The Flora of South Africa, Vol III Sympetalae, Section I Ericaceae--Verbenaceae. Families 107-125 (1932)

This is a superb copy of Vol III Section I of the full set of Marloth's great work (four volumes, two of which were published in two sections), which took 19 years to complete (1913- 1932).

Vol III may be the most important volume of the complete set (if that were possible), for two reasons, namely:

1. As the Preface notes: "It gives the author great pleasure to be in a position to issue the final volume of THE FLORA, and to issue it in a form which is equal if not superior to the other volumes."
2. It includes I B Pole-Evans's 5 pp obituary of the author, Marloth having died (on 31 May 1931) "while this volume was still in the hands of the publisher".

The copy was restored and rebound in 1986 (see the note at the end of this description). 

Photogravure frontispiece portrait of Marloth with his facsimile signature and tissue-guard. Plate 1 is a vignetted reproduction of a photograph by Marloth ("Evergreen Scrub on Lower Plateau of Table Mountain. At 2200 feet. January") with a transparent overlay with corner ticks and Numbers 1-10, the key to which is on the list of plates on p xv. (The lists of both the monochrome and colour plates on pp xv-xix include those in Section II of this volume, which is not included in this lot.)

xx + 1-148 and 148a and 148b of b/w illustrated text + 75 inserted tissue-protected plates, 25 of which are in colour.

COLLATION. The volume is complete except for 4 (of the more than 80) tissue guards that are missing. Two plates are inserted out of their numerical sequence but in accordance with the sequence in the contents pages. One plate, Colour Plate 10, is pasted on to an inserted card (rather than the plate itself being inserted).

CONDITION. As restored, the copy has four small defects in addition to the missing tissues already referred to. The spine lettering omits "Section I" after "Vol. III". The corners of the covers are very lightly rubbed. The front edge of the upper board is bumped for less than 1 cm close to the foot pf this board. And a binding crack has started between the half-title verso and the frontispiece verso; this has, however, had no effect on the firmness of the binding.

OVERALL. A better copy than this could hardly be imagined. The materials, typography, quality of colour plates, which are technically superb and perfectly reproduced, are all of the highest standards. The restorer's work should also be mentioned: Roger Bolton, who was a personal friend of the owner of this copy as well as the book restorer to the Brenthurst Library, took an unmarked ex-library copy with fine contents but worn binding, resewed it section by section on to a new binding tape (note the new hand-made head-band), regilded the page-edges, made new cover-boards with gilt lettering and design to the spine, and inserted new figured cornfield-colour endpapers.