The Genus Rosa. Vol. I-II

Description:

First edition, issued in parts between 1910 and 1914. With 132 fine chromolithographic plates after watercolours by Alfred Parsons, R.A. The Latin and English descriptions of the species concerned are mostly by the Kew botanist John Gilbert Baker. Ellen Ann Willmott (1858-1934), was a noted English horticulturist who at one time employed 85 gardners at her home in Warley Place, Essex. She was deeply interested in plant hunting, helping to finance expeditions to China and to the Middle East. She was among the first sixty recipients (only two of them women) of the Victoria medal of honour (1897), and one of the first women to be elected a fellow of the Linnean Society (1905). The Société d'acclimatation de France awarded her the grande médaille Geoffroi St Hilaire in 1912, while in 1924 she received the Dean Hole medal from the National Rose Society. Her landmark study, The Genus Rosa, supplanted the works of Lindley and Redouté as the most complete and scientifically accurate monograph on roses. (ODNB)

"The first great colour-printed flower book of the twentieth century ... It still stands unrivalled, both as an account of the species and as a source of illustrations of wild roses" (M. Rix, Art of the Botanist p. 215)

Nissen BBI, 2166; Stafleu & Cowan, 17.875.

Condition

2 vols, large-4to (375x280mm), orig. publisher's morocco-backed boards, rubbed/slightly worn, small, faint stain to one front board, gt title to spine, teg, others uncut (a few pages slightly frayed at outer margin); hinges cracked but firm; title-page to Vol. I partly detached. 'Instructions to Binder' (on pink paper) and interim half-title/title to Vol. I bound at rear. Orig. printed part wrappers bound at rear of each volume. Contents clean with fine colour plates.