Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien nebst ihren Gattungen und wichtigeren Arten insbesondere den Nutzpflanzen

Description:

Heinrich Gustav Adolf Engler (1844-1930) was a German botanist, famous for his system of plant classification, the Engler system, which is still used by many herbaria and authors of manuals and floras. Together with Karl Anton Eugen Prantl (1849-1893), Engler edited this monumental work, drawing on the expertise of many notable contributors. Much of the work was illustrated by Joseph Pohl (1864-1939), who produced over 33,000 drawings in 6,000 plates in this series.

Frodin (2010) states of this work: ‘one of the greatest of all plant taxonomic treatises, this work - in both editions - is a copiously illustrated, scholarly, encyclopaedic systematic account of the plant kingdom’.

Presented here is a near complete set of the first edition and a partial set of the second edition (up to Band 20d (1953)). The first edition (1887-1915) published by Wilhelm Engelmann, Leipzig, consists of 4 Teilen in 33 parts, with supplements and indices. The supplements to the first edition, include data up to 1912. The first edition presented here is complete except for Nachtrag IV to Teilen II-IV (1915). The unfinished second edition (1924-1980) includes Engler’s important essay on flowering plant classification (Band 14a (1926)). The set of the second edition includes volumes published up to Band 20d, 1953 (From 1953 onwards publication was by Duncker & Humblot, Berlin). Several volumes of the second edition are later reprints from 1959/1960.

Condition

46 vols, 44 in various bindings (22 original half leather, rest in library buckram), two in wrappers. Bindings generally rather worn, four lack spines, one with spine crudely taped, one with boards detached. Ex-lib. A fair set of this standard work.