FORSSKAL, P. & NIEBUHR, C.

Flora AEgyptiaco-Arabica. Sive descriptiones plantarum, quas AEgyptum inferiorum et Arabiam felicem.

Eur 5,800 / USD 6,400
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Hauniae, ex Offina Mölleri, 1775. 4to (255 x 205mm). pp. 32, cxxvi, (2), 219, (1), with hand-coloured engraved map of Yemen by J. Haas after Niebuhr. Recent half cloth, with leather gilt lettered label.

700 new species are described

First edition, published posthumously, of Forsskal's great flora of Egypt and Saudi Arabia. "Peter Forsskal was born in Helsingfors and studied in Uppsala and Göttingen. He joined a Swedish expedition to the near East. Forsskal collected extensively in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and died of the plague at Jerim, in Yemen. The sole survivor of the expedition, Carl Niebuhr, saw Forsskal's manuscript through the press, the most important of these documents was the 'Flora aegyptiaco-arabica" (Stafleu, Linnaeus and the Linnaeans p.151). Forsskal was one of Linnaeus's most famous travelling apostles. "First edition of this pioneer work by the great botanist Forsskal, which substantially increased knowledge about the vegetation in the areas he visited. The author proposed 50 new genera, half of which are still valid. He gave original morphological descriptions of the species he observed" (Hünersdorff, Coffe a bibliography pp. 517-518). According to Carl Christensen in his publication 'Index to Pwer Forsskal: Flora Aegytiaco-Arabica...' published in the 'Dansk Botanisk Arkiv' 700 new species are described. Title with tiny marginal loss of paper at the lower right corner. An unusual copy with the map hand-coloured, this map is usually plain. A clean copy with the engraved armorial bookplate Le Proux and a much later bookplate of C. Delaby.

Stafleu & Cowan 1819.