Flora Conspicua: A Selection of the Most Ornamental Flowering, Hardy, Exotic and Indigenous Trees, Shrubs, and Herbaceous Plants, for Embellishing Flower-Gardens and Pleasure-Grounds de Morris, Richard - 1826

Paternoster Row, London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown & Green , 1826. First edition. Illustrated with 60 hand-coloured plates (of which one is double-page), each with two pages of description, all edges gilt, octavo, in an unusual decorated calf binding, possibly late Victorian or early twentieth century, rather worn and marked but still very sound, later re-backed with a new morocco spine, the remains of the original spine laid down, endpapers retained but the free endpapers have been thickened and strengthened, new blank pages at front and rear. The plates are very fine, they are magnificently coloured and have great depth and luminosity, particularly in the foliage which is finely observed. Plate 1 is slightly age-toned, and eight others have the slightest of marks - these are really very very tiny. One of the most desirable of all nineteenth century colour plate books. RARE. [Little seems to be known of Richard Morris, who was a surveyor and landscape designer and flourished in the 1820's to 1830's. He was much influenced by Repton, and an early advocate of "The Flower Garden" and bedding out. He was a Fellow of the Linnean Society, and secretary of the Medico-Botanical Society. His notes on the plants illustrated in this work are quite detailed, and include details of where the actual specimen used was obained. William Clark flourished at the same period, and was a botanical artist to the Royal Horticultural Society. He contributed 52 plates to Stephenson and Churchill's 'Medical Botany', and other works such as Rebecca Hay's 'Moral of Flowers'. One of the finest botanical artists of the period.]. First Edition. Full Leather. Good. Illus. by William Clark.