Botany of the Speke and Grant Expedition. An Enumeration of the Plants Collected during the Journey of the Late Captain J.H. Speke and Captain (Now Lieut-Col.) J.A. Grant from Zanzibar to Egypt.

Published by Linnean Society Volume XXIX, 1875, Folio, Contemporary half calf gilt, 190 pp.; with folding coloured lithographic map, 136 plates of African flora by Walter Hood Fitch.

In the introduction, Grant notes that in 1860, when appointed to accompany Speke to the sources of the Nile, “…it occurred to me that many a pleasant hour might be spent in collecting plants and seeds while traversing the country to be explored… I purchased some drying-paper and a couple of books for notes… Captain Speke thought it far too cumbrous for such a journey, but readily yielded to my wish to have it. He afterwards saw with me how the plants were appreciated when we took them to Kew upon our return… Would that my poor friend had survived to see the present result!”

These plates, produced from ‘actual specimens’, are the work of the prominent botanical illustrator Walter Hood Fitch and show ‘either new species or such as had never been figured abroad or at home, the object being to present what was of the greatest interest to the botanist’ (Introduction p.7).

Nissen BBI 1468; cf. Stafleu & Cowan III, 7057.