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First Edition. Hard cover, 8vo, in original vertically striped publisher's red cloth stamped in blind with rules, corner decoration and a floral central vignette with the titles gilt to the front board, (no title to spine). The tissue-guarded hand-colored frontispiece engraving by A. Adlard is reproduced from the "Florist's Journal, March 1845" and is heightened with gum arabic. 124 pp. plus 4 pp. publisher's ads. Printed by C. and J. Adlard, Bartholomew Close. CONDITION: Very Good Plus. Some moderate soiling to boards, light bumping to corners and along fore edge of boards. Hinges in order. Ghost of a bookplate removal to front pastedown. Light foxing affects prelims. **British gardener JOHN HENSHALL was employed as a professional Plant Collector during the early Victorian era when the search for, and cataloging of, new species was seen as both a matter of scientific enquiry and commercial opportunity. He was employed as gardener to Baron John Henry William von Schröder, (b. 1825) a Hamburg-born financier with an interest in horticulture, at his estate Dell Park, Englefield Green. (Henshall dedicates this book to his employer.) Henshall travelled to Java for Messrs. William Rollison and Sons, to collect orchids on their behalf . He is also known to have corresponded with Sir William Jackson Hooker, the founder of the Kew Herbarium, offering specimens of newly discovered rhododendron from Java. Both Henshall and von Schröder are credited with new species in the inventory of Kew. An orchid variety, Henshallii, was named to commemorate the author. ** PROVENANCE: William Scurfield Grey, Esq. of who's signature appears on the book's title page, was High Sheriff for the Counties of York and Durham in 1867, according to Burke's Peerage, 1871. REFS: "A List of the Collectors Whose Plants Are in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew," to 31st December, 1899." Vol. 1901, No. 169-171 (Jan. - March, 1901). G.A. Pritzel, Thesaurus literaturae botanicae omnium gentium, (Leipzig, 1872), p. 141.
Ref: BOT 9021
$650.00