Natural Illustrations of the British Grasses.
1846. Bath: Binns and Goodwin, 1846.
Small folio, xx, 130, (2, ads) with 62 specimens of dried grasses mounted on separate plates each with printed title and border. Publisher’s red pebbled morocco, elaborately paneled in gilt and blind over beveled boards, backstrip gilt with title entwined by grasses of the field and the publisher’s name surmounted by an oval vignette of reeds at the water’s edge, bound by Astle and Sons. Binding lightly rubbed and worn at tips, occasional light foxing and offsetting, specimens astonishingly well preserved.
§ First (only) edition. A beautifully preserved specimen book describing the grasses of Great Britain. Taxonomy is discussed but the accompanying text is mostly literary, extolling the charms of grasses and their vital importance to mankind. The specimens themselves are extraordinarily delicate and attractive. “Dried specimens of plants, when preserved with care as to their natural appearance and character, must always be more interesting and valuable to a Botanist, or a lover of Nature, than engravings; being the real or original object, which drawings are intended only to portray... there is much... that the pencil can never show” (Hanham, Preface). A small ecological treasure from the pre-herbicide era (one wonders how many of the grasses contained are now endangered or extinct) and one with renewed significance in the light of the rewilding movement in England and new efforts by English Heritage and others to restore former meadowlands. Item #110478
Price: $2,950.00