Flora Javae nec non insularum adjacentium....

Leiden (and Brussels), J. Frank 1828 [-1851] [with:] Nova Series … (Orchideae) … Leiden & Amsterdam, the author and C. G. Sulpke, 1858 [–1859]. 4 vols, folio (425 x 270 mm), with 2 lithographed views and 308 lithographed botanical plates, 280 of which are hand-coloured, some double-page; some very minor marginal spotting of text, a fine copy in contemporary green half morocco, top edge gilt.

First edition of this important flora of Java. Karl Ludwig Blume (1796–1862) was a German-born Dutch botanist who travelled and worked in Java, where he was the first director of the Buitenzorg Botanic Garden. He later became director of the Leiden Rijksherbarium. The present copy includes the Nova series , devoted to orchids of the Dutch East Indies; this work was also issued separately under the title Collection des orchidées les plus remarquables de l’Archipel Indien et du Japon . This copy is one issued in 1867 by Bernard Quaritch, who had acquired the stock of the work following Blume’s death in 1862. Quaritch had new title-pages printed, and also a contents leaf, including a collation of the complete work, with the imprint: ‘Cura Bernardi Quaritch, Londini, 1867’.

Nissen BBI 174 and 175; Stafleu and Cowan 563 and 568; Great Flower Books p 50