Author: HOST, NIKOLAUS THOMAS
Title: Icons et Descriptiones Graminium Austriacorum
Date: 1801 - 1809
Price: GBP £ 35,000
Book Code: 232

Vienna, M.A. Schmidt, 1801-1809.  Four volumes, large folio (47 x 33cm).  400 engraved and hand-coloured plates.  Brown leather bindings, title and volume labels on spine, marbled end leaves.

The Finest Work on Grasses 

(8), 1-74;(2) 72;(2) 66;(2) 1-58;(4) pp.  "First and only Edition of a splendid monograph on Austrian grasses, the finest pictorial presentation of this family, with plates by J. Ibmayer, very much in the "Jacquin" Austrian style" (Cat.De Belder).  "No other work on the family can approach this one in magnificence" (Stiftung).  Nikolaus Host (1761-1834) was the physician of Fanz I, who subsidised the publication.  Host collected grasses from all parts of the Austrian empire in his botanical garden, Flora Austriaca, in Vienna.  Franz I on the advice of Host founded this garden.

Bindings very slightly rubbed; some staining on upper edges.  A very well preserved copy with large margins and magnificent illustrations.

Cat. De Belder 409; BBI 935; Pritzel 4285; Stafleu-Cowan 3067;Stiftung Botanik 367;ADB XIII, p.190.