Hortus Cliffortianus, with 36 Botanical Plates

Carolus Linnaeus:

Hortus Cliffortianus plantas exhibens quas in hortis tam vivis quam siccis, Hartecampi in Hollandia, coluit vir nobilissimus & generosissimus Georgius Clifford.

Amsterdam 1737. Folio (43 x 25,5 cms.) [32] + x + 232, 301-518 pp. + engraved allegorical frontispiece by Jan Wandelaar dated 1738 + 36 engraved botanical plates, largely by Wandelaar after Georg Dionysius Ehret. Title printed in red & black, pages 233-300 omitted in pagination.

An attractive copy in contemporary full calf, spine gilt in compartments with seven raised bands, board edges gilt, mottled edges. Lightly worn with light chipping to spine, joints a little worn and cracked, corners bumped. Bookplate of Italo-British botanist Charles Carmichael Lacaita (1853-1933) and his first wife Mary ("Caroli ac Mariae Lacaitae filiorumque Selham Sussex") and of Karl Adolphson. Very light occasional foxing of text, small marginal repair on leaf 5E2, very slight worming to lower inner corner of final leaves. Plates very fine and clean.

Soulsby 328. Nissen 1215. Hulth 27-28. First edition of Linnaeus’ first detailed catalogue of cultivated plants, printed at the expense of the wealthy Anglo-Dutch banker George Clifford (1685-1760) in a very limited number of copies for presentation purposes. Only a few copies were offered for sale. ”With this work Linnaeus introduced ’species’ and ’variety’ under the genus concept in descriping plants for the first time in the history of botany” (A catalogue of the works of Linnaeus, Sandbergs bokhandel, catalogue 12, 1957).

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