The Flowering Plants of South Africa. Vol 1 (original version) (1921)

This volume will be especially useful to collectors whose complete set has the reprinted Volume 1 of the series [by the inferior photostat method, the unsold stock of this volume having been destroyed by fire: see the condition notes below]. As these collectors will want to rebind this copy uniformly with their own sets, the binding condition of the present copy is less important than it would otherwise be.

Brown cloth boards with blind-embossed image of the Union Buildings, Pretoria, and fancy rules and gilt-embossed lettering to the upper panel and gilt lettering and design to the spine. Plain endpapers. [vii] pp, including the author's preface dated 1920, illustrated title-page and alphabetical index to the plates + 40 colour plates with their descriptions opposite. The text is printed on heavy matt paper, the plates on matt art paper.

CONDITION NOTES. As R A Dyer, I B Pole Evans's successor as director of the [South African] Botanical Survey, noted in 1945, "some years ago a fire destroyed all the unsold stock of Volume I . . . In order to make it possible to meet recent orders for complete sets . . . a limited number of copies [of this volume] have been produced by the photostat method". This copy is one of the original volumes, with its brilliant hand-coloured plates. The upper board is damaged at the lower corner and rubbed elsewhere. The upper outer hinge has been glued. The binding remains tight. The free endpapers are sunned. There are a few small insect holes at the foot of the front endpaper and prelims, but they are well clear of the type area. The plates are in fine condition. There are light brown transparent stains to a few of the description pages. The copy has no ownership or other markings and, except for the insect damage referred to, the contents are in very good condition, with no foxing or other discolouration, with the plates, on art paper, entirely undamaged and with their colours still bright and rated no less than fine, making this a suitable and inexpensive copy for the collectors already referred to.