THE FLORA OF SOUTH AFRICA

4 volumes in 6 parts (volumes II and III in four parts), 180 colour plates, 80 text figures, original green buckram cloth, titled gilt on the upper covers and spines, top edges gilt. Volume I faded, some insect scarring on the cloth of each volume, some light foxing throughout, frontispiece in volume IV water stained, bindings a little loose. A good working copy.

Marloth was an analytical chemist by profession and soon after he arrived in Cape Town in 1883 he started a herbarium of South African plants. He was devoted to the search for rare flora and he went on botanical expeditions as far afield as the Karoo, the Free State, Botswana and Namibia.

The originals of the colour plates for The Flora of South Africa were painted in Cape Town by artists such as Ester Smith and Ethel May Dixie and printed in Germany. See Woods, 'Veld and Flora', September 1976, pp.10-11. ‘The production of this costly and magnificent work was made possible only by the bountiful generosity of Sir Lionel and Lady Phillips, who together bore the entire cost of printing and publication. After the First World War, the valuable colour plates were sent from Germany to Lionel Phillips’ agents in England for safekeeping. By a cruel stroke of fate the warehouse in which they were stored was destroyed by fire in 1926.'