OF ALL PLANTS

BRITISH OR FOREIGN

----------

----

London: W.M. Clark, n.d. [1854], two volumes rebound (a beautiful job) in

half leather with marbled boards, red leather spine labels, 5 raised bands

on spines; total of 733 pages, 99 handcolored plates; condition VG. The

bindings are in the late 19th century style, but in such good condition they

are certainly more recent.

Although not credited on the title page, this work is by Richard Brook.

There is a delightful early hand-colored lithographed frontispiece of the

goddess " Flora " , and 99 hand-colored engraved botanical plates, including

flowering plants, fungi, and herbs. The majority have six separate figures

per page within a ruled frame, but some plates are a large, single image, as

in the last photo below; and some plates have three images. So there is a

total of c. 500 separate plants illustrated. There are 733 pages of text,

with emphasis on herbs and herbal remedies. Included are three indexes, the

third of which is an Index of Diseases with Herb Remedies. There is

currently listed worldwide only one other copy of this work, at $1500. This

set, in beautiful leather bindings, is

VERY RARE

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