Pursh, Frederick | A landmark work in early American botany

Pursh, Frederick

Flora Americæ Septentrionalis; Or a Systematic Arrangement and Description of the Plants of North America. London: White, Cochrane, and Co., 1814

2 volumes, 8vo (211 x 135 mm). Title to each volume, 24 handcolored stipple-engraved plates; some offsetting, minor browning, minor spotting to text, sporadic pencil marginalia. Later navy straight grain morocco and contemporary marbled boards; minor browning and spotting to boards. 

First edition of the first North American Flora to include plants from the Pacific Coast

Pursh, a German botanist, came to America in 1799 as a traveler, collector, gardener, and landscape artist. From 1803 until about 1805, he was in charge of William Hamilton's estate near Philadelphia before becoming employed in the botanizing expeditions of Benjamin Smith Barton. From 1809 to 1810 he headed Hosack's Elgin Botanic Garden in New York. In 1811 Pursh traveled to England where he produced his Flora under the patronage of A. B. Lambert, to whom the work is dedicated. Pursh relied upon the Lewis and Clark specimens entrusted to M'Mahon for many of his descriptions of the Pacific coast plants; he also consulted some forty-one other botanical collections for his research. William Hooker, the artist of Salisbury's Paradisus Londinensis was responsible for a good portion of both the drawings and engravings. Printing of the Flora Americae Septentrionalis was completed in late 1813, as the Linnaean Society possesses a presentation copy dated 21 December 1813.

REFERENCE

Cleveland Collections 776; Nissen 1570; Pritzel 7370; Stafleu & Cowan TL2 8404