Florula Bostoniensis: A Collection of Plants of Boston and its Vicinity

Description:

2nd enlarged edition. Jacob Bigelow (1787–1879) was an American physician and botanist. The preface states that Bigelow published the first edition of this work with the aim ‘to contain intelligible descriptions of the more common and interesting plants found within a circuit of about 10 miles around Boston. Its publication was at that time rendered necessary by the great deficiency of books relating to American plants’. The second edition ‘ contains about twice the number of plants which were included in the first edition….Although the work more immediately applies to Boston and its environs, yet I have inserted in this edition all such plants as I have formerly collected and described in any part of the New-England states.’

Condition

8vo, orig. publisher's cloth-backed boards, stained/worn with loss to cloth at head/foot of spine; orig. printed paper title piece; cloth spine split along length, but text block firm; front board detached; rear board and blank rear endpaper almost detached. Pages uncut. Occasional spotting/staining. An interesting unsophisticated copy, with plant material pressed between the pages, and with some brief pencil annotations concerning plant collecting dating from the 1830s-1860s.